I was appalled at the level of trash in the stands at the Southern California Regional. Do you want a regional with the concessions open? If yes, then PICK UP YOUR TRASH! It was just sickening. Sticky floors. Wrappers everywhere. Gum on the stairs and seats. Where is the gracious professionalism huh? The amount of trash made it almost dangerous to go walking through the stands. I just could not believe my eyes.
Does this happen at other regionals? I know it didn’t at Phoenix.
I didn’t spend much time in the stands but I did notice that there were no garbage cans to be found. It was also very hard to move sideways which means no one is going to go thru the hassle of finding a garbage can. The only time you are going to have a very clean venue is when there are lots of garbage cans in convenient places.
We didn’t have concessions at SVR, possibly to avoid the situation you just described. Unfortunately, it may not necessarily have been the teams’ fault. I know a number of FIRST outsiders came to our event to see what all the fuss was about. Is it possible that there were some of those people there, and they treated it as bad as some other sporting events? If so i’m not sure there’s any other solution than to close the consessions.
From what i saw at socal the stands were fine. Our team was very neat maybe because we were always in the same place but it was just a normal amount. This could also be because we didnt really pay attention to our seats after finals since that was the only time I ever really spent in them.
-guy
I stepped on 3 popsicles at Davis/Sacramento in the stands (I thought it was sort of funny), may sound bad but that was the worse I saw in terms of trash in the stands.
There were consessions open at SVR, I don’t think many people noticed it. It was located at one of the corners on the very top level. No garbage though, SVR was pretty clean.
there were concessions open? well I’ll be. Evidently not many people noticed them and/or they were too overpriced.
Here is one that will blow your minds! At the Pittsburgh Regional, someone had vandelized bathrooms and portions of the stadium where we were competiting!! It didn’t happen just once, it happened a few times! I have NEVER been at a competition where a FIRST participant or audience member has done something like this. It was very upsetting to the FIRST people, the Regional Committee, and to the teams that were present. I’m not sure if anyone ever caught the person(s) who did this, but I hope they did.
The NYC Regional is held in the Riverbank State Park sports arena; the regional committee negotiated for additional garbage containers and additional cleaning crews at the end of the day (additional cost to the regional) because we allow eating in the arena stands. It’s about the only place the team members can eat with comfort. On nice days everyone is outside.
We remind the teams to try their best to keep the arena and pits clean.
2006 was NYC’s first year with a Team Social with food. All the clean-up was performed by the a couple of the NYC teams lead by 395-2Train Robotics.
Everyone that stay for the free “Dinner & Movie” was very civil and helped maintain the arena cleanness.
All I can say is two years ago in Atlanta, I stopped a maintenance worker to thank her for her work. And I asked how mess compared to a football game - “Oh, much better!”
Although you’d think that 10000 pre-engineers could figure out how to flush …
At GLR, Team #857 volunteered to clean up the field and stands every day, and each day we came back with 4 full black trashbags.
Unfortunately, at the WI Regional, our schedule was much more hectic and we weren’t able to volunteer to do this. Still, before we left each night we made sure our section of the stands was trash-free and picked up major trash (wrappers, paper, etc) on our way out.
At SBPLI there were plenty of trash cans and the custodial staff was constantly changing the bags and tending to the bathrooms. There was still a great deal of trash left in the stands when people didn’t clean up after themselves. There were complete plates of food from the social dinner dropped in the stairwells and left for someone else to clean up.
We also had damage to some ceiling light fixtures from poof ball play in the lobby area.
1038, after awards, went back up into the stands at pittsburgh and cleaned as much as we could. while we were in the upper stands, there was alot of trash, mostly broken glowsticks that were making the floors glowing…and a lil gross too. i had no idea there was vandalism at pittsburgh, but somebody did spill my friend’s mostly full pop onto the floor…which spread to like 5 rows, and there were those little bottles of bubbles everywhere. it was pretty kinda messy and gross, but i’ve seen messier.
I’d like to think in general a FIRST audience would leave less a mess than a general audience. At SBPLI, I was able to compare the mess (or relative lack) left by the regional with a basketball game that postponed our setup on Wednesday. The difference was quite noticeable - there was all kinds of trash and spilled soda left behind from the basketball game. The only thing I noticed much of after the regional was a multitude of plastic water bottles (see recycling thread!).
Well our Team has noticed in the past how messy the stands have gotten so this year we were really careful- we even brought our own bags for the stands and the pits. And I don’t really like to say it, but on Friday night we cleaned up one of the neighboring sections that another team had left a mess. Overall, the trash was so bas on Friday that they actually announced to the teams on saturday to try and keep the stands clean. They were definately better most of the day Saturday but as we were leaving, some of the other teams’ sections were still a mess.