USF - Wilson/Demarini Tournament in Tampa a case study of incompent event management.

As some of you may know my DD pitches for the Gamecocks so DW and I were at this tournament. But this is not about DD, but the tournament itself. I am sure everyone has been at tournament put on by folks that have no business putting on tournaments. Such was the case this weekend at the University of South Florida.

Although the softball was great, the staff at USF was totally clueless and incompetent. At the first game Friday morning the concession stand had no straws, no ice and only 1 person working with several other employees that were apparently supervisors doing absolutely nothing. At times the line had at least 50 people queued up waiting up to 20 minutes for a $4 bottle of water. Which of course was not an option since they searched everyone attending and confiscated any outside food or drink. I get that they want folks to buy stuff onsite, but you should staff appropriately. It was worse later in the day so I made a trip to get some subs which I tossed over the fence to DW out of site of the security folks at the gate.

The next day was even worse with Michigan and Florida playing to a standing room only crowd. Apparently the fact that this was a rematch of the 2015 National Championship game was lost on the dolts at USF. This time the concession stand line was reached from its location along the left field line to the entrance behind home plate. Well over 150 people in line to what was again a woefully understaffed facility. It was painfully obvious that those in charge of the USF facility had no idea that they had the hottest softball ticket in nation. If you are going to run a facility you should at least have some familiarity with the sport and a clue what is going on.

Since there was standing room only on Saturday, the brilliant USF staff decided to "reserve" all of the seats behind home plate on Sunday for their season ticket holders. Unfortunately the first game was at 9:00AM and USF did not play 4:30PM. So about 200 seats remained empty for 3 straight games. This of course caused another standing room only situation for the Florida versus VT game while the reserved seats for the USF faithful were empty. USF staff even evicted people in wheelchairs from handicapped seating so they could remain empty for USF season ticket holders that never did show up. They ran off grandma and her wheelchair although no other handicapped seating was available. USF finally played Florida and the USF fans had great seats for a 5 inning mud stomping by Florida. Add in their 5-6mph Radar Grandpa scoreboard and you get an idea what USF softball and Kenny is all about. I love going to see great softball but doing so at USF is the pits.

wow that sounds awful. were the teams at least treated better?

colin said:

wow that sounds awful. were the teams at least treated better?

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As far as I could tell they treated the teams just fine. The staff at USF just had no idea what they were doing. They were staffed up for what they expected for a typical AAC conference game and were way out of their league. Michigan travels extremely very well and Florida was only 2 hours up the interstate. Even SC and VT had more Fans than USF. If the USF staff had been engaged at any level they would have expected the volume and staffed accordingly.

Yikes! That sounds awful. Very bad planning.

I had a lot of interest in this tournament and it was painful trying to follow the games on the different streaming sites (one college announcer couldn't keep the players straight). I was regretting not going to the tournament all weekend until I read your post this morning. So...thanks???

You would think being in Florida they are used to early season tournaments knowing that half the country is coming south to play softball this time of year.

Also being in the south later in the season water actually becomes a safety issue you can't make people stand in 90+ degree weather for half an hour waiting for water.

The other thing I wonder about is if the concessions were professionally run? A lot of times universities use concessions as a fundraising opportunity for clubs and organizations on campus, makes a big difference if it was a college frat that just had a huge party the night before or the ROTC unit.

As for seating again as usual it takes a person with common sense which unfortunately is not as common as it should be. The lady in the wheelchair thing is interesting though, you would think if they said "ADA and lawsuit" the staff would back off.

Sorry to hear about the bad logistically experience but sounds like the softball was great which is what counts anyway right

Riseball,

Tell us what you really think!

Why did I say yes to SB? said:

I had a lot of interest in this tournament and it was painful trying to follow the games on the different streaming sites (one college announcer couldn't keep the players straight). I was regretting not going to the tournament all weekend until I read your post this morning. So...thanks???

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I wish I could have streamed Michigan vs Florida on PPV for $4.99. Would have been a good payday!

djcarter1966 said:

You would think being in Florida they are used to early season tournaments knowing that half the country is coming south to play softball this time of year.

Also being in the south later in the season water actually becomes a safety issue you can't make people stand in 90+ degree weather for half an hour waiting for water.

The other thing I wonder about is if the concessions were professionally run? A lot of times universities use concessions as a fundraising opportunity for clubs and organizations on campus, makes a big difference if it was a college frat that just had a huge party the night before or the ROTC unit.

As for seating again as usual it takes a person with common sense which unfortunately is not as common as it should be. The lady in the wheelchair thing is interesting though, you would think if they said "ADA and lawsuit" the staff would back off.

Sorry to hear about the bad logistically experience but sounds like the softball was great which is what counts anyway right

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It was professionally staffed for both security and concessions. The softball was great, just taken back that they were so clueless.

I will say my experience was ALMOST as bad at UNLV. At the concessions they served some crappy micro brewery beer, coors light and Michelob. No Bud Light!!!!! lol

Sounds like Jessica did well, congrats!