So I had the (dis)pleasure of meeting the announcer at World Championship 2013. Here are my thoughts.
Indeed, I found out that the announcer (henceforth known as Kian Barry, or simply just Kian) is indeed not a professional announcer. As it turns out, he wasn't even paid a single cent for announcing at the competition. I put the fault on the organizational team for not finding somebody more professional to announce at the competition.
Casual Dress - The way Kian was dressed is simply unacceptable. On Friday, he wore a WC2013 polo with the word STAFF written on the back. This was the same shirt that the rest of the WC2013 staff wore, so it was very difficult to distinguish Kian from other staff members. On Saturday, he had the audacity to wear the same blue Meffert's shirt that the rest of the staff wore, and on Sunday, he wore the same shirt again that he was wearing on Friday. I bet he didn't even wash it. Clearly, Kian should not have been trying to act as if he were a member of staff. I'm not quite sure why he was wearing that hat, though. I have seen Kian a few times before this competition and I don't recall him ever wearing a red Rutgers cap. Every time I glanced at Kian, I, too, got the feeling that he did not want to be present at the competition. He seemed miserable being in the venue for setup on Thursday and then from 8am through sometimes 11pm on the days of the competition.
The "Quiet Please" - I was thoroughly offended by this and told Kian that I will not be silenced. I was especially offended because I did not know who Kian was and he is not a recognized or respected member of the WCA community.
The Conversation - I agree that since Kian was given the prestigious role of announcing at WC2013, he should have been secluded and not permitted to have conversations behind the stage. I think for future competitions, we will be sure that no one is allowed to interact with the announcers. I'm pretty sure Kian's opinion of Feliks' 7.36 was due to the fact that Kian has never achieved such a result and has no understanding of the difficulty involved in achieving such a time in an official competition.
As you mentioned, a lot of effort was put in by many people and the entire experience was ruined by Kian. He clearly does not understand the WCA community or the amount of work and dedication the organizers and staff put into running a successful competition. I will suggest that we find a more suitable announcer in the future.
I feel, though, that there were several points that you missed:
- The announcer on the side stage made jokes throughout the competition, sometimes even mispronouncing names on purpose. I heard him call "Stefanie Pochmann" to the side stage to compete in the Rubik's Clock final.
- Kian announced that it was Tim Reynolds's birthday, even though Tyson had already announced that Tim's birthday was the previous day.
- Kian announced that I was giving out plushies, but it was a lie. I had no plushies to give out and many people were disappointed when the asked me for them and I could not give them any.
- Kian kept warning competitors by name when the did not show up for their heats on time. I would feel embarrassed if he did this to me.
- The side stage announcer said that Kian was giving away hugs for ten minutes. He announced that Kian could be easily identified by his red cap. When this announcement was made, Kian removed his cap until he felt he would no longer be asked for hugs.
I personally would have been much happier with a loop of the Mr. Rubik song on loop played throughout the entire competition.
EDIT: It has been pointed out to me that Kian was actually an organizer for this competition and has been helping to plan it since 2012. It has also been pointed out to me that Kian has competed in over 70 competitions since 2007 and is a WCA delegate. I would have never guessed this by his lack of professionalism at WC2013.
