The BoardWalk: You say what happened??

[jjefferies]

Strange story from the Boardwalk Tournament down in Santa Cruz. The veterans epee scheduled for 11:00AM was pushed back two hours for start of pools. Then Vets DE is pushed even further back as the Open Epee Pools are inserted in between. Then the gym at UC Santa Cruz loses all power (forgot to pay the bill??) and there are only three eclipse machines available to work from 9volt batteries and the dark evening renders fencing impossible. The open epee DE's are canceled.

One salle mate tells me he was seeded #1 but only got to fence one DE before the cancellation which he allows makes him the winner. But no advancement in classification.

But how does a situation like this get resolved? Are placements awarded? Can classifications be awarded without the DE's? I understand they returned some $30 of his $65. entry fee. In such a situation what is a fair resolution?

PostScriptus: Well guess I lucked out staying home and working on the salle floor.

[wahrman]

I left after hearing how they are going to award PCS points but no classifications.

I know PCS points don't really mean anything but I don't like sliding down the points
list because of this. I started slowly in the pools, got a worse than 16 seed and
never got to fence my round of 32 DE.

So that must leave me finishing at my 28 or so seed and no points. That sucks but
what can you do?

[contre-Sixte]

What's going to be happening today - April 29th - the second day of the event? Are the facilities back in order?

[veeco]

Jonathan: The whole UCSC campus was out of power, so it wasn't just a didn't pay your bill kinda thing. They had generators, but those had to be used to power the dorms where the students live, so I guess they couldn't send any electrons towards the gym.

The delays in the vets were due to an unusually larger number of sabre fencers, a situation that has happened a few of times, at various events this season. For example, If I recall correctly, there was a Bay Cup at your club this season that ended very late, because there were more women epee fencers that predicted who entered on that day.

Perhaps it is time to oversize the venues for the number of fencers, or hold those events on separate days, with all the usual scheduling problems that this can create.

I don't know if there is anything that the organizers could have done to alleviate those problems on that day, though. IMO, it was out their hands, and so I left without asking for a refund.

Wahrman, as far as the points go, you're allowed to screw up in one event - they will remove your worst result from your final points tally. And you should do well in pools, you usually do, what happened?

[peet]

If it were me, I think I'd argue for nullifying the whole event if it's not possible to continue it at a later date. No points, no classifications, no nothing.

Would I say the same thing if it were only the gold medal bout that was not fenced? I'm not sure. It is a very interesting question. I wonder if there's anything in the rules that could be construed to actually cover this situation? Somehow I doubt it.


-p

[jjefferies]

Originally Posted by veeco

Jonathan: The whole UCSC campus was out of power, so it wasn't just a didn't pay your bill kinda thing. They had generators, but those had to be used to power the dorms where the students live, so I guess they couldn't send any electrons towards the gym.

The delays in the vets were due to an unusually larger number of sabre fencers, a situation that has happened a few of times, at various events this season. For example, If I recall correctly, there was a Bay Cup at your club this season that ended very late, because there were more women epee fencers that predicted who entered on that day.

Perhaps it is time to oversize the venues for the number of fencers, or hold those events on separate days, with all the usual scheduling problems that this can create.

Oh, I fully understand (i think) and sympathize with the organizers. Entirely beyond their control. But what I would like to get from this is a few minutes of thought toward contingency planning. If the idea of how bad it can be gets around then perhaps we'll spend just the odd thought toward how to make something like this an inconvenience instead of an event killer. Rob Rhea indicated that they continued for a while just using three battery powered eclipse scoring machines. But without lights and with evening coming on they were obviously screwed no matter what.

And if I sounded just a tad bit cavalier it wasn't intended toward the event and its organizers. Just that Rob and I've had a bit of a rivalry on about who will get their "A" first. Rob was just SOooo sure this was to be his day. Me being laid up with strained muscles in the lower back and all. I know the lad can use just a bit more seasoning and waiting till after I get mine will make it all soo much better. Especially for me.

[wahrman]

Yeah, no hard feeling towards the organisers. That had to make a hard call, quickly.
I still don't like the decision they made. I'm not going to lose sleep over it or any
thing but still.

veeco: I've been having a weird couple of months...once I relaxed, things went well.

Foil went pretty well today, despite the lack of electric light.

[evaluna]

Originally Posted by jjefferies

Strange story from the Boardwalk Tournament down in Santa Cruz. The veterans epee scheduled for 11:00AM was pushed back two hours for start of pools. Then Vets DE is pushed even further back as the Open Epee Pools are inserted in between. Then the gym at UC Santa Cruz loses all power (forgot to pay the bill??) and there are only three eclipse machines available to work from 9volt batteries and the dark evening renders fencing impossible. The open epee DE's are canceled.

PostScriptus: Well guess I lucked out staying home and working on the salle floor.

In general I felt the organizers were not very well prepared.

First of all, it's obvious the venue has outgrown the size of the event, and they did not have enough refs to run a tournament of this size.

There were 30 fencers registered for the veteran epee event, and instead of doing five pools of six fencers each (75 bouts), they opted for four pools, two with eight and two with seven (98 bouts). Supposedly they were doing this because they didn't have enough refs... so why the option with 23 more bouts?

In the women's epee event there were 17 fencers, After the pools they started DEs in a very haphazard order. The one bout in the 32 was fenced half way through the table of 16.

The parking situation has always been awful there, but this time there was some sort of anniversary event, and after being told it was okay to park in the regular lot, around noon they say we have to move by two or we will be towed.

The power situation is definitely beyond their control, but I think it's time to think about another venue. There aren't enough strips for an event this size, the parking is inconvenient, and they need a venue with more strips.

[KD5MDK]

There were 30 fencers registered for the veteran epee event, and instead of doing five pools of six fencers each (75 bouts), they opted for four pools, two with eight and two with seven (98 bouts). Supposedly they were doing this because they didn't have enough refs... so why the option with 23 more bouts?

One option takes 4 refs and one takes 5?

[edew]

The power was still out on Sunday, April 29. We managed to run everything on Eigerteks which runs on batteries. Someone brought in a gas-powered generator and that powered some of the Faveros and the lights for the evening. As far as I know, they fenced for the gold in the open foil. I took 6th in the open foil and left at around 8:30PM. Cedric Anen was fencing Eric Ching to make the gold medal round against Alex Murugin (to whom I lost in the round of 8).

I won the veteran mixed foil, defeating Schlief, Lutton and Urbain (and someone else earlier on).

[OROD]

Cedric Anen defeated Oleksii Muruhin in the final bout. I forget the score. Ended around 9pm.

It was a rather unique bout, since by then it was quite dark outside (and, mostly, inside too). The organizers set up several lights hooked up to the generators, so the strip was (somewhat) illuminated. Also, they taped flashlights to the sides of their masks to help out.

Errr... ok, I made that last part up.

.

[veeco]

Originally Posted by evaluna

In general I felt the organizers were not very well prepared.

First of all, it's obvious the venue has outgrown the size of the event, and they did not have enough refs to run a tournament of this size.

I've been telling them over and over again now: this event should just take place outside, on the beach or the boardwalk :-)

The power situation is definitely beyond their control, but I think it's time to think about another venue. There aren't enough strips for an event this size, the parking is inconvenient, and they need a venue with more strips.

I heard from Mark Hannah that next year will be sabreless.

[contre-Sixte]

Originally Posted by evaluna

In general I felt the organizers were not very well prepared.

First of all, it's obvious the venue has outgrown the size of the event, and they did not have enough refs to run a tournament of this size.

Very true. At twice the cost of a typical local event, one would expect quality refs and no self refereeing. Instead we had lots of self refereeing and about 80%/20% split on quality refs.

I don't know about the costs, but it would be great advertising for fencing if the tournament were actually held on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. Even when properly lit, the current venue is small and uninspiring.

[edew]

For those complaining of a small venue, one should realize that the Boardwalk Open has improved vastly over the years, power-outage notwithstanding. It used to be at the church on Errette Circle. Then it moved to the high school with a high-school sized basketball court. That one barely managed 6 strips. It's been at the West Field House for the past few years and it's much better, given the size.

True, the tournament size has grown considerably and perhaps SSC/UCSC should consider another larger venue. I just don't know if there are any large spaces available in Santa Cruz. Then again, I don't live there.

[edew]

I would also suggest to the organizers to require pre-registration through Askfred or whatever other means. That is, if they sign up at the door, it will be double or triple fees. The number of walk-ups almost equalled the number of pre-registered. The extra $5 or so cost and the free water bottle ain't going to presuade people to sign up earlier. You want the early sign up to be able to hire enough referees as well as perhaps set the check-in close times.

[OROD]

I didnt get no free water bottle!

.

[needle]

Fencing in the fading light was no fun. I'm pretty sure the result of my DE would have been the same, but the score would have been quite different. Last few touches I couldn't see the blade at all.

[DBGlazer]

I fenced the Vet's foil event on Sunday and thought that the organizers did a great job keeping things going, despite the loss of power. (Of course, I left long before sunset, so I don't know how things went after that!)

[seven6ty]

I'm glad I stayed in town for the Citrus open instead of going all the way up there just to find there was no power, that would've been a bummer!

[edew]

There was power, just not the type standard to such a venue.