This is the first year we will be registering for 2 events on selection day. Should we select our “home” event as our first preference?
I also have some confusions about event selection. We want to join week 5 and 6 competition, but we don’t know which one we should choose first. Because week 5 only have three regional competition.
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Normally our team chooses a competition out of state for our first preference and our home selection as a second, third, or fourth preference. We’ve spoken with our Regional Director and she’s stated that “due to you being a local team we normally select you first.”
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We’ve been selecting our home regional first since 2017. Our RD that year said they couldn’t guarantee us a spot in the local regional off the waitlist given the number of teams on the list. It was frustrating. We did get into our local regional off the waitlist, but I wouldn’t want to be in that situation again. This year, however, our local event isn’t on the schedule just yet so we’re still deciding how to approach it.
Is your home event Smoky Mountain? If so, I found it, but it is week 2 and shows a Sunday - Wednesday competition.
Where did you find this information?
I’m a little confused by this statement - do you mean preferencing two? First Event Selection opens tomorrow, but that’s just for teams to sign up for a single event. Second Event preferencing opens on 10/5, at which point you can preference your second event.
If you’re asking which order you should add events to your preference list, that becomes a complicated question. If you’re only attending a single event, it’s a lot easier - go in the order you prefer. If you’re planning on attending two events, then you need to consider which event is likely to fill up quickest, as that event may not be available for second event preferences. You can also consider which week you have more options for as well, as more options can make second event preferences easier.
Yeah, we are a Knoxville team. I also see that on the website, but I think it is more likely that it is meant to be April 3-6, putting it at Week 6 and Wednesday-Saturday. Hoping that is clarified soon!
What some in this thread are referring to is the infamous “reserve capacity.”
Here’s the deal: you can try to play games with preferencing, but it may come back to bite you. I recommend if you really want to go to your home event that you sign up for that first* and then in round two, sign up for your travel event. If you sign up for your travel event in round one and get unlucky with your home event in round two, a Program Delivery Partner is less likely to want to accommodate you. There are some exceptions, but I’ve seen teams share sob stories with Regional Directors that they really want/need to go to their home event–but the team didn’t request it until their second round–so the RD is less likely to want to accommodate this with the small number of reserve slots they have available.
*Some events notoriously never fill up. If this happens to be your home event (like if you’re a team based in Idaho, for example), it’s much less risky to save that for round two. But if your home event is San Francisco, you better list that in round one, or you’ll see little sympathy when it’s filled entirely and you’re trying to get it for your second event.
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I e-mailed the regional director and she replied: “Yes, that is correct. The event is week 2 and the dates are Sunday – Wednesday.”
I’m asking which we should register for first, our “home” event or our 2nd. However, after seeing the dates for our home event I’m not even sure if we want or can do it.
That’s wild, but okay! Week 2 SMR would be amazing.
I wouldn’t mind the week 2 part, but the dates are bad for our kids missing class. I guess it’s only 1 more day than normal, but for some kids/teachers that makes a difference.
The way my team does it is something like this:
Home event, # 1 priority and waitlist tag, Round 1. If there’s another event we’llLimelight, an integrated vision coprocessor accept, it’s # 2 for Round 1.
Second event: Depends on what’s available, but we just list the available ones that we want to go to from 1 to X.
It happens–used to be the default schedule. One of the older tricks to deal with it is to only bring the essential people to practice day, which minimizes the impact of misses.
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