Looking on FIRST’s event search, a couple regionals and 2 districts (NC and PNW to be exact) have started releasing events.
Some things of note:
Theres an event for not doing a 2nd district event
PNW DCMP for the first time will be on the west side of Washington State, Tacoma to be exact
the Greater Pittsburgh Regional has moved to a week 2 slot
Miami Valley has moved to a week 2 slot
North Carolina has only 3 district events (down from 4 last year)
Oklahoma regional has moved to a week 2 slot
Teams attending the Orlando regional will be getting the game early, as theyre set to play on Jan 1st, 2019
Teams in Eastern Washington seem to be stuck for a second year in a row with back to back events unless they want to travel across the state or to Oregon (5-6hrs either way)
Realistically, this is pretty crappy news for both WOW and NY teams. Here is a very tentative event schedule for NY:
Week 2 - Tech Valley
Week 3 - Central New York, Finger Lakes
Week 4 - Hudson Valley
Week 5 - Long Island 1/2
Week 6 - New York City
Please note only NYC is confirmed and the rest of the events are still up in the air, rumored, and open to changing dates.
Since Buckeye and Montreal haven’t been announced yet, things are still very much able to change, so take this with a grain of salt:
Miami Valley and Pittsburgh are both week 2. This means nearly every 2 event team in WOW is going to try for Buckeye, so it will be cramped.
2 regional upstate NY teams have a couple options: play back to back, travel out of state/country (buckeye/montreal), or travel downstate.
2a. Playing back to back sucks, as many of you know
2b. Buckeye is going to be crammed full of WOW teams who have not really any other choice besides Midwest
2c. Traveling downstate is expensive and arduous. For Rochester/Buffalo teams this can mean 7+ hours of driving. HVR is the closest option and while technically not NYC or LI, it’s still a long drive and I’m sure Tech Valley and NYC teams will be vying for a spot there.
I wrote a quick Python script to generate combinations of events where you don’t have to play back to back. You can specify “hey we need to attend one of these event(s)” as well. To edit it to your preference (e.g. changing what event(s) you need to attend or to add new events), click the “fork” button, edit it, and then click “Run”. You’ll see the output below, under the “stdout” area. (Event names are case sensitive and must be surrounded by apostrophes or quotes, don’t forget the commas at the end of the tuples!)
Western MO and KS are tentatively going to three regionals next year. Planned for Weeks 1, 4, and 6; no names released yet but interesting considering the decently strong growth in the area.
Long Island is most likely going to have back-to-back (same week) events again. Probably week 5 (contract is being negotiated-that’s our normal week except when Easter falls on it),
1 March 24-27 Sunday field setup and evening load-in
A good number of WOW (especially Ohio and West Virginia) teams came down to Smoky Mountains last year. If nowhere else did them any favors schedule-wise, it sounds like Smoky would be a solid fallback option for them again.
Interesting. Is this assuming they stay at Hofstra? Last I heard, there were mentions of it moving to LIU Post or Stony Brook. However, I’ve also heard the RPC is intentionally not communicating with certain parties…
One WOW team (I wonder which one… ) has floated the idea of traveling very south of Tennessee in 2019 or 2020.
I’m sure Smoky Mountains will be an alternative for at least a few WOW teams, as it seems to have been for many years. Considering we were part of the winning alliance both years we were at Smoky, it’s prolly not a bad idea to return again.
Regardless of cause, Miami Valley and Greater Pittsburgh falling on the same week would certainly open the door for an influx of teams from [far] outside of WOW to register for Greater Pittsburgh, as many Ohio teams and volunteers who would normally consider GPR will be committed to Miami Valley. Because there are many more of us, I’d expect more Ohio teams to want to fill Miami Valley spots than there will be Western PA teams wanting to fill GPR spots.
It will be interesting to see how many Ohio teams will choose Pittsburgh. Especially those from my region, where Pittsburgh is much closer than Dayton.
Of course, distant regional teams (Western NY, Illinois, Missouri, Florida, etc.) might take advantage of the first two event registration periods to snag a spot at Pittsburgh. In particular, western New York types fearful of getting locked out of Buckeye due to the happy fun WOW party time in Cleveland might elect to sign up for GPR instead, before it becomes open to district team registrations.
Eh, the main problem is just that FLR/CNY are likely week 3. TVR/GPR are options for people in WNY but it’s just the back to back weeks that’s a pain - which is why Buckeye (week 5? dunno, tbd) is such an appealing option.
Don’t know what you mean by the snarky part, but I’m on the RPC and I communicate pretty much with anybody. If nothing has been decided then there isn’t anything to communicate.
It’s still early yet in the planning stages, so take this as tentative, but at this point it’ll most likely be Hofstra again.
Other potential venues are investigated each year, and when they work out we’ll let everyone know.
We’d prefer to have separated weekends for the sake of the volunteer force.
Didn’t mean to be snarky at you specifically, it’s just a friend has been trying to communicate with various members of the RPC without any real success. The last we knew the venues were changing.
But I’m glad to hear an update, thanks for putting the info out there
That’s probably because your friend’s timing is way off.
At this time of year everything is in flux and nobody actually knows anything yet because it’s in the process of site visits and cost comparisons and mockup floorplans, space for judges rooms, scheduled conflicts and contingencies.
Then the SBPLI board (over and above the RPC) has to meet and vote on the proposed competing plans (cost/revenues/facilities/other impacts).
The beginning of September is a more appropriate time to expect answers to those kinds of questions.
Yes, I definitely understand the desire to avoid back-to-backs.
You won’t want to hear it, but I have already informed local NEOFRA teams of the dynamics that might cause Buckeye demand to ramp up, and I’ve suggested they consider signing up for it first in anticipation of this demand. We’d anticipate fairly significant quantities of Miami Valley and Pittsburgh spots left over for a 2nd WOW event registration. I imagine all of WOW will be considering the “Buckeye first” case soon enough, once a date is confirmed.
So this is how it is shaking out for the 8 Upper Midwest Regionals
Scheduled
Week 2: Duluth Regionals (Lake Superior and Northern Lights)
Week 4: Iowa
Week 6: Seven Rivers
Yet to be Scheduled (rumored dates)
Week 3: Great Northern
Week 3: Central Illinois
Week 4/5: Wisconsin (traditionaly W4; W5 seems to crowd 7 Rivers)
Week 5: MPLS Regionals (North Start & Medtronic)
Week 6: Midwest
Near Upper Midwest Regionals (yet to be determined)
Week 1: Greater KC area Regionals*
Week 4: Greater KC area Regionals*
Week 6: Greater KC area Regionals*
*This is according to EvanRS1023
So no Week 1 for MN FIRST to work with - a bit of relief for them. Weeks 4-6 are PACKED (especially when including GKC Regionals), it will be interesting to see where the powerhouse teams from this area will head late in the season.
I’m gonna guess it’ll be Pitt County. I think most people have enjoyed it the two years it has been around. Level of competition has always been high there for week one/two.
) has floated the idea of traveling very south of Tennessee in 2019 or 2020.
