Now that VRC Worlds is over and everyone is back home. Which location is better, pros and cons for both locations and why?
Like the food in the convention center, exhibits, walk from the pits to the fields, and Freedom Hall and the Dome.
I want to hear your thoughts
Louisville dome was better, Dallas pits and venue better except for how there wasn’t as many attractions
Louisville ez I mean I do have a biased as I live In Louisville but like i liked Louisville arena/dome more
Louisville is better.
Louisville. Closer to me (Okay, maybe a little biased), sounds like it was better run, big space.
Technology division bros know which one was better
Dallas was better! The venue was staged better and the Dome experience felt more grand. It was also more convenient to get to Dallas. Getting to Louisville means that plane tickets are more expensive and you have to connect though another airport with a long layover (often DFW). You get a nonstop flight for Dallas. It’s also probably easier for VEX to bring things to Dallas since it’s close to the VEX HQ in Greenville, TX. This probably lowers registration costs for Worlds.
Edit: Dallas also has two airports, DAL and DFW, so you get a wider variety on arrival and departure times and ticket prices. Louisville airport is smaller. It’s also easier for international teams to get to Dallas.
I don’t know if it was like this in Louisville but in Dallas they did not accept cash for most things which sucked because our school gave us cash to spend and I think a 7th grader should not have a credit card so yeah.
as a texan, theres something about leaving the state for a competition that makes it feel more like an actual world championship than just another event.
Me too but I just paid my mentor in cash andhe used his credit card but it was worse than them just taking cash
For who? They increased across the board for everyone, for both COVID and non COVID reasons.
The dome in my opinion did not feel more grand. I liked how they evolved Freedom Hall from its first year in 2015 to what we had in 2019.
Personal observation:
do worlds in kentucky again pls 
I wasn’t at worlds this year but went many times to Lousiville. I saw tons of social media posts this week and think Dallas seems a lot more cosmopolitan. Lots of bright lights and food choices. Seemed a lot more exciting than Louisville. We stayed very close to the venue at Louisville worlds and it was pretty sleepy (and kind of sketchy) after dark with very few restaurant choices. I saw lots of pictures of teams walking around in the evening. I got a good vibe. That being said, for me, Louisville is a lot easier to get to. I would have driven and volunteered this year if I could have driven there!
I have been curious about the reason for being cashless. some vendors did take cash early on the first day of MS… until they realized they were not supposed to. They then made handwritten signs that transactions were credit or debit card only. There is no way they are always cashless without having NFC enabled card readers (Apple or Google pay, etc.)
I had read something about it being cashless once before we left, but I couldn’t track the reference down to confirm… at least we we not completely surprised.
But…. I would think that most students would not have a credit or debit card.
And how about international teams? I believe most students from overseas would still be given cash allowance by their parents.
From the EP luncheon… Worlds is in the same venue next year, but will be closer to its normal April timeline. They will evaluate the physical layout of the pits/fields during the summer EP meetings.
I had heard that VEX has a multi-year contract with Dallas, but the Dallas city counsel recently voted to tear down Kay Bailey and build a new convention center. It is not a done-deal, but it just moved forward another step. Construction proposed to start in 2024.
Agreed. I thought cashless was a horrible option for school students. It made no sense, especially without “tap-to-pay” options. My school provided our students some money towards their meals - in cash.
While I could offer a number of suggestions for next year, accepting cash would be the first on the list. Not taking cash only helped to convince us (and others) to leave the venue whenever we could for meals and probably cost the convention center a noticeable amount of revenue…
My team and I walked to our dinners at night, as well as to convenience stores etc. One night we hit the swing park nearby the Sheraton at like 10pm and swung / see sawed for like 30 min as a team, it was great. Not sure if we could have had the same experience at Kentucky, I remember a lot of driving in my middle school year.
Dallas was a whole lot easier to get to, but I thought the divisions were too close together(there were pre-match radio dropouts), and the exhibitions were less exciting (no hall of Fame or VEX history area, probably a COVID-19 thing). Dallas as a city had more hotel and food options, but wasn’t as nice and felt dangerous in some areas. Overall, I preferred Louisville, and there was an interesting culture around that city and a nice downtown Dallas didn’t have