Bringing Food into Competition Venues

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Ken et al,
The arenas that are in use often have contracts with vendors in the arena. Those contracts must be followed regardless of the event. The vendors establish their profit margins and ability to make a living based on an expectation that they will be able to sell a specific amount of food and drink over the year. They take the chance that the venue will be able to sell the space for the number of days they need to reach their goal. We should not interfere with the ability of someone to make a living. Bringing food to the venue and eating outside is a great way to reduce costs. But it reguires a volunteer group other than the team to take care of the logistics. At the Championship, we have a group of parents who purchase the food. Students then take turns transporting to and from a common area for the group each day. For a small fee we provide a breakfast, a bottle of water and some snacks for the day. Lunch and dinner on then on the students.

[KathieK]

Hmm.. the value of NEMs is definitely noteworthy when it comes to food! As one who has been on both sides of the coin, I can relate to both the frustration of the team members who find the venue food lacking in quality/choice and expensive, as well as the committee members who may also wish to provide better food options but whose hands are tied.

If you would like to have pre-ordered box lunches made available, contact your regional planning committee now. They might be able to arrange it. If you want alternate ideas for how to feed the troops at competitions, NEMO could put together a white paper with ideas that have worked in the past.

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Ken et al,
The arenas that are in use often have contracts with vendors in the arena. ... We should not interfere with the ability of someone to make a living. ....

I disagree. The basis of capitalism is the people who provide the best value (quality at low cost) are the ones who succeed. In this situation we have just the opposite. The vendors have a captive market, a monopoly by decree.

If the best they can do is serve slop at exorbitant prices then they should find a job doing something else. They should not be sitting in a mansion in Florida somewhere while their food service business rakes in millions of dollars at our expense.

I acknowledge our situation is unique - these venues are normally used for sporting events that last 2 or 3 hours at the most. For those types of events grabbing a hot dog for a snack (for $4) is OK. Being in the building for 10 hours a day, 3 days in a row, and your only choices are to eat the same junk, or to wander off for an hour to find a good meal, just doesn't make any sense.

[Andrew Blair]

If no one knows, no one cares.

I've never seen anyone have food or drink confiscated and then be kicked out of an event. Ever, not just in FIRST. Regardless, some people will forget food or drink, or be pressed for time and buy from vendors. If for some reason this doesn't happen, arenas will have to enforce their rules. It's a private enterprise, and sometimes it really sucks to think that their rules can be enforced simply by personal guilt. Your guilt fuels their company's pfofit to an extent. My opinion, like any other business, let them work for what they want.

If an arena tells me that I can only skip while inside, no walking, they had better have somebody breathing down my neck to keep me from walking.

It's just like advertising. They have to work to attract me- I don't attend everything someone tells me to go to out of guilt for the event. Capitalism means working or manipulating people to give you their money. Make them work.

[Steve W]

Originally Posted by Andrew Blair

If no one knows, no one cares.

I've never seen anyone have food or drink confiscated and then be kicked out of an event. Ever, not just in FIRST. Regardless, some people will forget food or drink, or be pressed for time and buy from vendors. If for some reason this doesn't happen, arenas will have to enforce their rules. It's a private enterprise, and sometimes it really sucks to think that their rules can be enforced simply by personal guilt. Your guilt fuels their company's pfofit to an extent. My opinion, like any other business, let them work for what they want.

If an arena tells me that I can only skip while inside, no walking, they had better have somebody breathing down my neck to keep me from walking.

It's just like advertising. They have to work to attract me- I don't attend everything someone tells me to go to out of guilt for the event. Capitalism means working or manipulating people to give you their money. Make them work.

I have been at events where the boxes are checked when you enter. I myself has had to send people back to their cars with food and drink. Most people when asked have not put up much of a fight and obey the rules.

[Richard Wallace]

This example is a little off-topic because it concerns an off-season event; however, IMO the way that food concessions and pre-planned meals were handled at the 2006 Indiana Robotics Invitational was exemplary. If every FIRST event could handle food that way, there would be no need to debate this topic on CD.

From what I saw, two of the secret ingredients that made it so easy to get everyone fed at IRI were

1) an excellent HS venue (Lawrence North) and

2) a large, dedicated crew of local volunteers to staff the food lines, tables, concession counters, etc.

I've recommended to my own regional planning committee that we seek a local HS venue as an alternative to the professional arena that we've used for the past four years. The idea was well received and we've started studying options. Maybe we're starting too late to implement this idea for the 2007 season, but I'm still hopeful.

I should have gone to IRI years ago.

[KenWittlief]

I have to add, at some venues the food is excellent. Im trying to remember off the top of my head here, but I think the Pittsburgh regional venue had franchise food vendors (Subway, Pizza hut....) right in their food court. No problem there.

Its the places that have two choices: a $4 microwaved hotdog, or a $4 slice of microwaved frozen pizza... those are the ones that everyone is rebelling against.

[JaneYoung]

I had mentioned that we have opportunities following competition season to voice our concerns/feedback. I didn't say how or where.
One of the ways is the survey each team receives. Our lead teacher fills that out and submits it with our feedback.

Here is an example of a thread asking for feedback for Lone Star Regional:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=46180

There were also the different team forums in which to partipate.
We are very lucky here with our regional leadership. They are attentive and listen to our concerns. I have always received a response to any questions or concerns I have had.

I'm learning a lot from these threads and one is that maybe I have taken our FIRST staff and volunteers here at the Lone Star Regional for granted. I'll try not to do that in the future.

Jane

[Pirate_Nelly354]

Food at competitions are very expensive. I remember at the Championship event a slice of piza was $5. That's a lot. I've never bought any food at competitions. At the regionals we went out to get food. And at the championship event I brought little boxes of cereal with me or I waited until we got back.

But I do understand why prices are high. Sporting events or whatever are held at those place and they do need to make money. More people, more money. Hungry people don't care about prices sometimes *shrugs*

[Jeremiah Johnson]

I want to start out with saying that I did skip one whole page of this thread. Now, with that out of the way, I would like to voice my opinion/stories. Heh...

I openly disobey this rule and it's the only rule that I openly disobey. I cannot stand how much the food costs at regionals (and movie theatres). Our team gets lunch delivered to our bus at competitions. At Midwest it was Dominick's and at West Michigan this year we hired a church to cook our food and we paid them well. That was the best idea I had ever heard when someone brought it up at a planning meeting. Why not give our money to groups somewhat like us? First we started with a sorority at GVSU but they weren't interested, so we contacted a church from Allendale and they were gung-ho about it. Turns out one of the church members was a family member of one of 107's team members. Good. Anyways, we've only gotten into trouble once with having food in the parking lot of an event and that was in StL in 2003 or 2004. We just had to move our bus or food off of the arena property which was only about 3 feet away anyways. Just past the little itty-bitty string fence. But sometimes we have to take food into the arena to the students and mentors that don't have a chance to get out to the bus. We've even brought food into volunteers that were working from our team...

Now, I know rules should be followed all of the time but sometimes there's just no way to do it. We used to give out $10 to each student every day. That got rather expensive rather fast. Especially with 25-30 students. You're talking close to $1,000 for food. Why pay the arena bookubucks when we can get it catered to our bus with a tax-exempt discount and a multiple day discount from Dominicks and such? Now I'm not saying that every person should do this, but it's a good way to cut down on expenses.

I support paying a local charity to cook for you.

[Josh Murphy]

I have never seen anyone get in trouble for this. But you have to realize that most of these venues are used for sporting events in which they make profit off of concessions and ticket sales. FIRST events are free to anyone that wants to watch them right? I think so. See since the events are free to watch they aren't making as much profit as they normally would so they depend on concessions to help cover the cost. Yeah FIRST pays them to have the event there but they probably still make more money off of the sporting events. Do I like it ...NO but I do follow it because it is in the best interest of my team.

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

The problem with leaving the arena is that some events are located in quite poor neighborhoods where parents would never want their children walking the streets.

As much as this can present a problem, I'd say that everyone should learn how to deal with situations like this in real life. Parts of my own town are places I'd never want to go at night. But in other parts, I'd feel fine leaving everything unlocked.

It's like the Championships in Atlanta every year and the homeless/hobos/panhandlers who press you every five seconds for money. If you've never been in situations like that before, you may panic. Once if you've learned how to deal with traveling through innercity places, they are no longer a major problem. And that's a nice life skill to have, especially at many Regionals and the Championships.

[Rich Wong]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Ken et al,
The arenas that are in use often have contracts with vendors in the arena. Those contracts must be followed regardless of the event. ................
Students then take turns transporting to and from a common area for the group each day. For a small fee we provide a breakfast, a bottle of water and some snacks for the day. Lunch and dinner on then on the students.

This is the same situation in NYC.
Our venue has a list of "approved" food vendors but they don't all show up because it is early spring during the regional. They don't see the profits or not available for 2-3 days only.
In the past years one or two (when we're lucky) street cart vendors may show up to sell hot dogs and drinks for a high price.
The line become very long.

The teams do what they can to feed themselves. I have seem students go without eating or drinking because they did not have the time to run outside and find food. One year I remember one girl passed out because she was volunteering and support the team on practice day.

Even the FIRST vendor that sells T-shirts and caps are not allow to sell to the teams because they are not "approved" vendors.

Our team has always smuggled our food in. It's as simple as putting the tools from a toolbox into the safeway bag, and the food into the toolbox. They never look in the toolbox, and always just see tools in the safeway bag. That way we eat healthy, and we don't have to leave the pit except during our lunch break.

[Noah Melamed]

Every Venue is different but from the few I have worked in I'd like to give my perspective. Concessions income for an event is only second to ticket sales. In all the cases I experience two people got "points" or a percentage from concessions. Depending on the agreement the stadium would take a cut and the Concessions stand would get what was estimated to simply keep the stand running(pay wages, restock food, clean equipment, etc.). The Stands only ever turned a marginal profit and it was the Venue that walked away with the big bucks.


With an Event like FIRST Venues may be taking a hit. There are no ticket sales and It is seemingly apparent from this thread that FIRSTers aren't buying the burgers.

My solution would be to approach the venue to see if they have a contract with and outside caterer, for Weddings, Box Seats, etc. The company they contract to do this could be then used to prepare inexpensive generic food(Sandwiches and the like). The Venue would still get a cut, meet its contractual obligation to provide the food and we'd all eat better(and hopefully cheaper) for it.