US Nationals 2011 planning thread

I dream every year of being so far ahead that planning is really easy and light going. But it never happens.

So let's start figuring out the location for 2011 now. Of course, this discussion won't be that serious. And about 80% of the responses to this post will be ignored because they come from people who want the competition in their own back yard.

Focus should probably be on the Midwestern United States. Ohio State University was slightly denied this year because our contact there graduates and wouldn't be an enrolled student at the time of the competitions which would have complicated things.

Los Angeles or San Diego would also be nice. There's a very large concentrated cubing population there and we haven't hosted nationals there since the first one in 2004, when there wasn't quite as concentrated of a cubing population.

Denver, I don't really like the airport. It's in the middle of nowhere, so I'm not sure how people would get around. Cities where competitors can show up and get where they need to go without a car are a plus. Boston is one such example. Though, that doesn't mean we should exclude Denver. We just need to think of the transportation options.

Seattle might be kind of cool. It's cute. St. Louis?

Basically, I think the rule is you're allowed to suggest something only if you have the capability of holding a competition there by yourself. That means, you have the ability to secure the venue. Or at least, you would be able to begin the process. None of this, "oh, let's just rent out a broadway theater" stuff.

We can only suggest something if we can get a venue there but we can't suggest things if they're in our own back yard?

I like the idea of California or Seattle though, for what it's worth. Seattle is in a bit of a corner of the country, though.

What I really meant by that was that you really shouldn't suggest something simply because it's convenient for you. If it's genuinely a good place, and it happens to be near where you live, that's a different story. But you know that most people just put up suggestions for their own personal convenience.

we should have it in my backyard! Its already been done, so why not again?

in reality, mall of america seems like a good possibility. I know there was talk about it for 2010, so we could look into it.

Not in Underground Atlanta again. That was a horrible venue . What do you guys think about pairing the competition with another event (if it's possible). Remember that US 2008 was going to pair up with some kind of video game festival? Whatever happened to that?

krnballerzzz said:

Not in Underground Atlanta again. That was a horrible venue . What do you guys think about pairing the competition with another event (if it's possible). Remember that US 2008 was going to pair up with some kind of video game festival? Whatever happened to that?

Click to expand...

How about not? We ended up in Underground Atlanta because that video game festival screwed us over.

krnballerzzz said:

Not in Underground Atlanta again. That was a horrible venue . What do you guys think about pairing the competition with another event (if it's possible). Remember that US 2008 was going to pair up with some kind of video game festival? Whatever happened to that?

Click to expand...

I liked that idea, but it seems like it'd be much more difficult to run. On the one hand, we'd probably get a lot more spectators, which is nice. But we'd also have competitors go missing when we need them to solve. A standalone competition means there aren't many distractions for competitors.

daniel0731ex said:

somewhere near toronto.

Click to expand...

Detroit?

TeddyKGB said:

daniel0731ex said:

somewhere near toronto.

Click to expand...

Detroit?

Click to expand...

LOL no. Nobody wants to go to Detroit.

Seattle, San Diego, LA, Denver, St. Louis are all good options. They all have large airports which are relatively cheap to fly into. Obviously we need to find a good venue in any of those places, but those cities are good starting points. Maybe see who goes to college in all of those cities and see if a university could host it again.

Kian said:

TeddyKGB said:

daniel0731ex said:

somewhere near toronto.

Click to expand...

Detroit?

Click to expand...

LOL no. Nobody wants to go to Detroit.

Seattle, San Diego, LA, Denver, St. Louis are all good options. They all have large airports which are relatively cheap to fly into. Obviously we need to find a good venue in any of those places, but those cities are good starting points. Maybe see who goes to college in all of those cities and see if a university could host it again.

Click to expand...

There is no strong cubing base in St. Louis or Seattle.

DavidWoner said:

Kian said:

TeddyKGB said:

daniel0731ex said:

somewhere near toronto.

Click to expand...

Detroit?

Click to expand...

LOL no. Nobody wants to go to Detroit.

Seattle, San Diego, LA, Denver, St. Louis are all good options. They all have large airports which are relatively cheap to fly into. Obviously we need to find a good venue in any of those places, but those cities are good starting points. Maybe see who goes to college in all of those cities and see if a university could host it again.

Click to expand...

There is no strong cubing base in St. Louis or Seattle.

Click to expand...

Nor was there in Chicago. Doesn't mean it's a bad idea for nationals.

Tyson said:

What I really meant by that was that you really shouldn't suggest something simply because it's convenient for you. If it's genuinely a good place, and it happens to be near where you live, that's a different story. But you know that most people just put up suggestions for their own personal convenience.

Click to expand...

daniel0731ex said:

somewhere near toronto.

Click to expand...

As usual, somebody doesn't listen.

masterofthebass said:

we should have it in my backyard! Its already been done, so why not again?

in reality, mall of america seems like a good possibility. I know there was talk about it for 2010, so we could look into it.

Click to expand...

mall of america would be an awesome place to hold it.
Also, my school has an auditorium with a stage that can seat i think around 1000 people, but it isn't very accesible at all from cincinnati if you don't have a car, so it probably wouldn't be a good idea.

masterofthebass said:

in reality, mall of america seems like a good possibility. I know there was talk about it for 2010, so we could look into it.

Click to expand...

The one issue I could see with MOA is that we may have difficulting with BLD events because of noise. However, this could easily be overcome by either having BLD held somewhere either in a meeting room at MOA or in the evening at a nearby hotel.

However, I think MOA would be good in terms of exposure for sponsors. Sponsors don't want to pay a bunch of money to have people who already use their products to be in a secluded/private venue.

The other issue with MOA is holding a "test run" competition. I would need to make sure we had a large team of reliable volunteers before committing, and I just don't have that yet.

DavidWoner said:

Kian said:

TeddyKGB said:

daniel0731ex said:

somewhere near toronto.

Click to expand...

Detroit?

Click to expand...

LOL no. Nobody wants to go to Detroit.

Seattle, San Diego, LA, Denver, St. Louis are all good options. They all have large airports which are relatively cheap to fly into. Obviously we need to find a good venue in any of those places, but those cities are good starting points. Maybe see who goes to college in all of those cities and see if a university could host it again.

Click to expand...

There is no strong cubing base in St. Louis or Seattle.

Click to expand...

Well yes Seattle doesn't have as many cuber as say Cali or Canada but there are still cubers in Washington. The Seattle facebook group has 13 members and I'm sure there's more than that in WA.
Seattle is a good idea. It has the airport and pretty easy transportation. Plus Washington and the surrounding states don't normally have a comp so it would be really cool to have in Seattle. Plus Vancouver cubers can come over. You could try getting University of Washington of Seattle.

Bryan said:

masterofthebass said:

in reality, mall of america seems like a good possibility. I know there was talk about it for 2010, so we could look into it.

Click to expand...

The one issue I could see with MOA is that we may have difficulting with BLD events because of noise. However, this could easily be overcome by either having BLD held somewhere either in a meeting room at MOA or in the evening at a nearby hotel.

Click to expand...

or people can just deal with the noise. Earplugs are allowed, and if we want this sport to have exposure, people have to deal with spectators. BLD has been held at Essen a few times, with probably even larger and noisier crowds than MOA.

masterofthebass said:

Bryan said:

masterofthebass said:

in reality, mall of america seems like a good possibility. I know there was talk about it for 2010, so we could look into it.

Click to expand...

The one issue I could see with MOA is that we may have difficulting with BLD events because of noise. However, this could easily be overcome by either having BLD held somewhere either in a meeting room at MOA or in the evening at a nearby hotel.

Click to expand...

or people can just deal with the noise. Earplugs are allowed, and if we want this sport to have exposure, people have to deal with spectators. BLD has been held at Essen a few times, with probably even larger and noisier crowds than MOA.

Click to expand...

I was ready to say the same thing before I read Dan's comment. We should be able to handle the noise - it's reasonable to expect people solving BLD to be able to handle distractions. It sounds like in Indonesia they often have very noisy environments (malls, in fact), and they've had a bit of success at BLD. (In my experience, multiBLD is the worst of all the events to handle with noise, which makes the Indonesian results all the more impressive. MultiBLD is much harder for me with distractions than 5x5x5 BLD.)

I think it'd be cool to do one in the DC area(preferably not actually in the city cuz DC is sketch as hell). Midwest sounds cool too, but no Detroit, St. Louis actually sounds kinda cool

Slowpoke22 said:

San Diego sounds like a great place to have it.

Click to expand...

DaBear said:

I think it'd be cool to do one in the DC area(preferably not actually in the city cuz DC is sketch as hell). Midwest sounds cool too, but no Detroit, St. Louis actually sounds kinda cool

Click to expand...

We should just delete posts that contain no useful information.

janelle said:

You could try getting University of Washington of Seattle.

Click to expand...

Maybe you didn't mean it this way, but we need Seattle people who are able to secure a venue.

Tyson said:

Basically, I think the rule is you're allowed to suggest something only if you have the capability of holding a competition there by yourself. That means, you have the ability to secure the venue. Or at least, you would be able to begin the process. None of this, "oh, let's just rent out a broadway theater" stuff.

Click to expand...

Bite me Bryan. There was nothing wrong with my post. I voiced an opinion and yes I can get something started with DC as I'm from just north of there.