Due to events beyond our control we had to post the event later because we had to move to a new facility at the Golisano Training Center on the Nazareth College campus. Because of the increased cost of the new venue the registration price has gone up to $675.
Team registration and volunteer registration are now open!! Team spots are allocated on a first come, first-serve basis so register early to secure your team’s spot! Register at http://ruckus.penfieldrobotics.com !
We will be accepting “2nd robot” applications during initial team registration. This has been a popular request in past years. Applications will be processed at a later date once there has been some time for all interested teams to have a chance to register their team and “main” robots.
I had a good time at Ruckus as a student and for a few years as a mentor - it was fun to have an event with all the good WNY teams and often some strong Canadian competitors. And the crew running the event always did a great job, so understand I’m coming from a place of love here - $675 for a single day offseason is crazy.
Western NY could really use an offseason event or two held in high schools with 24-32 teams. In New England we have the opportunity to attend a ton of these kinds of events, and they all have registration fees between $200 and $300. Even Battlecry, a two day event with 64 teams, had a registration fee of $500.
In our little Boston suburb, we have 7 offseasons within 90 minutes of us. 5 of which are on 5 straight weekends. All of them fill. Many of them on the day registration opens.
It’s a night and day difference in the program compared to NY. NY very desperately needs more offseason plays. We get a chance to really prep our kids for the season and they have a ton of fun.
You both have to remember you guys are in the district system correct? The over head cost for the field is not there for you because you already have the field perimeters on hand, the overall price of renting the venue, because its bigger, is going to cost more.
I don’t think this price increase is really unreasonable, 1511 puts on a great event that they don’t have to put on at all.
Don’t get me wrong I would love more offseason events around the area!
Events in the past have cost $3,000 - $7,000, with the price range being mostly due to shipping distances.
So let’s say the field rental cost $5000 - split that across 32 teams is ~$150/team. And a high school hosting an offseason event should be free to rent, so it sounds to me like a reasonable price for an offseason event in a high school in the rochester area would be ~$350/team (assuming you put the cost of the field on teams and not on event sponsors or something like that).
While I hear you (and dont disagree… I grew up in CT, so I definitely get it), there arent too many schools around here with space to hold a 30+ team event like ruckus. We have the Gym space no problem, but spaces for pits is sorely lacking (or on the opposite side of the building). I believe (planning commitee please correct me) that this option was actively persued before landing on the Naz venue.
I’m not saying there aren’t any, but the limited number means less options. Many schools around here aren’t as supportive of the teams/programs as we’d like, so the venue may not actually be free, or may not be available given the event is during the academic year (sports teams may get priority).
Adding on to the fact that this event has been at the Armory for years now, so planning has been cheap. Finding a venue has proven quite challenging (given some of the conversations I’ve had and how late this announcement is). So if the increased fee is what it takes to keep the event running, so be it. Nobody has said this was a permanent change. Naz has excellent facilities with ample space, so I personally have no problem with it staying there, so long as we can get the cost down in future years.
If there were more teams around Binghamton, I’d recommend our area as it caters to more downstate teams as well while still being close to Buffalo. We are around 3 hrs from Buffalo and 3 hrs from NYC.
I would like to provide insight on the background information for this decision and the resulting cost for teams.
When we realized that the Armory was no longer an option for the event, we started to evaluate venues. We did include schools in that process, but we could not get a firm commitment from schools due to the possible conflict with sectional sports competitions. Without a firm date commitment, we didn’t feel comfortable committing to and putting down a deposit on a rental of the field until we knew for sure we had a committed venue space.
In parallel we evaluated multiple venues in the Rochester area that could hold the event. We narrowed the options down to two venues based on cost and availability. We ended up deciding on Nazareth University because the other choice that was presented would have limited our team count significantly more than we have had at the Armory. As you noted, there are few off seasons in our area. Therefore, we felt it was more important to offer up an option that could accommodate more teams and decided to go with Nazareth.
As for the cost increase, this was to cover the increased venue costs, materials needed for a new venue, and the usual yearly costs.
These expenses include the following.
Venue Rental
AndyMark Field Rental
Audio / Video Equipment
Pit Power Distribution Equipment
Pipe & Drape
Table Rental
Volunteer Food
Volunteer T-Shirts
Award Materials
Event Insurance
Field Consumables
Game Pieces
Floor Protection
We went through the budget multiple times over the course of a few weeks to try to keep the cost as low as we could for the teams while mitigating the risk that we would not have adequate funds to pay for the event. Because once we sign a contract, we must pay those expenses.
The amount of we came to allows us to still hold the event while mitigating the risk that if we don’t get as many teams as we would like that we can still pay for the event.
I hope that this helps to provide some insight into the cost change for this year. Of course, we will evaluate how things go this year and are receptive to team feedback on what we can do to improve the event next year.
I will see if I can get a playback available on Penfield TV. It won’t be available on Twitch because they gave us two black marks for the music that was in the background, so there is no “playback”.
It may take a couple of days for Penfield TV to get it up and running. I’ll do what I can, and thanks for checking in on it!
@jtrv was kind enough to locally record everything from Playoff Match 5 onward from PenfieldTV. Those videos are available here, but likely won’t go on YouTube or TBA because they include the music being played at the event.