New York 2011

[personasaurus rex]

whaddupppppp road trip what's gooooooooooddd
i'm so excited!

[quizbowl]

It's also pushed back to March 30th and 31st. Cool, more time to panic.

[personasaurus rex]

more overlap with spring track... not down with that part.

[gneissisnice]

So instead of making States in an area close to most teams, they put it in Canisius College. In Buffalo.
/hello 8 hr drive

Yeah, that's very unfair. It's a looooooong drive for quite a lot of teams. I remember on this thread I joked about having it at Stony Brook, and someone got mad because Long Island is a long drive for some people, but Buffalo is an equally long drive for us Long Islanders.

[quizbowl]

And considering 8 teams from WLI, 6 from ELI and 6 from NYC, thats 20 teams, or 40% of the competing teams with 7+ hours of roadtime.

[paleonaps]

We can have it at Buffalo if next year it is at Stony Brook, just to make it inconvenient for everyone.

[zyzzyva980]

Buffalo's not that bad of a place, guys >_>

Most state competitions do require an overnight trip for the majority of its teams. Look at Texas, for example. If you're capable of winning the state competition, an overnight trip shouldn't be a problem. My team looks forward to them. Sure, it might be a small inconvenience, but at least be glad you're getting the chance to compete. You're probably going to have lots of fun on the trip, that is, if you like your team. And if you don't like your team, well, then it doesn't matter how far away the competition is- you won't have fun either way.

[paleonaps]

It is always overnight for us. But 8 hours is going to be AWFUL. My laptop has a terrible battery, and I get antsy after 3 hours on a bus. Couple that with the fact that all of my closest friends (save for one) quit makes it even worse.

[Phenylethylamine]

Buffalo's not that bad of a place, guys >_>

Most state competitions do require an overnight trip for the majority of its teams. Look at Texas, for example. If you're capable of winning the state competition, an overnight trip shouldn't be a problem. My team looks forward to them. Sure, it might be a small inconvenience, but at least be glad you're getting the chance to compete. You're probably going to have lots of fun on the trip, that is, if you like your team. And if you don't like your team, well, then it doesn't matter how far away the competition is- you won't have fun either way.

It's not an issue of how bad of a place it is, and like paleonaps said, it's an overnight trip for us even when the drive is only 2-ish hours. But an 8-hour drive is just insanely long. Even the bus ride to DC for Nationals in 2008 wasn't that long, and we left the school at 4 AM for that. We certainly look forward to and enjoy the trips, but the bus ride is by no means the highlight.

Buffalo isn't even close to being central in NY. Upstate/downstate rivalries aside, that's really far west. For a very small fraction of teams, this is much, much closer than the competition has ever been; for everyone else, it's a huge inconvenience.

[quizbowl]

Buffalo's not that bad of a place, guys >_>

Most state competitions do require an overnight trip for the majority of its teams. Look at Texas, for example. If you're capable of winning the state competition, an overnight trip shouldn't be a problem. My team looks forward to them. Sure, it might be a small inconvenience, but at least be glad you're getting the chance to compete. You're probably going to have lots of fun on the trip, that is, if you like your team. And if you don't like your team, well, then it doesn't matter how far away the competition is- you won't have fun either way.

It's not an issue of how bad of a place it is, and like paleonaps said, it's an overnight trip for us even when the drive is only 2-ish hours. But an 8-hour drive is just insanely long. Even the bus ride to DC for Nationals in 2008 wasn't that long, and we left the school at 4 AM for that. We certainly look forward to and enjoy the trips, but the bus ride is by no means the highlight.

Buffalo isn't even close to being central in NY. Upstate/downstate rivalries aside, that's really far west. For a very small fraction of teams, this is much, much closer than the competition has ever been; for everyone else, it's a huge inconvenience.

Plus, most teams will have to stay much longer than overnight: considering an 8 hour drive (plus pitstops) and to get there in time to check in for the Friday events would make some teams have to leave Thursday. Also, with the awards ending usually at 6ish, most teams wont get back until very early in the morning, or they have to stay over the night.