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So, how many teams are able to stay after a tournaments for tourism purposes?

FredMorlan wrote:So, how many teams are able to stay after a tournaments for tourism purposes?

Not us, man. We are going in and coming right back.

shlack wrote: Also seconded. To be serious though, any of the major rust belt cities -- Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland -- have definite economic advantages over, say, Chicago with equivalent accessibility. Airfares are incredibly cheap (especially in Pittsburgh), and there are some great hotel deals because of slack demand and oversupply from when Cleveland went crazy adding hotel rooms during the "Comeback" years. Cleveland also has direct rail access from the airport to the city and college, one of only a handful of cities in the States that have this.

Virtually all of these things, including rail access to the city and campus and being a major airline hub, applied to Minnesota in 2007. That didn't work out so well.

Pittsburgh and Cleveland seem like reasonable sites to me. They're in driving distance for a lot of the Northeast, Midatlantic, and Midwest circuit, and probably even some teams from the South. When 3/4 of the field is driving to the tournament, the proximity of good hotels to the tournament, public transportation and air costs become a lot less important.

The problem with Minnesota (and even more so with Dallas) was that pretty much no one could drive there easily.

Bentley Like Beckham wrote:Pittsburgh and Cleveland seem like reasonable sites to me. They're in driving distance for a lot of the Northeast, Midatlantic, and Midwest circuit, and probably even some teams from the South. When 3/4 of the field is driving to the tournament, the proximity of good hotels to the tournament, public transportation and air costs become a lot less important.

The problem with Minnesota (and even more so with Dallas) was that pretty much no one could drive there easily.

Cleveland would be an ideal place. Certainly better than driving 24+ hours to Dallas.

Ok I know I don't normally do this but
What about Atlanta? It has a major airline hub, quite a few convention centers/hotels, not bad for getting around downtown, and you have two colleges that have programs that are NOT that far away with Georgia Tech in the city and U of GA in Athens. Driving times are not that bad for most of the teams I don't think... anyway just wanted to throw that one out there...

tetragrammatology wrote: Cleveland would be an ideal place. Certainly better than driving 24+ hours to Dallas.

Minnesota quiz bowl has now begun it's process on disowning you, Bernadette Spencer! What Blasphemy!

Anyway, as crazy as we Minnesotans are about drive (ANSWER: VERY) I am sure we would appreciate a shorter drive and more time to relax.

gkandlikar wrote:

tetragrammatology wrote: Cleveland would be an ideal place. Certainly better than driving 24+ hours to Dallas.

Minnesota quiz bowl has now begun it's process on disowning you, Bernadette Spencer! What Blasphemy!

Anyway, as crazy as we Minnesotans are about drive (ANSWER: VERY) I am sure we would appreciate a shorter drive and more time to relax.

The upside to Dallas is 24 hours of uninterrupted practice! We shall rule all.

tetragrammatology wrote:

gkandlikar wrote:

tetragrammatology wrote: Cleveland would be an ideal place. Certainly better than driving 24+ hours to Dallas.

Minnesota quiz bowl has now begun it's process on disowning you, Bernadette Spencer! What Blasphemy!

Anyway, as crazy as we Minnesotans are about drive (ANSWER: VERY) I am sure we would appreciate a shorter drive and more time to relax.

The upside to Dallas is 24 hours of uninterrupted practice! We shall rule all.

It's probably a 15 hour trip uninterrupted with minimal stops, 17 hours with normal breaks, etc. We could make it all the way to San Luis Potosi in 24 hours.

theMoMA wrote:

tetragrammatology wrote:It's probably a 15 hour trip uninterrupted with minimal stops, 17 hours with normal breaks, etc.

That's still a tremendously long time to drive on one road, since I-35 goes to Dallas.

Minimal stops are somewhat hard to pull off with 4+ people.

Cheynem wrote:Minimal stops are somewhat hard to pull off with 4+ people.

For his next trick, Rob Carson will answer meta tossups on his bathroom habits.

The discipline of urinary coordination is an underappreciated cog in the Minnesota juggernaut.

(User was banned for this post for one day for failure to enable appropriate signature.)

No Rules Westbrook wrote:The discipline of urinary coordination is an underappreciated cog in the Minnesota juggernaut.

We have improved so much since we hired Mitu to coordinate our bodily functions.

FredMorlan wrote:So, how many teams are able to stay after a tournaments for tourism purposes?

Not that I want to hijack a conversation about NAQT to talk about TRASH, but, well, that's more or less what I'm doing.

Those of us in TRASH-dom are always curious as to what people think about where we should, when we have an option, try to host our annual TRASHionals event.

Certainly, inexpensive accessibility to the highest number of teams has been an important selection criteria, particularly given the small size of last year's field.

Anecdotally, I can say when TRASHionals was in Austin and I was still playing, I had a great time and managed to squeeze in a good amount of tourist activity over the course of the weekend. I think the sights available there probably played a role in the willingness of a foursome of northeasterners to spring for the plane fare down there.

Admittedly, our audience is somewhat different but we view college teams and programs not only as a valuable source of not only fields and therefore revenue but also as the most important part of the infrastructure that sustains all quiz bowl of all kinds and as a long-term wellspring of potential future contributors.

As a grad student with a kabillion other things to do, I don't care where quiz bowl is played in terms of tourist attractions. When you're trying to get in 12+ rounds, eat, sleep, and plow through a 200 page monograph on "the new American militarism," tourism isn't high up on my priorities.

Going back to the discussion on playing in hotel rooms, I'd like to point out that most of the problems I saw while at HSNCT a few years ago were from trying to cram all the parents, and extra players into the rooms. High school teams tend to travel with more people than just four per team. Rather than putting eight players, a reader, and a scorekeeper in a room, we often had those 10 people, plus three or four parents, two coaches, and 5 or so younger players also squeezing in to watch the game.
College teams tend not to bring as many spectators; Perhaps one sub on a few teams (for regular tournaments at least. I haven't actually been to either Nationals, but I would think this still holds). As long as the playoffs are played in large rooms, and there aren't lots of people sitting around on byes during the prelims, I think holding ICT partially in smaller hotel rooms would work much better than HSNCT did.

I guess I have to second (or third) Dwight in saying that it would feel more right if ICT were held on a campus.

That being said.

1. I don't mind playing in a converted hotel room, and I don't think it would be a problem with just four people/team and 64 total teams. Like Michael said, the real issues come with multiple spectators per team trying to squeeze in the same room.

2. Airfare cost and logistical ease of access are big issues for Irvine; especially given that our team often travels on different flights due to schedule, preference issues. On logistics, Minneapolis and Saint Louis were fine. Airfare costs seem quite randomly variable from LA/Orange County to anywhere east of the Mississippi and are really dependent on dates. Tickets to both of the nationals for me were within $20/roundtrip of each other.

3. Speaking only for myself, tourist-y stuff is low on the totem, but I do prefer to see at least something of the city our team is going to given the flying time and expense. On this count, Dallas would be harder than either Minneapolis or Saint Louis.

All else being equal, I would prefer if NAQT returned to the practice of moving the ICT around to different host universities in major cities. If that doesn't work, locating in Chicago would ensure the shortest and cheapest travel times for the circuit as a whole. It is the only city that is not New York/West Coast that has at least three airline hubs and greatest number (and likely least expensive) flights overall.

Norman Oklahoma is a perfect place for ICT 2010. There is an airport half an hour away named for a guy who died in a plane crash. Public transportation is a cinch: jump on any available horse. Tourism wise, there are plenty of Indians to observe in their natural habitat.
Oh and you can't forget sooner football!

lasercats wrote:Oh and you can't forget sooner football!

In April?

A.F. wrote:

lasercats wrote:Oh and you can't forget sooner football!

In April?

Spring Football.

If no one cares about tourist attractions, then we should hold the ICT in Starkville, Mississippi.

jhn31 wrote:If no one cares about playing the tournament in a desolate wasteland, then we should hold the ICT in Starkville, Mississippi.

Fixed.

To get this back on track, I'll second Katy's observation that ACF Nats went over well when it was in Nashville, and featured the largest field for that tournament in many years. Whether or not the current Vandy team is willing to put in the work needed to host is another matter, but the logistics are fairly similar to St. Louis I think. It's a reasonable drive for most of the active regions besides west coast, northeast, and probably Minnesota, and is a hub of sorts for Southwest, or at least as hub-ish as it gets for them. While Dallas is an air hub and the hotel is right at the airport, the main issue is not many teams can drive there it seems. I think Chicago is still best overall, with St. Louis and Nashville also very good options.

Nashville, St. Louis, and Chicago are all fine options. Cities in the rust belt like Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Indianapolis would probably work as well, if clubs there are willing to host. I don't think it's terrible to have it in a major city in the northeast, like Nationals in Boston last year. It's when you start hosting in places without a major circuit presence nearby that problems start happening. There are only a handful of programs that can drive to places like Minneapolis, Dallas, Los Angeles, etc. This shouldn't necessarily rule these places out if getting there by air is cheap and convenient (I think the Bay Area might be the best candidate for this), but it seems that teams will have the easiest time getting to a more central location.

The presence of a large circuit also has the potential, at least, to obviate some of the problems of a big expensive city; if I am cheap, I can always impose on a local (or impose on a semi-local and have a short drive, etc. etc. etc.).

everyday847 wrote:The presence of a large circuit also has the potential, at least, to obviate some of the problems of a big expensive city; if I am cheap, I can always impose on a local (or impose on a semi-local and have a short drive, etc. etc. etc.).

Amen. The possibility of substituting friends' couches and floors for hotel space always increases the attractiveness of a tournament destination.

My thoughts:

While I still went to Minnesota ICT, for me, the issue with the Minnesota ICT was "while it was in fact an airline hub, it was a single-airline hub -- an airline that is not my preferred choice of airline (i.e. not Southwest)" -- my travel plans entailed flying to Chicago on Southwest and finding a rideshare on Craigslist from Chicago to Minneapolis and back. Had I come with teammates, I doubt that the trip would have been possible for me.

bt_green_warbler wrote:I'm not sure a Stanford/Berkeley ICT is in fact a great idea; it is my impression that the Los Angeles ICT in 2003 generated substantial complaint from midwestern and east coast teams.

Well I wasnt on the circuit in 2003, but perhaps it was due to the fact that you had to drive in LA, regardless of the airport flown into, which significantly impacts schools esp. with DII teams?

Regardless, there are a bunch of built in advantages to a Bay Area ICT than LA. Reason 1 being transportation issues, considering that Stanford is accessible from Caltrain and Berkeley is right off of BART. Reason 2 being that at least 2 of the 3 major airports in the Bay Area is easily accessible by mass transit (unlike LA...plus if people flew to Ontario or Long Beach trying to get to UCLA with friday traffic? ha!). Reason 3 being that the three bay area airports are served by major airlines (discounts and regular). At least in terms of airfare, I could see schools from the South potentially having problems based on airfare (not sure how extensive Delta or AirTan's network is for the Bay Area).

Anyways...my thoughts on the Bay Area, though I see significant consensus on anything Chicago.

Speaking of the Caltrain, which stop is the one for the San Francisco Airport?

Jeremy Gibbs Free Energy wrote:Speaking of the Caltrain, which stop is the one for the San Francisco Airport?

Well technically Millbrae, where you hop on the next BART train to San Bruno and then transfer to the BART line that will get you to SFO (it seems complicated, but it isn't really). Or of course you *could* walk almost a mile from the San Bruno Caltrain station to the San Bruno BART station, but somehow I doubt that will be the option of choice for travelers.

Oh..and I forgot to add, Bay Area is advantageous to LA also considering hotels.