Interesting post on Facebook Group about Stay to Play

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Aug 1, 2019
962
93
MN
I agree that STP is a hard pill to swallow but I also agree that if you're looking to compete against the highest levels those are the tournaments you'll be signing up for because "everyone else will be there". How can a competing tournament get a foot in the door and draw these top teams? Undercutting on price won't do it by itself. It seems the the big tourneys would have to screw it up themselves by providing a bad tournament experience to lose customers.
 
Aug 1, 2019
962
93
MN
Several times I and other team families would book our own hotel because we just didn't have the same budget or tolerance for what we were paying vs. what we were getting. Summer tourist areas were ridiculous, paying $200 per night for something that made Motel 6 look luxurious. I tried to stay away from Super 8. They were usually wood frame structures and the people above me always seemed to be rehearsing for Stomp! in cowboy boots. It's like rooming inside a drum.
 
Feb 6, 2017
38
6
I am going to highlight the above again.

If you don't like it; don't play. Take your $$$ elsewhere. There are LOTS of options out there.

If you REALLY don't like it; then start your own tournament or tournament series.


Or bring sanction XXX and provide yourself and other teams the service you want. That is generally what happens. Someone cares enough to actually do something about it beyond making various whining noises.

I am looking at our schedule for the last few seasons. We got value for money from several tournaments - we go back to those and drop those that didn't. Stay-and-play is considered - but hey, if we are getting value, then what they are charging is worth it. If not - well we just go somewhere else.

Exactly. Nobody is forcing anyone to play in a STP tourney. If you don’t like it, don’t play in it. Pretty simple.

I used to run our team’s travel. Every tourney was out of town and every tourney at STP. We would set our summer schedule in December. In Jan, I would start making reservations. Saw what was available, made reservations, told the parents, done. Because I didn’t it early, I never had a problem with location, getting a Hilton brand (which our parents wanted), etc. It took a little bit of planning in my end and not waiting until the last second. Never had a problem. And if the tourney was rained out, we just canceled.

Conversely,when I have booked privately, I have to wait for the group reservation manager to call me back, I have to fill out a bunch of paperwork, sometimes put my card down to hold the rooms. And one time, we had rooms Fri - Sun. Due to it raining all week, and forecasted rain continuing through the weekend, the tournament cancelled on Thursday afternoon. Well, the hotel had a 48 hr cancellation policy and we got hit with that Fri night stay. Only after a bunch of calls with management, owners and social media posts did they relent. With our STP, we just would have cancelled.

I’ve found that if you wait until the last second, STP sucks to book. But if you plan and do it early, no problem.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
May 29, 2015
3,731
113
BTW, Do you work Peoria? Be there in July. Hopefully.
Ever work Storm Dayz in Sycamore?

I'm actually from the Peoria area originally, but that was back when the farthest thing west was Willow Knolls (the shopping center where Sam's Club is). The rest of that was corn fields.

I worked up there one year when I went down with an injury/health issue and it was the last tournament I worked. Their UIC called me the rest of the season, but I literally could not work (not even my day job). They got a new UIC the next year though, and I had been trying to get back on their list. They have an adequate supply of umpires in that area, so I never made it back on their roster.

Beautiful complex and amenities from what I have seen and heard. Don't know how their fan service is though. When I was there, they had just poured the concrete for the indoor facilities and hadn't opened the umpire locker rooms yet. That's how long ago it was.

I would have liked to start working different places over the summer and was working towards that, but work circumstances had me trying to stay close to home the last couple of years. I thought maybe this summer it would work out to do some travelling ... we all know how that is working. Since I am leaving Illinois shortly, looks like that won't happen in the future either.
 

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