All --
Just wanted to give some impressions of this year's contest at the
Exploratorium.
- The competition was fun, as always. Almost 60 competitors in the
3x, many of them probably in a first competition, along with the new
format (5 solves per competitor) meant the first round ran long.
This required some changes to the rest of the events which meant
contestants didn't get to do as much as they wanted.
- For next year, I'd suggest having a "side stage" and if people are
beyond a certain cutoff time (3x world record average?) on their
first solve in an event, move them to the side stage for the rest of
their solves. This allows for running things in parallel. The side
stage (which was set up for the Magic) also allows for the audience
to get closer to the action (which I must admit was fun when I did
my Magic runs).
- The grouping (bring cubers up in groups to do all their runs at
well) works well. Though being in the first group made me very
nervous - I was shaking like a leaf during my solves ...
- The crowd was fantastic! There were probably close to 200 people
watching, of all ages. I regularly talked to people in the crowd who
were just amazed by the abilities of the cubers (one quote: "We
didn't even know this was here and we've been sitting here all day
just transfixed!"). The crowd regularly cheered great times and
successful blindfold solves. They also liked all the fun awards at
the end, like 17th place in 3x first round, farthest traveled, best
camera crew :)
- It seemed like Blindfold had a lot of DNF? I'd guess that the
crowd noise and the need to run four blindfold solvers at once made
it tough but I didn't compete in blindfold, so I don't know.
- There was a "Meet the Cubers" table where people would sit and the
audience could interact with them. It seemed like not too many
people came by the table? Perhaps if there was a side stage, the
table (and the merchandise table) could be in that area. Things got
a little crowded with the cuber waiting area being right next to
merchandise and to the audience (and to where the press wanted to
talk to people).
- The press could also probably use a couple "pods" where they could
get close to the action without having to step in front of audience.
Perhaps one on each side?
But, most importantly, any difficulties and changes that occurred
during the competition were due to success! Many more competitors
and a huge, appreciative crowd made for a great, exciting
competition. While I was personally disappointed in how I did, I
can't deny that everyone had a great time.
Many thanks to all the folks who organized and ran the competition,
and special thanks to Tyson for all his hard work!
yeff
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