[SBU Board] Thoughts about Kent sectional

[Susan Cothern]

This was my first time attending a tournament at the Kent site.  I
personally was NOT impressed.  It is darker there than it is at Vasa Park!
I also felt it was too far for me to drive back and forth for a 3 day (or 4
day) tournament.  I only made the drive down on Sunday for Swiss and with
carpooling I did not get home until almost 8:00 PM, I feel this makes for a
very long day and not worth the drive.

I played at ESB yesterday and took an informal poll to folks that came to
my table about the site.  I got no positive comments, two comments of "I
guess it is a good location for the south end people", and quite a few "it
is too far to drive".  Also, on Sunday I received at least 5 complaints
about the chairs being uncomfortable and the poor lighting; folks were
wondering if they had cataracts or the lighting was really that bad :-)

It would be interesting to see how many folks that live in or near that
area attended.  Will we be given that info?

Susan




On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 6:08 PM, Michael J Ring <michaelring304 at comcast.net>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I wanted to send the Board a few thoughts and notes about this weekend's
> sectional while they are fresh in my mind.
>
> As you are by now aware, attendance was disappointing. Total table count
> was as follows below. I've included the attendance from the 2015 fall
> sectional in parentheses. It's not a perfect apples to apples comparison
> given the site (Bothell) and date (3rd weekend in October) were different
> but it will give an idea about the drop off in attendance:
>
> Friday
>  Afternoon
>   Open game 30 tables (Bothell October 2015: 36 tables)
>   0-200 game 11 tables (16 tables)
>   Afternoon total 41 tables (52 tables)
>
>  Evening
>   Open game 26 tables (28 tables)
>   0-200 game 4 tables (4.5 tables)
>   Evening total 30 tables (32.5 tables)
>
>  Daily total 71 tables (84.5 tables)
>
> Saturday
>  Afternoon
>   Open pairs Qualifying  24.5 tables (30 tables)
>   0-750 game 12 tables (18 tables)
>   0-200 game 9 tables (12 tables)
>   Afternoon total 45.5 tables (60 tables)
>
>   Evening
>   Qualifying final 13 tables (13 tables)
>   Consolation 12 tables (14 tables)
>   0-750 game 9 tables (14 tables)
>   0-200 game N/A (6 tables)
>   Evening total 34 tables (47 tables)
>
>  Daily total 79.5 tables (107 tables)
>
> Sunday
>  A/X Swiss 16 tables (19 tables)
>  B/C/D Swiss 17 tables (24 tables)
>  Total for day 66 tables (86 tables)
>
> Grand total 216.5 tables (277.5 tables)
>
> Bottom line is attendance was down over 20% compared to Bothell last year.
> One possible problem is the proximity of this weekend on the calendar to
> other tournaments, whereas the October dates have fewer overlap.
> Unfortunately Kent Commons has limited availabilty in the fall. If I recall
> correctly, this was the only weekend in this time of year that we were able
> to hold a sectional when Kent Commons was free.
>
> It will be interesting to see the demographic data by city to see if the
> attendance dropoff was more the result of local players not showing up or
> North Enders/Eastsiders not coming down.
>
> Other observations:
> -As was the case last year, Kent Commons staff were extremely responsive
> to our needs.
> -Personally, I received one positive comment and no negative comments
> regarding the quality of the venue.
> -I received a few negative comments regarding distance from
> Seattle/Eastside and traffic.
> -The day of tournament phone came in handy. I received two calls - one
> call from a player stuck in traffic and one general inquiry about schedule.
> -Lunch break was slightly more than 1 hour (start time was 2:40 and my
> slow 3rd match ended at 1:30). My team went to the Ram (sit down brew pub)
> and it was just enough time for us.
> -There was a little confusion regarding the number of boards for Sunday.
> The directing staff was initially setting up for 7 board rounds. I asked
> for 7 rounds of 8 boards as is the usual procedure for A/X. Since we all
> needed to break for lunch, I also asked for 7 rounds of 8 in B/C/D so we
> would be breaking at the same time. However, is this something we should
> generally leave to the directing staff? Given we were breaking for lunch
> one movement I definitely did not want was 8 rounds of 7 - I don't know if
> Jeff's plan was 7x7 or 8x7. One recommendation Jeff had was to run 6 rounds
> of 9 boards, which is becoming popular in District 20, especially if the
> flights are fairly small. With 16 & 17 in the flights yesterday that
> probably would have been a good format but we didn't want to change it on
> the fly. However it's something to consider for the future.
> Thanks, Mike
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sbuboard mailing list
> Sbuboard at mailman.celestial.com
> http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/listinfo/sbuboard
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.celestial.com/pipermail/sbuboard/attachments/20160920/b2ccb060/attachment.html>