Prise de Fer Memorial Day Round Robin - Feedback Request

[DJ Apostrophe]

First, a quick thank you to everyone who came. Fencers, referees, parents, spectators, and everyone else...

As we're sitting here cleaning everything up, we started talking about improvements for next year. This is where you come in.

Below are some questions we came up with, that we'd like to hear answers for. Please post your responses in this thread, or e-mail them to me. (wayne at prisedefer dot com)

1. What additional information or formatting changes would you like to see on individual results reports at the end of the day?
2. How would you rate the quality and selection of food at the concession stand? Are there any additional items you would like to see at the concession stand?
3. What Additional information would you like to see on the current ranking monitor?
4. What was your opinion of the pace and length of the tournament?
5. What further information would you like to see posted live on the webpage during the event?
6. What could we do to make the finals a more entertaining experience and encourage people to stay to watch the event?
7. If you were available, and did not fence, why not? (excluding geographic remoteness and broken feet from slide tackles during touch football games)

Also, if you have any other comments or suggestions that I have not touched on above, please feel free to share, as any and all comments are appreciated.

Thanks,

Prise de Fer Tournament Staff

[mrbiggs]

Originally Posted by DJ Apostrophe

1. What additional information or formatting changes would you like to see on individual results reports at the end of the day?
2. How would you rate the quality and selection of food at the concession stand? Are there any additional items you would like to see at the concession stand?
3. What Additional information would you like to see on the current ranking monitor?
4. What was your opinion of the pace and length of the tournament?
5. What further information would you like to see posted live on the webpage during the event?
6. What could we do to make the finals a more entertaining experience and encourage people to stay to watch the event?

I love to talk and I was at the tournament (as a fencer, but you probably knew that), so I'll respond.

1. Honestly, none. This was probably the only tournament I've ever been to that didn't have glaring efficiency errors.
2. Decent. I only got water because I forgot to bring mine, and I appreciate that the price wasn't jacked way up.

Or, from your perspective, you could definately charge $.50 more for the water and people would still buy it.
3. None
4. It was sweet
5. Nothing. (I don't think there's much else to post)
6. Nothing. The microphone for the referee thing was really neat. I actually did leave after the first semifinal, but I had a long drive and homework.

[telkanuru]

Way to double-send an e-mail, wayne

[MyrddinsPrecint]

Originally Posted by DJ Apostrophe

1. What additional information or formatting changes would you like to see on individual results reports at the end of the day?

I'd love if we could see club affiliations. ratings would be nice, but not as important to me.


Is there any way that this kind of individual results report could be integrated into the software that is used for collegiate meets? I wouldn't expect them to be printed out, but it could be emailed, and would be tremendously useful for the schools that don't have enough assistent coaches to keep track of it for us......

[prototoast]

Originally Posted by MyrddinsPrecint

Is there any way that this kind of individual results report could be integrated into the software that is used for collegiate meets? I wouldn't expect them to be printed out, but it could be emailed, and would be tremendously useful for the schools that don't have enough assistent coaches to keep track of it for us......

Don't you leave the competition with a photocopied bundle of the day's results?

[MyrddinsPrecint]

Originally Posted by prototoast

Don't you leave the competition with a photocopied bundle of the day's results?

depends. Big One, yes, but only because the format already makes that really easy.

I was more thinking USACFCs, which is changing format and will need new software anyway, or New Englands.....

NFCs would be great, but that's probably way too much to ask.....

[oiuyt]

I just sent a reply to one of the email versions of this that you sent me, but forgot one suggestion.

On the results list it would be nice to see peoples' classifications. I'll second MP's request for club affiliations. Sounds like we both want both but have opposite relative priorities.

-B

[darius]

I'll reply to the email, but I might as well make a public post. (Wayne, my check for PR flack services is in the mail, right?)

1. What additional information or formatting changes would you like to see on individual results reports at the end of the day?

I'd like to add my voice to those asking for club affiliation and ranking.

2. How would you rate the quality and selection of food at the concession stand? Are there any additional items you would like to see at the concession stand?

I didn't get over to the concession stand -- too much fencing! However, we did hit up the pizzeria that was used to supply the concessions, and it was excellent.

3. What Additional information would you like to see on the current ranking monitor?

Not quite sure; what you guys should do is let me borrow that plasma screen for football season, and I'm sure we can get back to you with some potential improvements.

4. What was your opinion of the pace and length of the tournament?

The pace was excellent -- there were several times where I'd unhook from one round only to get called for another. Another 10 bouts would have been rough, but perfectly manageable, given that things were moving so smoothly.

How smoothly? Nearly 30 bouts per person, plus 3 DE bouts, and we were out of PdF by 5:30pm. We sometimes get home later from 20-person opens at SUNY Binghamton!

5. What further information would you like to see posted live on the webpage during the event?

Howzabout a Strip 1 webcam? Streaming video of the finals? It would be pretty cool (and an extra albeit minor revenue stream) if shortly (or immediately?) after the finals, a DVD was available. I'd definitely be willing to work with some of the geekier folks at PdF to make that happen.

Also, a graph with real-time decibel meters for Lowden!

6. What could we do to make the finals a more entertaining experience and encourage people to stay to watch the event?

Door prizes? Raffle? Cash prizes for the winner, so there's something to fight for? Having Rod Meagher on hand to announce the semifinalists? ("In this corner, weighing in at one-twenty-five, the Thai Terror, Prince of Penn State, Rajah of Rochester... NONTAPAT PANCHAAAAAAANNNNNNNN!!!")

Duel in the Desert (RIP) did a great job making their finals an Event. It might be good to take a page from them.

All in all, if you didn't change a thing, I'd still come back (as long as the competitor list looked good). This was definitely one of the best-run events I've ever attended, and a great opportunity to fence a LOT of competition bouts against good fencers.

darius

[epeemike81]

Originally Posted by darius

Howzabout a Strip 1 webcam? Streaming video of the finals? It would be pretty cool (and an extra albeit minor revenue stream) if shortly (or immediately?) after the finals, a DVD was available. I'd definitely be willing to work with some of the geekier folks at PdF to make that happen.

Do you think this would even be technologically feasible, given that we only have a DSL to work with? obviously, if we were going to do it we'd directly stream it to a server at a hosting company (gee, Darius, you could probably help with that...) and then re-stream it from there to users, but could it be done on such a slow connection?

Either way we'd like to do video of the finals, even if it's just posted afterward.

-m

[darius]

You could possibly do a low-bandwidth webcam that streamed, or kick it old-school style, and have a cam that just captured a still picture from various spots in the venue at a certain interval...that could be entertaining! With a DSL, streaming video of decent quality is probably a pipe dream.

Getting video of the finals, available right afterwards, wouldn't be too incredibly hard -- any laptop with sufficient horsepower and firewire can capture directly from a DV camera in real-time. If post-processing is minimized, we could go right to burning quickly enough.

darius

[epeemike81]

Originally Posted by darius

Duel in the Desert (RIP) did a great job making their finals an Event. It might be good to take a page from them.

One of the things that allows Duel to do such a good show of the finals is that they schedule them to occur in the evening as a gala. I'd like to do this with some tournament (not sure which yet), but I think that wouldn't work with this tournament format. I think that we're now pretty good about predicting end times for the event, so we could probably schedule finals without undue hardship on the fencers involved, but we'd have to pick up everything and move to a ballroom at a local hotel or something, and I don't think that would work so well after everyone's done a solid day of fencing.

-m

[DJ Apostrophe]

In response to requests from Ashley, Brad, and Darius,

I've updated the Individual Results report and the Current Standings report to reflect club affiliation, and the Individual Results Report now has opponent's ratings as well.

I re-exported all of these reports for all the events with the exception of Women's Foil (the database for this event is on a different computer, which I don't have right now... oops).

It was a relatively easy change, with much benefit (in my eyes). So feel free to go grab the new results pages from the links on this page: http://www.prisedefer.com/Results/To...undRobin06.htm

Ask, and you shall receive.

-w

[oiuyt]

I think that once the event is over the auto-refresh feature on the page, which on both computers I've used happens to jump the page back to the top of the screen, should be turned off. No need to refresh a static page every ten seconds.

-B

[MyrddinsPrecint]

Originally Posted by oiuyt

I think that once the event is over the auto-refresh feature on the page, which on both computers I've used happens to jump the page back to the top of the screen, should be turned off. No need to refresh a static page every ten seconds.

-B

but what if the results CHANGE???


thank you Wayne!!!

[Mauler]

Apologies to all for my belated participation in the thread. It was an arduous trip back (although made considerably easier by finding a ride for most part)... Besides, I had to sort through some technical issues with my first attempt at building upon an inspiration that I had last time I reffed at PdF....

Men's Sabre Final 1st Period

Men's Sabre Final 2nd Period

While this unauthorized, private implementation (Google Video) isn't as spectacular, nor is the quality of the footage, this should give y'all an idea of what the delivery would be like to present a fencing tournament as a "Total Product." That would seem consistent with what the Team PdF continues to strive to provide. Their effort wasn't limited to the day of the event. It started months in advance with conscious effort to address as many facets of the fencing experience as possible... Including:

• Recruiting referees (they transplanted a very high profile referee from PA for this one, as well as providing in-house international-calibre referees)
• Recruiting fencers (just as important to ensure and advertise WHO will be there in order to provide a quality experience)
• Researching travel directions and providing support (detailed bus/subway/train schedule and locations, several volunteers on stand-by in case they had to pick anyone up, installing multiple "Fencing Event Here" signs for visibiilty, etc)
• Higher-end lodging for travelling staff with personal drop-offs and pick-ups
• Facility augmentation (on-strip LED display of competitors and affiliation, wall-mounted High-Definition TV display with up-to-minute results, permanent metal strips with wooden flooring, DSL connection and strip-side work station for real-time posting of results and any other relevant e-communication)
• Presentation of fencing to spectators/participants: providing a special Final strip, background music during idle moments in action (i.e. 1-min break), "wiring" the Final referees to the PA system, etc.
• Food concession stand (staffed full-time)
• Attractive and pleasing scenery for further enjoyment by customer base as well as the staff. Readily visible from the strips were lots of greenery, river and waterfall.
• AIR CONDITIONING!!!!! 3 strips that I personally refereed at, the air flow was directed right onto the referee's default position!
• Post-event hospitality at various local favorites. I particularly appreciated the opportunity to sample 112 oz of local brew before dinner.
• Tournament operations management: realistically achievable scheduling of events. Appropriate allocation of resources followed by minimal overall management (full control was left to the on-strip personnel). Made possible by proper planning, made-to-suit event system (with software written from scratch specifically to implement this system)...
• Human resources management: Individual differences in style, pace, stamina and experience of referees were recognized. Every referee was given a full control of how/when/how much they worked with a rotating team standing-by. (I particularly appreciated being accomodated for my obsessive compulsive refereeing.)
• Multi-pronged efforts to gather post-event customer feedback.

These are just a handful of things that I noticed from the gig. PdF Memorial Round Robin 2006 has definitely secured the Mauler's Stomp of Approval.

Stomp!

Originally Posted by DJ Apostrophe

Ask, and you shall receive.

Quite right, Wayne.

[sleepyweasle]

You guys did a great job! We especially liked the constant computer updating on the big screen and the names posted for the gold medal bout.

Fun was had by all and we'll definitely be back again next year!

[epeemike81]

Originally Posted by Mauler

installing multiple "Fencing Event Here" signs for visibiilty

To be fair, that particular detail is NOT unique to PdF. most New England div. events have that.

-m

[DJ Apostrophe]

I removed the auto-refresh last night... sorry about that... I meant to do that on Monday night.

-w