I'm back from Vienna and firstly I want to thank Ali, Verena, Mr Alex and everyone else who made Euros in Vienna happen. I know it's a lot of work and they obviously put a lot of thought into it. A lot of things were quite well done and some not quite as well. I hate to criticize something someone volunteered to do, but a few things occured to me durring the weekend, both good and bad, that I think should be said. Some of these are things I speciffically saw in Vienna, some are general things I've noticed at a few tournaments. Basically this is a list of things I wish every tournament director would keep in mind, with examples of where I think it was done well:
Players need a place to stay. I think they did this quite well in Vienna giving us the option of a hostle or (cheeper) gym space. Both were quite close to subway lines and walking distance to most event sites.
Players need to drink. This was done better in Vienna than any tournament I've ever been to. Not only was cold water available, staff actively carried it around to make sure everyone was drinking enough (necessary, it was bloody hot). As a freestyler I can break away to get another bottle, but I'm sure their extra effort really saved the net players.
Players need to eat. I'll be blunt, Saturday was in the middle of nowhere, the food on site was crap and it ran out. I know a lot of you ignor nutricion, but let's pretend for a second that we're real athletes and need to eat vegetables, fruit and whole grains to perform. Actually let me expand on that and let's suppose that at least one person there has trouble regulating blood sugar and that eating ice cream and hamburgers is about as healthy for him (ok me) as shooting crack into his eyeballs. At Lausanne Euro's last year healthy vegetarian meals were provided to all on site.
Players need to sleep. Please do not schedule a late night party and then expect everyone to be ready at 9 in the morning.
Players need to play. If there's nowhere to play at the event site people will find a spot and usually they'll piss off the neighborhood in the process. When you're choosing locations please make sure everyone has a big enough space with ventelation to warm up, and that there's a place to shred before and after the competition. World's 1997 in Portland did a very good job of always having a place to shred, and warm up, including the after party at the Skool House.
You can't control the weather. At the Paris Euro's in 2000 they did a wonderful job of choosing a location with lots of trees and putting up sun tents, so even when it briefly rained we could keep playing.
Make sure everything is accessable. This includes information. After getting back late Friday night a lot of people took the shuttle to the event site on Saturday morning at 9 not realizing they could have slept in and taken the regular bus.
Don't confuse the show with the competition. Some events work quite well in a show, but you need to give players good conditions to play, they put a lot of effort into their performance. For a demo it's ok to have changing lighting, a small stage, 1 am start times, whatever. For a real competition it's really not ok.
I encourage everyone to go to the Seattle Juggling Festival at least once to find out what a really good show looks like. They know what is for the players (which happens in the gym) and what's for the audience (which happens on stage).
Sorry again if some of this is pretty negative, I do apreciate the effort all organizers put into making events happen (and I'm fully aware I would not be able to organize a tournament myself).
I mean this post to be general and constructive, and I'm currious about other people's experience at Euros and other events and speciffic things they thought were done well, or things they thought were missing.
-Andrew McCargar
Back from Euros - A note to organizers (sorry, long post)
-
justin41
- Shredaholic
- Posts: 165
- Joined: 26 Jul 2005 01:36
- Location: Aachen, Germany, OldEurope
- Contact:
since i was able to sleep and eat at a locals place for the whole time i´m not going to comment on that exept for the saturday food thing. it was way too expensive and almost offensively small portions. as i talked to ali about it, he agreed that something went wrong there.
the waterthing did really save us netplayers, having bottled icecold water carried next to the lines is really nice. plus the showers next to the courts were awesome! ok, its sometimes a little distracting to have hot bikini-girls showering while you try to serve, but its great to have a cold shower in a timeout.
from what i experienced the shadow was enough. i never had problems to find a spot outside the sun. there were tons of shade-umbrellas or what those are called and they were easy to carry around.
regarding the friday night location, i have not seen the backstage, but if there was no place to shred its really odd. i saw more complications in the fact no AC was available and the club was at 40C when i arrived and raising (plus it smelled like tiger). it was hard to even go in and whatch the footbag-stuff, no wonder almost nobody wanted to stay inside for the dj-thing and whatever happend after and inbetween.
i saw too, that some people were pissed about getting up early and had to spend almost all day at the himmel. but hey, nobody was forced to get there as early as 9 and i think that nobody was forced to stay all day. it was not really hard to find out about the schedules of play and asking how to leave or reach the place. i went into town for a few hours of sight seeing and shopping. it took me about 25 minutes to the center, including the walk. and from what i´ve seen i was not the only one doing so.
i´ll finish this post with a big thanks to alll the vienna crew.
of course ali is first to be mentioned. but i feel the urge to direct the scoop also to the ones behind the scenes. there were a lot of people like the runners or even not-vienna-people helping to get things transported and set up. especially on the net-site i must thank tammo for his days and nights of duty to get the courts painted and all the nets standing in time. (hint: nobody should be responsible for all that stuff alone.)
cu, justin
the waterthing did really save us netplayers, having bottled icecold water carried next to the lines is really nice. plus the showers next to the courts were awesome! ok, its sometimes a little distracting to have hot bikini-girls showering while you try to serve, but its great to have a cold shower in a timeout.
from what i experienced the shadow was enough. i never had problems to find a spot outside the sun. there were tons of shade-umbrellas or what those are called and they were easy to carry around.
regarding the friday night location, i have not seen the backstage, but if there was no place to shred its really odd. i saw more complications in the fact no AC was available and the club was at 40C when i arrived and raising (plus it smelled like tiger). it was hard to even go in and whatch the footbag-stuff, no wonder almost nobody wanted to stay inside for the dj-thing and whatever happend after and inbetween.
i saw too, that some people were pissed about getting up early and had to spend almost all day at the himmel. but hey, nobody was forced to get there as early as 9 and i think that nobody was forced to stay all day. it was not really hard to find out about the schedules of play and asking how to leave or reach the place. i went into town for a few hours of sight seeing and shopping. it took me about 25 minutes to the center, including the walk. and from what i´ve seen i was not the only one doing so.
i´ll finish this post with a big thanks to alll the vienna crew.
of course ali is first to be mentioned. but i feel the urge to direct the scoop also to the ones behind the scenes. there were a lot of people like the runners or even not-vienna-people helping to get things transported and set up. especially on the net-site i must thank tammo for his days and nights of duty to get the courts painted and all the nets standing in time. (hint: nobody should be responsible for all that stuff alone.)
cu, justin
-
Ales Zelinka
- Hack Fiend
- Posts: 25
- Joined: 01 Jul 2005 03:45
- Location: Prague, CZ