Good News for Skating !!

[loveskating]

This article describes how the US Nationals were good for the local economy, hotels in particular.

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/business/story.asp?ID=176330

Skating competitions are very demanding -- one must take a week or so off to attend -- so it would be good if there were "vehicles"for people to attend -- why not set up travel packages and market to retired people? I mean, seriously, only retired people and people on welfare or disability are not at work these days!

They do this from Canada and the US for Worlds -- combined travel and seeing the competitions tour packages.

Why not internally? Course, USFSA will have to pay some attention to the attractions of a city for this to be successful

I think a lot of people would love to go, but they have not got a clue how to do it.

Also, arenas need to provide MUCH healhier food for skating competition -- when we went to Atlantic City for one day, the food in the Arena was horrible, and you had to stand in line for Atlantic City venues, which are mostly preticketed or in packages anyway!

[Debbie S]

Skating competitions are very demanding -- one must take a week or so off to attend -- so it would be good if there were "vehicles"for people to attend -- why not set up travel packages and market to retired people? I mean, seriously, only retired people and people on welfare or disability are not at work these days!

They do this from Canada and the US for Worlds -- combined travel and seeing the competitions tour packages.Uh, tour companies do this for Nationals, too. Every major skating tour company offers a package for Nats each year. I've known people who have gone with tour groups, although I never have when I've gone to Nats. To me, it's easier (and cheaper) to make arrangements myself since there is spectator bus transportation between venues (for the cities where everything is not within walking distance of each other) and it is easy to buy tix and make hotel reservations and sightsee on my own. If I were going to a foreign country, for Worlds or a GP event, I'd probably find it worthwhile to pay the premium for a tour company to make all the arrangements.

I suspect the reason why more people don't go to Nats is money - it gets very expensive. Many retirees don't have that kind of money, although the ones that do and are skating fans I'm sure go as often as they are able. If the USFSA wants to attract more people to Nats, then I'd say the first step would be to lower all-event ticket prices. But I wouldn't bet on that happening any time soon.

[Mel On Ice]

Best advice I can give to going to Nationals on a tight budget is hope you have a friend willing to share hospitality and the pullout couch;

Volunteer, so you are close to the action and earn free tickets and souvenirs (STL we got free pins, vests, exhibition tickets and two tickets to the events of our choice);

Buy tickets for only the events you really want, like the champ finals. Volunteer passes got me into most venues in Cleveland and St. Louis for the novice and junior events, as well as some of the champ events without flashing my all-event tickets;

Be willing to leave the venue for a real meal instead of grazing on expensive concession food all week long. Even now, with baseball season approaching I am part dreading/part anticipating the steady stream of hot dogs I will resist and ultimately consume.

[Isk8NYC]

Volunteer, so you are close to the action and earn free tickets and souvenirs (STL we got free pins, vests, exhibition tickets and two tickets to the events of our choice); What tasks would a volunteer be asked to perform? How many hours would you need to contribute? I've volunteered for some local shows and competitions where I barely got to see my own kids skate because volunteers were in such short supply. As a result, few people wanted to volunteer the following year. It's a catch-22... (I still volunteer because I'm a sucker, but I often don't sign my kids up for the event.)

Here's a question from my kids: how do the sweepers get selected? I haven't seen any forms for that job so I assume the kids are members of a local skating club. The skater (parents) probably buys the "uniform" the sweepers wear to pick up the flowers and gifts off the ice, correct?

[icedancer2]

What tasks would a volunteer be asked to perform? How many hours would you need to contribute? I've volunteered for some local shows and competitions where I barely got to see my own kids skate because volunteers were in such short supply. As a result, few people wanted to volunteer the following year. It's a catch-22... (I still volunteer because I'm a sucker, but I often don't sign my kids up for the event.)

There are tons of jobs available, like ice monitor, security, hospitality rooms, equipment haulers, transportation monitors, volunteer coordinators, hostess at parties, ice crew (they fill the holes before the zam goes out), music coordinators, practice announcer - some jobs are right at ice level (ice monitor seems to be a prime one) -- when Nationals were in Portland I think we had to commit to 4-6 6 hour shifts in order to be a volunteer (this would be in the 10 day period that is Nationals- the volunteer shifts would start as early as the Friday the week before what we think of as actually "Nationals" as this is when the Novice skaters start arriving, with practices starting the next day, Saturday, so you could actually do a lot of your volunteering before the event actually began) They would assign you and there was a "team captain" kind of person that you would report to each time you went to work a shift.

I got to see a lot of skating because the main volunteer coordinator knew I wanted to go to dance events and so although my job was not at ice-level, she scheduled me so that my free time was available for watching dance events. I split a very cheap (upper-level) all-event ticket with a friend and about a week before the event we sat down and figured out which events we wanted to go to and which ones fit in with our volunteer schedule and we divided up the all-event tickets so that we would have the tickets to get into the events. I don't remember what we did about practice passes... but I did go to some practices so I must have had a pass.

I don't think either of us ever ended up sitting in that upper-level seat, though, because something always worked out that we could sit closer - like one friend who bought front-row all-event tickets for she and her husband, but they didn't want to see any dance events, so they let us sit in her seats for those, and another friend who bought two all-event 3rd-row tickets but had to be out of town for the event and so gave them to my friend (yup, she was rich!) and so we were lucky I guess. Things just kind of worked out. There was an ice-storm on the last day and nobody cared if you had a ticket or not - they wanted everyone from the upper-level seats to move down to empty lower-level seats because so many people couldn't make it in because of the storm so that it would look full for television I guess.

It was a total blast - I took the whole week off from work so that it could happen -- Nationals is really incredible with all of the events, Novice, Junior and Senior, and with the four disciplines I think a lot of people don't realize how much skating there is!!

And afterwards - total exhaustion!

a question from my kids: how do the sweepers get selected? I haven't seen any forms for that job so I assume the kids are members of a local skating club. The skater (parents) probably buys the "uniform" the sweepers wear to pick up the flowers and gifts off the ice, correct?

There are sweeper tryouts- and yes, it is only the local club members that get to participate. In Portland the skaters had to have at least, I believe pre-Juvenile or maybe Preliminary Moves and a good attitude. There were a couple of adults and older teenagers that got to be presenters. I'm not sure if they had to buy their uniform or not, but the presenters had really nice ones as I recall.

[Isk8NYC]

Are the Presenters the kids who give the skater a bouquet or toy before they leave for the kiss-and-cry area?

[icedancer2]

Are the Presenters the kids who give the skater a bouquet or toy before they leave for the kiss-and-cry area?

No, I think those are basically sweepers with certain other jobs - a presenter is a person whose job it is to place the medals around the necks of the skaters who make the podium and then there is probably another group who hands out the flowers. I don't think I've ever seen these people much on TV as it happens at the end of the competition at the medal ceremonies.

[Mel On Ice]

at Nationals in 2000, I was an ice-patcher at Winterhurst and literally stood next to Michael Weiss as I patched his quad lutz holes. I did 20 volunteer hours.

Adult Nationals in 05 I was an ice monitor and worked the championships dance and champ ladies events. I did about 10 hours.

Nationals in 06 I worked the skaters check in at the Family Arena, for the novice events and practice ice. I clocked in 20 hours that week, but because my club was one of the co-hosts, I actually put in close to 75 in advanced publicity and serving on the board of the interclub association.

Synchro Nationals in 06, I put in close to 50 hours of volunteer time. I announced practice ices at the arena and host club (my "other" home club hosted, a rarity!), sewed the neck ribbons for medals that were defective, was on skate guard duty (carrying buckets from one end of the rink to the other), and was a presenter of medals for the adult, masters adult, junior and novice awards with my friend Kristin and Danielle Hartsell-Minnis.

It really depends on what you want to do. For AN and synchro, all I had to do is say I would do it and it was assigned. For Nationals, I had to have a background check and submit applications.

[loveskating]

Uh, tour companies do this for Nationals, too. Every major skating tour company offers a package for Nats each year. I've known people who have gone with tour groups, although I never have when I've gone to Nats. To me, it's easier (and cheaper) to make arrangements myself since there is spectator bus transportation between venues (for the cities where everything is not within walking distance of each other) and it is easy to buy tix and make hotel reservations and sightsee on my own. If I were going to a foreign country, for Worlds or a GP event, I'd probably find it worthwhile to pay the premium for a tour company to make all the arrangements.

I suspect the reason why more people don't go to Nats is money - it gets very expensive. Many retirees don't have that kind of money, although the ones that do and are skating fans I'm sure go as often as they are able. If the USFSA wants to attract more people to Nats, then I'd say the first step would be to lower all-event ticket prices. But I wouldn't bet on that happening any time soon.

Uh, that only proves my point -- and I mean the other way around. I mean that travel agents should notify people` Because people do not know about this . I work for a large firm, there are lots of older women who work part time, and they travel, and their friends travel. They don't know about this. They might only do it once, frankly but it would add up.

There has to be a great city with other attractions, and they cannot and willl not sit for 11 hours at the rink.

[Debbie S]

I work for a large firm, there are lots of older women who work part time, and they travel, and their friends travel. They don't know about this. They might only do it once, frankly but it would add up.

There has to be a great city with other attractions, and they cannot and willl not sit for 11 hours at the rink.Well, if said older women aren't skating fans, they probably wouldn't be interested in going to Nats. Just b/c someone travels a lot doesn't mean they would want to go somewhere and watch skating. The sightseeing excursions that skating tour companies arrange do cater to the people that only want to attend events in the evening (which is why a tour group would be a waste of money for me, b/c I would probably not do most of the sightseeing stuff and instead go to practices). However, most who attend Nats do spend lots of hours at the rinks each day - if you hate sitting in rinks, Nats is not the event for you.

It's up to the skating tour companies to market themselves to travel agencies, not the USFSA (although travel agencies are basically going the way of the dinosaurs at this point). The USFSA is a non-profit and is for obvious reasons not in the business of doing PR and marketing for tour companies. Now, I do think it's been the case with several Nats and World comps (based on what I read and heard at the time) that the LOC could have done a better job of promoting the event to the local market from the time the bid was awarded and not just 3 months before the event when single-event tix went on sale - I think Spokane was able to do that, and they reaped the benefits in ticket sales.

I think it still comes down to costs, esp for families with kids who skate. They are the most captive audience for Nats and other large events, but with the money it costs to skate, they can't afford the expense of a trip to a week-long comp.

[Figureskates]

Volunteering at skating events are a lot of fun.

I was ice monitor at the Boston 2001 nationals.

The remainder of my volunteering for skating events has been at Lake Placid which has included 2 Adult Nationals, Synchro Nationals in 2002. Junior Nationals, Sectionals, easterns and the Lake Placid Freeskate held each summer. i will be in Placid next April for the Adult Nationals.

At home, I have been the curtain man for the local ice show that our rink puts on every year for the past five years.