Nope, we all set them individually. We just all do $50. Or did, the change in fees justifies $55 and I think that will be the new normal.
One theory on why you have so many fewer teams is the increase in cost. There are other potential explanations. Perhaps you can see if your RECF would allow you to ask current and former coaches about why they are or are not participating. I’m not a teacher, but I can imagine there is a lot of teacher burnout for an activity like this. It is a huge commitment for a teacher to take on with tons of extra (probably not fully compensated) hours. Then, once a teacher burns out, it is probably hard for another teacher to say “I’ll take that on!” So the program dies at that school. I bow down to the teacher coaches because I know it has to be a labor of love!
You may be right, but I am skeptical. For example, not only do I not get paid, but whenever we cannot raise enough money to cover our expenses, it has come out of my pocket. I pay for things up front and get reimbursed some of it when we host tournaments as our primary fundraiser.
All of my time is volunteer and I know other programs where the mentors are not paid. As you said, it is a labor of love.
Personally, I think the economy and the higher fees have a lot to do with lower numbers. This year, we are also competing in another automation context where the company sponsoring the context gives you all the control hardware plus money to buy the other things you need. The competitions are free and the grand prize for the national winner is a week long trip for your team of 6 students and 2 mentors to Orlando FL and Cape Canaveral FL with all expenses covered including entry to all the theme parks.
Depending on how things go this year with that context, we may make that our primary focus next year.
I understand. One hypothesis is that the increase in fees has led to a reduction in teams. However, I’m just pointing out that there may be other explanations so you don’t fall prey to “confirmation bias” when searching for your answer.
Gartner talks about the “hype cycle” for technology. In Indiana, you may have passed the peak in your hype cycle and entered the “trough of disillusion.” I imagine, you had a lot of hype when the government funded Vex in your state but that some teams may have dropped out due to disillusionment of some sort.
Just a thought! Not saying I’m right.
eh maybe, I’m sort of wondering if teams are just dragging their feet in registering this year.
Or it could be full on panic mode, who knows.
Also what is a Paid mentor? haha, the amount of time @Robo_Eng_13 and I spent last year on the team was an outrageous number. I’m fairly certain that he carries his company in volunteer hours.
Also, I’ve been puzzling over the price increase since you posted this. In our area, robotics programs become Event Partners and run events. These events contribute to fund raising that program. So, it’s the teams themselves that are benefitting from the price increases (not necessarily Vex or RECF). That being said, there are some teams (the ones that host events) that benefit and the rest of the teams (the ones that don’t host events) that end up paying more.
So the cost per event may be something that RECF and Vex really have no control over but the teams that don’t host events end up on the losing end.
yeah the numbers disclosed to us showed a 25% loss of teams. I don’t see a 10% jump (ON AVERAGE) in registration fees for tournaments and an extra $50 to sign up a team causing that dramatic of a drop in participation. Even so, there are several events in Indiana that are below the average cost, mine for example are set to over $13 below average and there are other venues charging less than me.
Interestingly i found a event in Ohio thats $105 and is already filled to capacity? I just need more data to make any sense of it all.
Some facts for you:
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There isn’t much use in analyzing registration numbers until January. Teams are still getting organized.
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Fees are set by the event partner, not RECF. There have been some abuses of this in the past, but RECF rarely steps in.
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Fees vary widely between states. When I worked for RECF, in my region, average VRC tournament fees were $25-30 in Idaho and Oregon, and $50ish in Washington, Utah, and BC. I even encouraged EPs to do a small price increase each year so as to not shock teams with a big increase, but almost none of them actually did it.
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Some states have a shortage of events, and the EPs charge more. Lots of local California events are $100-150, and still fill up in less than a day. Other states (Utah for example) have plenty of tournaments and sometimes don’t fill their events until the week before a tournament.
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With the $5 per team tax, every EP is likely to raise their fees, of course. In Washington, for example, where the $50 fee has been standard since 2008, most events are now $60-65. If an EP set a California fee of $150, their event might not fill up because there is price competition.
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Therefore, microeconomics. Where a commodity is relatively scarce (for example, VRC tournament spots in California) the price increases. Where it is abundant compared to demand, prices tend to stay lower. As long as EPs set their own fees, this will remain true. Bummer, California teams.
I agree most analysis i am doing is basically “post mortem” as in I am looking for last years numbers by analyzing who competed last year. I won’t know what this year looked like until this time next year.
i am aware of this. I know why this years price bump happened. The EPs were told $75 was an okay standard so some bump their prices to 75 and other that were already there bumped in to $85. I am mostly interested in trying to forecast tournament attendance this season based off previous years.
Usually Tournaments start filling up here in October so i’ll know a lot more then.
other Indiana EPs are wondering why the registration numbers this year are lower and the common assumption is vex’s new registration cost and a sudden bump in tournament fees.
@Rick TYler You are correct that the tournament fees are set by the EP but they are certainly influenced by the fees charged by RECF. For us, we typically have waived fees for about 10 teams per tournament in the past for bringing fields/volunteers and for some teams with financial hardship. Additionally, we have traded spots with other EPs. Also, in the past, we have encouraged teams to pay us directly so there would be no processing fee from RECF. It was made clear to me from the beginning that the 3% was simply a charge to process payments.
So for a 40 team tournament, I might have about 30 teams pay. Of those that pay, I would typically have half or more pay us directly.
Under the new plan, we have to pay $5 per team in the tournament no matter what. If we waive a fee, we still pay $5.00.
So two years ago, we were charging $60 ot $65. at 3% of $65 for 15 teams, RECF was getting $29.95. For that same tournament under the new structure, no matter what I charge and even if I make the event free for everyone, REC would get $200.00 Even at $75 under the old plan, it would go from $33.75 to $200.00 going to RECF.
Our organization is a small non-profit inner city outreach without a lot of funding. Our robotics program does not get funded by the parent organization. It gets funded by the tournaments and me. I cannot afford to spend any more money this year. Over the last few years I have been out of pocket a few thousand dollars each year and I simply do not have it based on our household income.
I realize that our numbers are not everyone’s numbers but they are real numbers. From my perspective, RECF’s new pricing structure for both the team registration as well as what they charge the EPs has made it harder for lower income areas to have these programs.
We would not have our teams registered yet but for a kind donation from a parent of someone on a different team. He loves our tournaments and program and wanted to help and gave us the money to register our two teams.
We have enough kids participating now that if we could afford it, we could have two new teams. We could go the route of a Girl Powered grant as we have lots of girls participating, but I am not sure if we can commit to keeping the new teams going over the course of the next two seasons as is required by the grant.
Well, I guess that is enough of a rant.
I really dislike this practice. I would love to throw together a “tournament in a trailer” like program so that you and others like you don’t have to do this. letting 10 teams in on the house costs you $800, I’ve already offered to let teams use our stuff free of charge, because that’s what i was taught was right, to give without expecting anything in return. I’d have a difficult time costing you that sort of money when my team is already sufficiently funded.
Just know that your attitude is as unique as it is appreciated. Typically, I give a spot for a field. There is one EP in Indiana that wants 2 free spots per field that he loans out. Others are willing to pitch in and help in any way they can. Most are somewhere in between the two extremes.
I do not mind giving out a few spots due to financial hardship (we have received some spots for the same reason-and thank you). I guess it is frustrating that for the past several years RECF has said that the fee they charge the EPs was just for processing payments. Now, that is no longer the case.
We have loaned out field out without demanding a spot as well. We have even loaned it out when we did not go to the tournament. Like you said, it is the way I was brought up as well.
Given our funding, I am thankful for and willing to accept any help we can get. We offer what we can. I also just like to, as the EP, give back when I can.
I am guessing that you and I are similar in that we expect for from ourselves than we do of others.
In VA, for about 2 years or so we gave volunteer discounts for providing volunteers. The main org in the state that provides materials for the events used to provide a $50 discount per team for each full day volunteer provided. So for a large multi-team program, if you provided enough volunteers, could save you a lot on an event that was $75 to $100. A lot of other EPs followed suit with their events.
I used to do the waive fees for teams that provided fields but as the supporting organizations in here began to provide fields easier there was less of a need for it.
@TheColdedge I was just looking over the data and I noticed something else sort of interesting. If you average the cost of tournaments in central Indiana the average price goes up to $76.25 if we include Columbus and Anderson in that area. If we drop Columbus due to its distance from most teams, the average cost goes up to $78.57. If we narrow it further to just the locations in Marion County, the average goes up to $81.11 per event. 9 of the 24 events are in Indianapolis.
Of the 7 events that currently have enough teams to be a qualifying event, 5 are in Indianapolis and the other 2 are very close to Indianapolis.
The other thing that would be interesting to analyze is the price compared to the number of spots in the tournament. The smaller events seem to charge more and that actually makes sense. There are a lot of costs that are either fixed or close to fixed without regard to the size. If you have 60 teams, your costs will not be twice as much as if you have 30 teams.
Tournament size seems to be going down. I recall during Toss Up Warren having over 80 teams at an event that was nearly snowed out. If not for the weather, it would have been over 100 teams at that tournament.
@blatwell if teams are pinching pennies Cbus isn’t that far of a drive. Especially to save $20, savings go up the more teams you bring.
My main point is that teams that refuse to pay $80 can still go to several tournaments for less than that.
I agree. There are 15 tournaments in Indiana under $80. Most of them are a longer drive and some are only $5 under that mark.
Your tournament is a particular good value at $60 and you are right off the interstate. It is a bit further than the Indianapolis teams are used to traveling and you do not have a bunch of teams right by you, but it is right off I-65. I would rather drive to your venue than any other of comparable distance since it is so easy to get to.
I remember our first year, I was sweating it out until the week before the tournament and suddenly it began to fill. It was not full until the week of the tournament. Each time we have had a tournament after that, it has filled up a bit faster.
You should make up some fliers for your tournament with directions showing how close you are to I-65 and take them with you to the early tournaments. We will even announce your tournaments at ours if you are not filled up by that time.
Okay so I have had some time to look through the data supplied by @Robo_Eng_13 in my other thread.
I added Team Growth. I haven’t had a lot of time to actually analyse the results, so I’ll be interested to hear what others think.
Again this is all Indiana Data, we are currently looking into Kentucky, those results should be available later.
Your graphs are very interesting. Have you looked at it MS vs HS numbers separately? I know a lot of the MS teams have been converted to IQ due to it’s lower cost, so that could also explain the change in the overall numbers. Looking only at MS teams right now MS shows 30 teams registered. Last season we had 40, and lost 8 Zionsville MS teams to IQ. So had Zionsville stayed in we would be about where we were last year.
So far Indiana is the only state with negative growth that we have analysed.
We haven’t been able to track cost for the surrounding areas so this could be a factor.
Indiana’s IQ Program might be more aggressively pairing down our MS #'s, but we don’t have a good way to see MS growth to check that. We also can’t track IQ team Growth either so that’s annoying as well.
Regardless the negative trend we have right now is concerning.