Announced policy is to let parents into the playing room after the first 15 minutes. There is a taped off area that keeps the parents back from the players (parents were asked to pass-through, rather than stop and watch – there was only limited room and that was the only way to accomodate everyone). I realize not every playing site can accomodate parents this way, but it’s nice when one can.
The IT & backroom people are doing a great job putting stuff on the web. I can look up my daughter’s pairings from the hotel room, see who she’s playing, what that player’s record is, etc. Instead of fighting through a crowd by the playing room pairings, we find out her board before we leave the hotel room.
There seems to be plenty of room for parents, skittles, etc. Nice playing site overall.
Good communications. Including a nice 16 page program booklet (which I downloaded at home before I even left for the tournament – good move).
We were promised inexpensive (kid-friendly) dining would be available during the tournament. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ll be looking for it tomorrow.
Negatives
There was no place for parents to sit near the playing room. I hate it when I see a bunch of adults reduced to sitting on the floor in a hallway.
The floor TD staff didn’t stick to the pre-announced access time (15 minutes after round start). I’m not sure when they did open the floor [my daughter lost too quickly ].
The playing site was nice, but how can they justify $114 for a hotel room in the midwest! I got a 2-room suite 8 blocks away for under $100! The USCF really needs to work harder at making these scholastic tournaments more affordable.
The “device that shall not be named” was allowed only if the opponent didn’t object. I still think it’s rather two-faced of the USCF to endorse a product that a player may not be allowed to use.
The negatives really aren’t that bad, and my overall impression of the tournament is very positive. It seems well run and well organized at a nice site. I thought the TD staff did a nice job of communicating at the parents/coaches meeting.
One last negative, totally beyond control of the tournament staff: We had a tornado warning during the second round. Could someone tell me why the hotel felt it necessary to keep the alarm sounding for the entire length of the warning?! We were told to stay in place in the playing rooms, sales rooms, etc (not to go near the large glass windows). That made sense, but why subject us to the unending siren the entire time we’re stuck in the rooms and can’t leave? This couldn’t have been nice for the players.
It sounds like they got the first round off pretty much on schedule, the reports I had from the TD room were that things went very smoothly there, most of the registrations were made through the webstore with less than 50 on-site entries, and they had only about 20 membership issues to resolve from mailed-in entries.
2/3 of the entries for yesterday’s blitz were through the website, too.
I was wondering if there were tornado warnings in Louisville. They had a touchdown in south Crossville, first reports are that USCF Business Manager Judy Misner’s house had some trees fall on it.
The hotel may not have had much choice in how long to leave the alarms on, because of fire codes.
As to the rates in Louisville, convention hotels have gotten expensive everywhere, and the Galt House is a very nice hotel. A double at the Riviera is $81 the weekend of the National Open, and Las Vegas has always been one of the most inexpensive cities for hotel rooms. Try pricing a double at Belagio these days.
I also suspect your under $100 room doesn’t have 100,000 feet of convention space attached. Would you rather have a $100 hotel rate and a much higher entry fee?
The first round was on schedule and things were pretty smooth. I thought everyone involved did a good job.
I can understand rules about tornado warnings, and the hotel may not have had any choice. Like I said it certainly wasn’t the fault of the tournament staff and I believe they handled things well. Being subjected to 30 minutes of uninterrupted siren/alarm after we were already in a “safe” room was a minor torture, but everyone seemed to handle it in (mostly) good spirits.
How much higher does the EF need to be for a tournament that gives out trophies as prizes? Since I never know to the last minute whether I’ll be able to go on a trip, I paid $75 as it was. I suppose anyone that’s too concerned about the price of the hotel can do what I did and shop around. There were several hotels within two or three blocks of the Galt, but I chose a nicer one about 8 blocks away. It’s worth it (and the $6 or $7 I’ll pay to park at the Galt).
I may seem like a broken record on the subject of price, but I sense (perhaps unjustified) that the USCF doesn’t seem too concerned about this issue. That is the tendancy I would expect for someone on an expense account, but maybe I’m wrong. After being promised inexpensive kid-friendly food, and then having to pay nearly $3 for a glass of milk, I’m not going to give anyone any slack.
It’s kind of like the old Fram Oil Filter ads, you can pay them now or you can pay them later.
The only way to lower the hotel room rate is to pay for the meeting space separately. That can cost $50,000 or more. So, we might have to double the entry fees to save $15 or so a night on the rooms.
I suspect the math will work out so that the total costs are pretty similar.
Moreover, that means the USCF will be bearing the full risk of the event, instead of sharing a portion of that risk with the hotel. And the hotel is likely to want a sizeable portion of that meeting space rental fee in advance.
No, I haven’t. But I can compare this tournament to others. This one seems comparatively expensive. This perception may be unjust, but it IS the way things seem. I would expect a midwest playing site to be more reasonable.
It seems to me that some tournament organizers are more careful about price than others. Sad to say, the USCF seems to be at the wrong end of the spectrum. When I compare this event to some others that I’ve seen I don’t think this is as good a value.
Subject for another thread: Perhaps part of the costs could be taken care of through sponsorships? Does the USCF try to get any major companies to sponsor chess tournaments? I’m SURE the USCF would love to have some sponsor’s dollars, but are they actively working at it with anyone?
To continue with impressions from this tournament:
A few chairs appeared where the parents are waiting (far from enough), but it wasn’t clear to me if parents had “taken matters into their own hands” or if the tournament staff or hotel had taken some action. Most parents were still reduced to sitting on the floor for hours today.
I continue to think that the tournament is well run and nicely organized. I haven’t seen any major problems.
One suggestion for the future – the wall pairing charts list players alphabetically. It’d be better if the on-line pairings did the same.
The tournament had over 1,100 advance entries. Evidently the hotel costs did not prevent the players from participating in record(?) numbers, which at least indicates that the price *was* appropriate to the demand.
People may complain about the cost, but it doesn't mean they won't pay. Even though people will pay the price, it doesn't mean they won't complain.
First some responses, then some additional comments:
Thanks Grant, but a free lunch isn’t free if you have to “work” for it. Now, I’m not saying it wasn’t a pleasure – but the lunch wasn’t “free”. Sponsorship dollars aren’t really free either, but they CAN be a win-win proposition as your tournament clearly showed.
Yes, Steve, I’m complaining. I’m not the only one that thought the tournaments site’s rooms were too expensive and stayed elsewhere. Explain how I was able to get a suite for a good bit less money than the Galt’s single rooms, just a short walk away IF the Galt was appropriately priced. And the hotel I’m staying at has free parking which saves me several more dollars each day. People willing to drive to the tournament are finding hotels at much less than half the price. I think the “record” numbers are less about the value and more about the popularity of chess and the national title up for grabs. Of course, for somebody from NY the price might seem to be a bargain. This isn’t the only tournament with concerns about price. I noticed complaints about next year’s US Open. The hotel was only a couple of dollars more and it will be in NJ. $114 in Louisville is very expensive for a family trip.
For comparative value look at the US Open in August. $89 in Chicago is relatively a much better deal than $114 in Louisville. Speaking of relative values, look at Grant’s tournament. I paid a smaller entry fee and my daughter got a tee shirt, autographs, and a simul game against one of the best players in the country included in price. Sponsorships plus the fact that it was only a one-day tournament helped make that tournament such a great value. Last year’s SuperNationals is another example of getting more for the money: lectures, book signings, etc.
It’s OK to rely on market forces for large tournaments run by independent organizers. For the USCFs national tournaments, I think it’s fair for the the USCF members to expect OTHER considerations to be taken into account than just the “bottom line”. In fairness, I think these other considerations ARE taken into account. I just don’t think enough emphasis is being placed on “price” and “value”.
It’s funny, the USCF asks for feedback. They even pass out surveys. But when someone does give honest feedback they get portrayed as “complainers”.
Mike: Maybe the rooms SHOULD be less expensive and the EF higher. Why should people that stay at the Galt subsidize the tournament for people like me that choose another hotel or for locals that don’t stay in ANY hotel?
Back to the subject of the tournament itself: I’m impressed with how well the tournament room itself is being run. Very quiet, well organized, etc. The main tournament room, that is. The one section held outside the main room was VERY noisy. There aren’t any walls to keep the noise from waiting players and parents from disturbing the players with games in progress. I noticed this myself in the “friends and family” tournament. (I wish I could say that’s why I blundered away a queen, but it was my own fault).
The floor TDs still aren’t keeping to the pre-announced policy of letting parents into the tournament room 15 minutes after the round starts. I wish I knew what the criteria is that they are using. This comment isn’t meant as a complaint about the floor director’s decisions, but more about the communications. I’ve seen several parents wait 15-20 minutes and then try to enter the room (as they had been told would be allowed) only to be turned away at the door. Isn’t there a way to handle this that’s easier on everyone? Maybe post a sign when it’s OK to enter?
My point exactly, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
When selecting a site for a chess tournament, one of my major concerns is the room rate at the host hotel. On the other hand the USCF is a little more limited in that with the amount of space needed there aren’t as many options available. The bigger the space the more expensive the host hotel will be. As I recall, the room rate at the Supernationals in Nashville was $129 per night. The USCF had an alternative rate structure for the meeting space which would have saved thousands but the sleeping rooms would have been $139 per night. In my opinion the correct decision was made to opt for the lower rate.
Mike,
I will forward comments to her. I had hoped to get others posting their comments as well. Perhaps after the tournament there will be more of that and I will be able to summarize for her. Question: if she works for the USCF in that capacity, SHOULDN’T she read the forum for comments that apply to her area???
Grant,
Price is only one part of the “value” question. I actually thought SuperNationals was a better value in spite of the high price. SuperNationals, because of its size, is more constrained for where it can be held. With more flexibility for a smaller (only 1100 ) tournament, I would have expected even better prices. Like I said, I see better deals (relatively) even for this size tournament.
We can argue about value, but I won’t be convinced because I’ve SEEN better values and I think we can do better. This isn’t meant negatively – just that in the future we should try to do better.
Diane is not a USCF employee, she’s contracted to do event planning services. You can suggest to her or to Bill Hall that she should read the Forums, but 99% of what’s posted here is outside of her area.
I’m really surprised at each of these events that we don’t have one or more people dedicated to writting press releases for all the participant’s local newspapers. Take a “standard” press release and customize it for each participant or team. Local newpapers love to run stories about local people (names sell newspapers). Maybe we could even make a deal with the MyChessPhotos.com people to supply photographs of the players for each paper.
I would even include a paragraph that is a shameless plug for the USCF. I bet a lot of newspapers would include the plug without even thinking about it. Add other stuff to the story like our (hopefully improved) web site, toll free phone #, etc. If the participants are willing to provide it, we can help them out by mentioning local club meetings and contact info.
It would be a very big job. But it could yield hundreds of stories in local newspapers. That kind of advertising isn’t quite FREE since we have to put in the effort of writting the press releases, but it would be a really good deal. Not to mention that we could consider it a service to the participants.
To really push this, we could even provide pre-tournament press releases. “Local team to compete for national title” might get several stories printed, and will help spread some of the effort (instead of having to do it all at the tournament).
Even if this didn’t DIRECTLY add any new members (I think it would), it would raise our public profile and provide lots of indirect benefits. Making it a policy to always do this might attract some sponsors as well. Getting a positive mention in a hundred local newspapers might be worth enough to get some major money out of a big company.
I wouldn’t suggest that anyone at the USCF or contracting to the USCF should read EVERYTHING posted on the forums. Scanning them occasionally to see if anything was posted that might apply to them … that might be a good idea. Like I said, though, I’ll summarize the positives and negatives and send her a short note after the tournament.
I agree that we need much better media coverage, I’m not sure how we achieve that goal, though. Media relations has not been one of the USCF’s strong suits.
BTW, the Junior High Championships has been rated and the crosstables were posted on MSA before 8:30 PM CDT.
Yet another example of the excellent “backroom” work. I wonder why the “friends & family” tournament isn’t done yet?
This side-tournament was nice and I liked the trophies – father/son, father/daughter, etc. That was a nice touch. Now if I can just hang on to my queen next time (the real loss will be listening to Dave brag, not the prize I missed out on – I went to a National tournament only to end up playing a nearby player in the last round!).
On the subject of trophies – I’d like to see more. I think just finishing with a positive score at a national tournament should be worth a small trophy (“honorable mention” or “plus score” or something like that). At $3 or $4 each (in bulk) it shouldn’t be that big an expense. I think the trophies that were given out were great, I’d just like to see some more added.
$4 x 5000 participants at SuperNationals III (assuming that around 300 got ‘place’ trophies) would have been $20,000 or roughly half of our profit from that event.
If they only go to those with plus scores, that cuts that cost by about half, but I think that qualifies as more than a small expense.
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