IQ Elementary coach here. I think Louisville was a bit more friendly to my students because of how the layout of the pits to the division fields, not to mention there was a lot more interactive exhibits for the kids.
Looking at how the layout for Dallas was, it was all the divisional fields in one area plus all the exhibits. The pits were pretty far away for some of them. I had elementary students clocking in 10+ miles everyday we were there at the convention center.
If you can get hotel rooms for $30 a night then itās probably ok if more people have to fly in, probably still save some money overall.
Driving through Texas, I saw plenty of gun store/shooting range billboards, to the point of my own discomfort. Plenty of bar billboards too. Iām pretty sure I saw gun-range+bar billboards as well. Why is it more uncomfortable for a parent to explain drugs are inappropriate for a child than guns are?
Kids gotta find out somehow
Your point flips from it should be easy to travel to and then you support indianapolis which is harder to travel to resulting in coastal hub stops.
Flight Maps of all Vegas flight locations:
Flight Maps of all Indianapolis locations:
Iām sorry to blow your bubble but vegas is a much more flyable city
The biggest thing Dallas has going for it is proximity to Vex headquarters. In theory it is less costly/disruptive for Vex to ship their equipment and volunteers there than it would be nearly any other non-Texas venue. Texas also does have a substantial number of teams (California and Texas are probably 1-2 on a pure number of teams basis), probably in part because Vex is based there.
Much as thereās not to like about Texas from my own personal perspective, I donāt see Worldās leaving Texas until Vex would leave Texas at this point.
At VEX Worlds, the emphasis is on worlds. if they canāt get enough international teams it is not worlds itās glorified nationals. The US teams shouldnāt be catered to simply because they can travel the whole country in around 6 hours teams within the USās convince is second. At the end of the day you lose like 3 US teams because they canāt drive, big deal. You lose the one team from turkey now there is no representation from turkey. Worlds is a show with countries as the stars, without the stars nobody watches the show. Also, what else is there to do in Indianapolis besides worlds, that is one reason people really enjoyed Louisville as there was a lot to do besides the competition. If Indianapolis is as externally entertaining that would be nice.
Well yeah I think so too, this is just a useless argument at this point ig. Just theoreticals.
And itās closer to the Asia Pacific teams, who usually bear the brunt of traveling costs and fatigue for worlds
Being drivable is simply a matter of personal opinion. When I pitched the idea of going to the Haunted Sig Event, my coach laughed at the idea of driving there, while I, who drive to TN with my family each year for thanksgiving (same distance of about 8-9 hours) found it mange-able. Quite simply, most places are ādrivableā but some people would rather take the easy way out and fly instead of being cooped up in a car for 10+ hours. Just some food for though.
4082B drove to worlds from Wisconsin which is a good example of how people will drive, but not everybody.
An alternative point of view from staff here. personal opinion, I have no insight on how any of these venues are selected.
Iāve been attending worlds since 2011, and from 2012 on have been a key volunteer or staff.
Anaheim (2012-2014) was great, close to home and hotel next door, but venue became too small for worlds.
Louisville, honestly I didnāt really like, difficult to travel to, hotel being a bus ride away was a huge negative when working long days, but it was a seven day event so we coped. But exhibition space was big and that really helped with division layout etc.
Dallas was a long event, 11 days for me, longer for some other staff members, so having the hotel connected and 5 minutes away when we are working 12+ hour days pretty much outweighs any other negative aspects. Smaller than KEC made decisions on where divisions and skills located more difficult and gave us new technical challenges to deal with.
Looking up the convention center in Indianapolis suggests that exhibit space is even smaller than Dallas and, as the majority of the event does not happen in the arena, thatās probably an issue, not sure we can go much smaller than Dallas.
wikipedia suggest these numbers, may or may not be accurate.
KEC Louisville
1,300,000 square feet (120,000 m2) of indoor space
Kay Bailey Dallas
1,000,000 sq ft (93,000 m2) of exhibit space.
Indianapolis
566,600 square feet (50,000 m2) of exhibit space
Seeing the exhibit spaces of these convention centers made me want to look more into some of them.
I was wondering about Anaheim bc it was mentioned and LA convention center as a so cal team.
And I found a nice list.
So if we are in the US and need more space. There are 5 more options size wise. These numbers are mind-blowing.
Going by List of convention centers in the United States - Wikipedia that would limit Vex Worldās to 8 convention centers:
Of note, George Brown Convention Center in Houston is roughly the same size as Anaheim, so if Vex Worldās is going to stay in Texas while Kay Bailey is out of commission, it seems like the format may need to change.
So, realistically, not many candidates. Add in date availability issues, cost, locality for Vex staff, etc. and its not really an easy problem.
Just gonna point on las Vegas is 3 of them.
I didnāt get to fly to Dallas this year, so I canāt compare between Dallas and Louisville.
But I should be totally qualified to talk about this statement though.
Ideally no domestic leg(s) please. I canāt imagine any international teams like the domestic flights in USA. Additional checks, missing/delayed luggages (which only didnāt happened to us in 1 out of all the years in Louisville), etc.
it is a real pain to have add a domestic flight after > 20hrs of flights. And then coupled with the anxiety and hassle of trying to find out where are all the missing luggage, it is no joke.
budgeted for it doesnāt mean it is the right thing to do. That usd500 per pax extra for domestic flights could be put into much better use.
Following up on this. Interestingly one of the biggest youth soccer tournaments in the country is hosted in las Vegas
fixed link
Hundreds of soccer teams from out of state travel to Las Vegas for a single tournament. And soccer teams are much bigger than vex teams.
So itās not like youth events are unheard of in Vegas.
It is to be noted that this list does not factor in dome sizes.
My guess is McCormick will top most lists on most metrics.
10k seat WinTrust Arena. Lots of hotels by skybridge. Two major airports.
The Second City has lots of cultural attractions nearby, fantastic food, great music. My hometown.
That said, about the only thing that will pull Worlds out of Texas at this point is Kay Baileyās impending demolition. Dallas is less than an hour from Vex HQ. Houston is 4 hours, New Orleans 7 by road. My guess would be Houston while Dallas revamps their center
