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SierraKiloBravo |
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Post subject:
Posted: Feb 08, 2012 - 08:25 AM
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Joined: Jun 22, 2008
Dublin CA
Posts: 60
Location: Dublin CA
Status: Offline
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Very interesting thread. My 2 cents ...
First, I think attendance numbers are EVERYTHING. My understanding of the bid for the NATC in Vegas was based in very large part on the attraction of Vegas and it's relatively central location within the continent. These two elements were designed to attract coaches from around North America by trying to mitigate the travel time/expense for North American participants. Trying to say that attendance isn't the most important factor is, in my opinion, unnecessarily myopic. Simply put, if the WC moved to North America for a year and the tournament drew anything less than 200 participants, I think the general NAF community would view it as an unmitigated disaster.
Second, the ease of travel within the US and within Europe is drastically different. This has been brought up by others, but it isn't something that should be easily dismissed. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole of Europe has, what? Two time zones? Aren't the UK and Portugal in one time zone and the rest of Europe in a second? In the US, we have a four time zone difference between the East and West Coasts. Realistically, that means an entire day is generally spent on travel between the coasts, when considering flight time and the time zone shift.
Next is the physical means of travel. Due to the general distances between major cities in the US, travel is either by car or by plane. Trains just aren't as practical here due to the distance. Often, when you have Americans traveling by train, the train traveling itself is part of the fun of the trip, to the point where the traveler is often sacrificing speed of travel for the event of traveling by train. My understanding of European train travel is that it is very common due to the relative proximity of major cities to one another.
This all boils down to ease of travel, which often only exists in North America for travel within one time zone, and I think it's going to be the primary thing that impacts attendance.
For me personally, ease of travel alone has generally been the biggest factor in dissuading me from traveling to tourneys because I'm going to be someone who is generally going to attend an out-of-the-area tourney only if I can fly in to the locale the morning of a 2 day tourney and only have to get a hotel for one night.
In the end, does it make more sense to let Europe have the World Cup and then let North America have its own World Cup analog? There's basically no chance in Hell that I would ever attend the World Cup in Europe due to the travel. Someone might respond to this by saying, "Well come for a longer time and make a vacation out of it." This might work for those of us that aren't married, but I would feel really shitty about traveling to Europe with my wife and then effectively telling her to take care of herself for 3 days while I got my geek on. |
_________________ Control the lightning.
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Doubleskulls |
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Post subject:
Posted: Feb 08, 2012 - 08:53 AM
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Ex-Rulz Committee
Joined: Mar 05, 2003
Undisclosed
Posts: 2627
Location: Kent, UK
Status: Offline
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SierraKiloBravo wrote: First, I think attendance numbers are EVERYTHING. ... Trying to say that attendance isn't the most important factor is, in my opinion, unnecessarily myopic.
Its quite clear attendance isn't the only factor though. A 1000 person tournament in a cold venue, without a bar or catering, organisers who show up late and are so disorganised the tournament only plays half its games would clearly be a failure compared to a 500 person tournament where none of those problems arose. |
_________________ Ian 'Double Skulls' Williams
SLOBB
NAF Racial Results
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Glamdryn |
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Post subject:
Posted: Feb 08, 2012 - 09:06 AM
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Joined: Sep 16, 2009
United States of America
Posts: 203
Location: United States of America
Status: Offline
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Despite this thread, I'd still like to see someone from NA throw in a bid for 2015 at a really cool venue.
Id also like to see diversity of attendance be a big factor in deciding where 2015 will be held. |
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SierraKiloBravo |
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Post subject:
Posted: Feb 08, 2012 - 09:19 AM
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Joined: Jun 22, 2008
Dublin CA
Posts: 60
Location: Dublin CA
Status: Offline
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Doubleskulls wrote: SierraKiloBravo wrote: First, I think attendance numbers are EVERYTHING. ... Trying to say that attendance isn't the most important factor is, in my opinion, unnecessarily myopic.
Its quite clear attendance isn't the only factor though. A 1000 person tournament in a cold venue, without a bar or catering, organisers who show up late and are so disorganised the tournament only plays half its games would clearly be a failure compared to a 500 person tournament where none of those problems arose.
This is somewhat true, but I'm guessing that a NATC isn't going to be run by organizers without any NAF tournament organizing experience. I would think that prior experience would tend to mitigate the sorts of problems to which you refer.
Again, attendance isn't the only factor. It's one of many, but still the most important. If people make an effort to travel to a poorly attended tourney, I think that tourney is going to die on the vine. If I made the effort to travel to, say the Chaos Cup (which is about a 4 hour flight for me and basically a day's travel one way), and there were only 15 people there, I'd be pissed. |
_________________ Control the lightning.
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Jonny_P |
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Post subject:
Posted: Feb 08, 2012 - 10:06 AM
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Joined: Feb 10, 2003
United States of America
Posts: 900
Location: United States of America
Status: Offline
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SierraKiloBravo wrote: If I made the effort to travel to, say the Chaos Cup (which is about a 4 hour flight for me and basically a day's travel one way), and there were only 15 people there, I'd be pissed.
If you come this year, I will match you up with G-Dub round one. Promise. |
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SierraKiloBravo |
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Post subject:
Posted: Feb 08, 2012 - 10:11 AM
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Joined: Jun 22, 2008
Dublin CA
Posts: 60
Location: Dublin CA
Status: Offline
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Jonny_P wrote: SierraKiloBravo wrote: If I made the effort to travel to, say the Chaos Cup (which is about a 4 hour flight for me and basically a day's travel one way), and there were only 15 people there, I'd be pissed.
If you come this year, I will match you up with G-Dub round one. Promise.
Love to, but I can't do it. I'm going to GenCon this year and the proverbial stork is scheduled to visit our home in late September. |
_________________ Control the lightning.
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Jonny_P |
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Post subject:
Posted: Feb 08, 2012 - 10:31 AM
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Joined: Feb 10, 2003
United States of America
Posts: 900
Location: United States of America
Status: Offline
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Deathwing |
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Post subject:
Posted: Feb 08, 2012 - 01:43 PM
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Former President
Joined: Feb 10, 2003
England
Posts: 1289
Location: England
Status: Offline
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SierraKiloBravo wrote: Very interesting thread. My 2 cents ...
Second, the ease of travel within the US and within Europe is drastically different. This has been brought up by others, but it isn't something that should be easily dismissed. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole of Europe has, what? Two time zones? Aren't the UK and Portugal in one time zone and the rest of Europe in a second? In the US, we have a four time zone difference between the East and West Coasts. Realistically, that means an entire day is generally spent on travel between the coasts, when considering flight time and the time zone shift.
Next is the physical means of travel. Due to the general distances between major cities in the US, travel is either by car or by plane. Trains just aren't as practical here due to the distance. Often, when you have Americans traveling by train, the train traveling itself is part of the fun of the trip, to the point where the traveler is often sacrificing speed of travel for the event of traveling by train. My understanding of European train travel is that it is very common due to the relative proximity of major cities to one another.
This all boils down to ease of travel, which often only exists in North America for travel within one time zone, and I think it's going to be the primary thing that impacts attendance.
For me personally, ease of travel alone has generally been the biggest factor in dissuading me from traveling to tourneys because I'm going to be someone who is generally going to attend an out-of-the-area tourney only if I can fly in to the locale the morning of a 2 day tourney and only have to get a hotel for one night.
Ease of travel within Europe is not as simple has you would imagine for those of us in the UK or for mainland Europeans coming to the UK. We are an island and still not as integrated as most of Europe. That means passports, customs checks, currency changes. It generally means flights or ferries. London to Paris can be done direct by train, but that's an exception.
Let's take some examples:
Amsterdam. I'm lucky in that I live about 45mins from Gatwick airport. On a good run on our hugely congested roads. So allowing for the fact that you need to check-in an hour in advance of a flight, I need to leave 2.5 hours in advance, about an hour's flight, clear customs the other end and get on a train into the city..probably about 4.5 hours travel on a good day.
Ostend, Belgium. The closest European tourney to me. Typically you're looking at 6-7 hours by the quickest route..that way you can do it and still work Monday and Friday... it's much longer by the cheaper route (which necessitates both the Friday and Monday off work). Both ways involve cross channel car ferries.
I'd like to hear a similar breakdown from one of our members from Spain about what a trip to Nottingham typically entails... but I know it's quite lengthy and is far from straightforward, let alone cheap.
On top of that the average UK price for a gallon of petrol/gas is currently just under £6 GBP, so roughly $9.40 USD. Per gallon!
So even staying in-country, the drive to Nottingham will take me close to 3hrs each way and cost over $110 USD in fuel alone.
I suppose I'm just trying to counter the perception that euro travel is quick, cheap or easy. That's simply not the case. I guess it goes back to my point about the accessibility of Amsterdam. Getting to Italy from Denmark (for example) would be far from straightforward or cheap.
So while some may indeed sometimes struggle to understand the sheer distances of the NA continent, we do have our own logistical issues over here.. ..it's not a case of Trek style transporters... |
_________________ Ex-UK NTO,ex- Senior Tourney Co-Ordinator, ex-VP and ex-President....because Lycos says that new members don't know who I was..
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zootsuitjeff |
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Post subject:
Posted: Feb 08, 2012 - 11:05 PM
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Joined: Jan 29, 2010
United States of America
Posts: 125
Location: United States of America
Status: Offline
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Personally, I think the average N American BB'er is just kind of soft as far as travel goes, especially when compared to those Aussies.. I'm doing what I can to change that... |
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blammaham |
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Post subject:
Posted: Feb 08, 2012 - 11:38 PM
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Joined: Sep 20, 2009
Canada
Posts: 202
Location: Canada
Status: Offline
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zootsuitjeff wrote: Personally, I think the average N American BB'er is just kind of soft as far as travel goes, especially when compared to those Aussies.. I'm doing what I can to change that...
Jeff not recognizing the distance and cost of moving around our continent is akin to the ol' hiding your head in the sand strategy. S. |
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Doubleskulls |
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Post subject:
Posted: Feb 09, 2012 - 03:28 AM
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Ex-Rulz Committee
Joined: Mar 05, 2003
Undisclosed
Posts: 2627
Location: Kent, UK
Status: Offline
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zootsuitjeff wrote: Personally, I think the average N American BB'er is just kind of soft as far as travel goes, especially when compared to those Aussies.. I'm doing what I can to change that...
Move to Australia |
_________________ Ian 'Double Skulls' Williams
SLOBB
NAF Racial Results
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Pako |
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Post subject:
Posted: Feb 09, 2012 - 04:52 AM
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Joined: Jul 15, 2005
Spain
Posts: 471
Location: Spain
Status: Offline
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Quote: I'd like to hear a similar breakdown from one of our members from Spain about what a trip to Nottingham typically entails... but I know it's quite lengthy and is far from straightforward, let alone cheap.
FYI.
I was in the fisrt World Cup. Coming from Bacelona (direct flight now) you should save friday and monday off work because there is only one plane per day.
This is the easiest way.
There are also planes directly from Valencia, which is the best chance for the people living in Madrid (3,5h car Madrid-Valencia and fly away another 2,5h to East Midlands). |
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Lycos |
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Post subject:
Posted: Feb 09, 2012 - 06:07 AM
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Former President
Joined: Aug 22, 2003
Undisclosed
Posts: 1532
Location: Undisclosed
Status: Offline
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Glamdryn wrote: Despite this thread, I'd still like to see someone from NA throw in a bid for 2015 at a really cool venue.
Absolutely agree.
I have not commented much on these threads about the next world cup but after 2007 we had a very similar reaction as we have here....lots of people keen, lots of ideas.
But when it came to the crunch for 2011 (well 2009 for entrants), no bid was forthcoming from North America. If it is to be there 2015, someone has to put a strong bid together. |
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daloonieshaman |
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Post subject:
Posted: Feb 09, 2012 - 09:55 AM
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Joined: Feb 28, 2003
United States of America
Posts: 883
Location: United States of America
Status: Offline
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Lycos wrote: Glamdryn wrote: Despite this thread, I'd still like to see someone from NA throw in a bid for 2015 at a really cool venue.
Absolutely agree.
I have not commented much on these threads about the next world cup but after 2007 we had a very similar reaction as we have here....lots of people keen, lots of ideas.
But when it came to the crunch for 2011 (well 2009 for entrants), no bid was forthcoming from North America. If it is to be there 2015, someone has to put a strong bid together.
Actually Dave some of us might just be able to do that. Let me talk to the guys. |
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daloonieshaman |
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Post subject:
Posted: Feb 09, 2012 - 10:52 AM
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Joined: Feb 28, 2003
United States of America
Posts: 883
Location: United States of America
Status: Offline
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El Presidente`
What weekend are you talking in 2015 |
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