Arkansas was pretty fun for us last year. Maybe some Mountain teams will head out that way.
These pages are really well done; I especially like that district rankings will be rolled into these pages. Makes things even more convenient.
Well quebec is getting their 2nd regional this year. If you aren’t careful, they’ll be districts before California and you won’t be able to visit anymore
My money, for what it’s worth, would be Orange County Week 3. That would be a shift, though, it’s been later in the season the last couple of years. Then the field routing for SoCal is SD, OC, LA, Ventura, AVR, which makes way too much sense.
There’s a rumor that there might be a regional event at College of the Canyons, but I’ve heard radio silence for the past few months. If it becomes a thing, perhaps it would be an early CA event.
A new challenger has appeared ::rtm::
That leaves one regional up in the air: Monterey seems all but confirmed, College of the Canyons has been rumored. In my head, ideally the third (SoCal) regional is preferably before Week 3 
and possibly an offshoot of San Diego should that many teams migrate over from 2018 Utah (I counted 8 California teams, not even factoring in the possibility of Intermountain teams paying a visit).
One can hope. I’d take that event at just about any week.
One interesting note is that Los Angeles has moved from the Pomona Fairplex to the LA Convention center. The Fairplex was not ideal, but it worked. Logistics at the convention center may be interesting. I wonder which hall it’s in, and how load in and parking will work. Not sure where trailers will park. Also, as far as I know, most of the food nearby is fairly expensive sit-down restaurants. Also, they could really go big with it at the LA convention center, but it seems that they’ll be keeping it the regular size.
Do tell on Monterey. This sounds interesting.
In fairness, this is business as usual for a large number of Canadian teams. And not only for Champs - it was quite common for Ontario teams to go to US regionals before we started districts up here, and some teams still do in non-district areas.
Mind you, a much higher percentage of Canadians have passports than Americans, but it’s not an insurmountable task if you plan far enough ahead.
And if I can dream a little bit, if enough US teams eventually get passports, we’ve got some great venues up here for Champs, too 
I totally agree with you, it sucks for Canadian teams wishing to travel, too. I could pull out some statistics about the number of US teams vs. Canadian teams, number of events per capita, etc. But I won’t.
I’ll just say that I think it is unfortunate that a team in a highly FRC-populated area would need to use passports to travel to (one of) their most-local available event.
You aren’t actually required to have passports if you travel as a school/youth group. If the your under 19 all you need is a original or copy of birth certificate or other proof of citizenship.
Crossing the border is just a fact of life for international teams, it’s not uncommon for teams in Ontario have students who aren’t even Canadian citizens. Now that’s where things get challenging.
Note on Los Angeles Regional: it’s been foretold from my sources that Los Angeles was being moved to a more “central” location for teams come this year; lodging for the convention center seems to be what some I know are up in arms about now.
To be honest, there’s a lot up in the air about Monterey besides the event itself becoming a thing. A little more on my logic from the previous post, the ideal scenario for my team (in my head of course and my own opinion) is that Monterey ends up being NorCal’s earlier week regional, Week 1 or 2. Why may you ask? A little more backstory on SDR: my rookie and sophomore year it was a Week 1 event; this year, it was “moved” to Week 2 (FIRST shifted Week 0 to 1, 1 to 2, etc. between the 2016 and 17 seasons; so dates rolled back a week during that “move”). Looking back at logs even pre-dating me joining my current FRC team, the event has always housed 60 or more teams (66 in more recent years). Based on my reflections on last year, two slots have already been created in my head with Texas going to districts (unless 624 and/or 2613 decide to return); other than that, we had two out of state teams from Hawaii and two international teams. In addition, the regional typically has a Hawaiian team or two who always make an appearance so all that being said, I can only see max 4 spaces being freed up and that’s not even factoring in new rookie teams in our area. Our area (imo) is a budding and growing area and as much as I’d love to have some tough competitors down here, it leaves questions like will team event capacity be up, which also begs to ask if the venue will change or if the event will split into 2. Having the Monterey Regional be Week 1 or 2 (in my head it’d be 1, though my sources say otherwise) is ideal as it offers NorCal teams like Mike’s an early regional without having to travel the distance past the longitude of Houston Champs.
TLDR CALA (the abbreviation I’d assume the LAR would use?) is now in a more central location; Monterey is unlikely Week 1 (and I’m personally praying its Week 2 though x doubt with SDR/ CASD); @ CA FIRST please make another early CA regional so all teams seeking early regionals in the state will have a spot for them at an event to compete.
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**2019 ** <span class=“emoji-outer emoji-sizer”><span class=“emoji-inner” style=“background: url(chrome-extension://immhpnclomdloikkpcefncmfgjbkojmh/emoji-data/sheet_apple_32.png);background-position:67.97884841363103% 34.01880141010576%;background-size:5418.75% 5418.75%” data-codepoints=“1f680”></span></span> Senior Send-Off | 3128 Head of Marketing | 3128 Aluminum Narwhals Social Media: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter
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That would be a great line up for SoCal which would give some options for attending 2 events with 2 weeks between them. We’ll see how it pans out, but I’m pretty sure I was getting worried for no reason.
Better yet, how about anything other than just 1 regional for Week 1 anywhere?!
Edit: missed your earlier post Billfred
And expect to pay $$$$ and ship your robot 1 1/2 days before stop build day.
At least we won a match 1-0.
Seriously? Plenty of Canadian teams do it going the other way. Customs won’t bat an eye at the robot as long as you say you’re bringing it back. Kids can get passports.
I need more events to post dates before I start making decisions about my 2019 tour. I have a fairly decent idea about what I want to do.
“…Please keep in mind that the events listed, and their dates/locations, may still be changing as details of each event are finalized…”
Don’t know what to make of this sentence in the blog. It has been my understanding that RPC’s submit signed venue contracts to FIRST HQ prior to events making it onto the official event calendar.
My only guess is FIRST may need to go back to the venues to try to negotiate for a change in week in order to accommodate field availability. It’s great for regional A to get a signed contract for week X early on, but if constraints at other venues put too many events on week X, they might want to try to move to week Y instead. It’s something you really don’t know until you’ve got everything booked out.
I hope this proves to be the case but I also think that with Texas in districts (assuming they are responsible for providing their own fields), there may be one or two additional fields available to regional events. Really hoping any event schedule changes from what has been posted so far are in recognition of the “mess in the West” that currently exists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMRrNY0pxfM
Unless things have changed RPCs do not submit signed contracts to HQ. It is a FIRST HQ employee that signs venue contracts, or at least that is how it worked back when we were in the dark ages in the PNW.
That’s not to say that they might attempt to change a date if needed to accommodate field availability and transit time.