I’m unclear what point you’re making.
Sponsor money from teams goes to hq now in the form of registration. It doesn’t go local from there.
Sponsor money to regionals goes to regionals to actually run the regional.
I’m unclear what point you’re making.
Sponsor money from teams goes to hq now in the form of registration. It doesn’t go local from there.
Sponsor money to regionals goes to regionals to actually run the regional.
Until FIRST gets sick of it and that particular event no longer exists in 2022.
I’m not sure how this follows from the revenue share setup Andrew described. The idea of a revenue share in this case would be that some portion of an event fee goes back to the regional. This is different from alternate revenue share schemes that may include broader donations. In the case of the event fee revenue share, I don’t see how this concern manifests itself.
High cost events should have fewer features, e.g. pipe and drape, catered luncheons, printed programs, professional showrunning, etc.
Low cost events should have more features, e.g. parallel conference sessions, unstructured practice areas, KV travel vouchers, negotiated rates for local hotels, etc.
FIRST gives regionals money… where does FIRST get that money? More importantly, FIRST is currently finding ways to spend everything it’s brought in from registration costs each year - to pay salaries, pay for new field elements (and whole new fields as the number of events per week grows), etc. where do they get the money for that stuff, if they start directing registration fees towards regionals? It’s not like registration fees are just going into Dean’s pocket…
Sure… but the discussed concept was a revenue share, not redirecting all regional registration fees to their regionals. With this announcement, FIRST has shown that they can live without $1000 of the additional regional event cost. A possible alternative to this would be FIRST instead diverting this $1000 back to events, either on a direct (this team registered for this event, so this event gets $1000) or more equitable (we had N extra plays this year, events each get a portion of that revenue, potentially weighted by some function).
You’re absolutely right that there are externalities and running costs for FIRST to keep the lights on, and completely forgoing revenue from regionals is likely impractical, but there’s a wide swathe of possibilities between FIRST taking 100% of event registration revenue and event organizers taking 100% of event registration revenue.
So again, in a reasonable revenue sharing scheme, I’m not seeing how your issue manifests.
Just gonna pick on this one real quick… if you are talking about volunteer food, start running right about now*. If you’re talking about things like sponsor-impressing lunches, carry on.
Doesn’t mean the volunteer food can’t be cheaper, but there’s frequently some venue contract or other that locks in who can do the on-site feeding. (And then you throw in dietary restrictions and working around them to boot.)
*The VCs want you to fill all the empty volunteer slots caused by not feeding volunteers.
In general, I agree that some of the stuff could be done better, going both ways. But there are certain minimums…
Every event needs more of this. I bet you at most events, there is sufficient flat space (even if outdoors), and a team willing to bring carpet. Why FIRST insists on cramming everyone together into confined practice area that is never readily available to the teams who need it most, and when they need it most, is beyond me. Are we not trusted to manage ourselves without a volunteer with a clip board or tablet presiding over us? It has been most unfortunate to have attended so many prior events with practice fields jammed into tight corners where they don’t even meet spec for a quarter of a field, or serve only 1-2 teams at a time at a 40-60 team event, and then 20 feet away is an unused roll of carpet sitting there with a huge swath of vacant flat concrete right nearby. Why can’t we do better?
This really grinds my gears, especially when they’re having a kid or other new volunteer do it. Teams – in my experience – can handle accommodating everyone on the practice field fine, and often more efficiently than whatever random plan they’re forcing the practice field volunteer to force teams to bend to.
I’ll give a solid +1 to a roll of even trashed carpet somewhere random (the parking lot?). It’s right at the top of the free QoL improvements for every event.
The problem is that FIRST HQ mistakenly thinks that the community wants event uniformity. It’s up to us to tell them that we don’t.
In some respects, I think we do. BUT, the key place that event uniformity is needed is the on-field play. (That is, the on-field experience is uniform from event to event as far as rules being called, the fields are the same size, etc. Oh, and at a given event the pits are the same size as the other pits.)
Off the field? The individual flavor of the event is what helps make the events memorable/keeps people coming back. If I told you that I’d been at an event where several volunteers had to be kicked out of their area due to footwear issues–and then some VIPs ran into the same issue (flip-flops aren’t closed-toes shoes, folks!)–a different event that had a fighter fly over, an event known for being a wind tunnel… All true, all unique events. Give 'em room to be unique off the field, and keep 'em the same on the field.
This. Besides, everyone knows the most important differentiator between events is available food options.
I really wonder how much of the decreased cost is really FIRST “living without” versus FIRST projecting lower expenses. If they expect zero or negative growth compared to 2020, then they won’t have costs associated with building all new fields. If they ended up with a small staff post-pandemic, they may have lower overhead projected for the next year as well. Without field / event costs this past year, they may be running a budget surplus right now that essentially gets “returned” to the teams by lowering some costs next year. This is all speculation on my part, but the point is we don’t know what drove the drop in price, or if it’ll be a permanent drop or a one time thing with prices increasing next year. It’s generally not good to make assumptions about something as complex as a budget the size of FIRST’s.
Not every event takes place in California
Hard pass on an outdoor practice area on a cold and drizzly (or even snowy) March day in the Northeast.
A tent and a heater may provide adequate protection?
Now idk what the solution for the Arkansas event that had a tornado the last time I was there in 2019…
You’re from Michigan, you know how brutal late winter can be
You mean tshirt season?
Never gonna forget that… my son (@ExploitSage) arrived while we were still chivvying teams under the stands…explaining to members of a Brazilian team what was going on… the singing…
Yeah, let’s not make events uniformly like that.
This is very true. We don’t know why the cost was lowered and if it will stay lowered. By the way, did they do a blog post on the lower price. I only found out about it from this thread.