Re: 2003 NAQT ICT to be held in Los Angeles

• From: rhentzel <no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com>
• Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2002 06:23:03 -0000
• Message-ID: <ao5qo7+eoip_at_...>

--- In quizbowl_at_y..., suds1000 <no_reply_at_y...> wrote:
> Jason:
[sni]
> Flights out of Indianapolis or Midway would cost (as a 
> friend of mine has just informed me) about $500 roundtrip for each 
of 
> our players.
[snip]
> 2100 bucks.  I don't know about your program, but we 
> certainly don't have that kind of cash sitting around.

Sudheer --

I think that you'll be able to do better than that; I'm looking at 
the website of Southwest Airlines right now (http://www.iflyswa.com), 
at the fares from Midway to LAX.  There is a roundtrip fare of $178 
available (albeit with a tax of up to $28 listed in the details) 
which would get your team of four to LAX for $824.  You'll probably 
need $200 for one room for two nights for a total of $1,024.
 
> I'll definitely grant you that West Coast teams probably have had 
it 
> worse than most of the Midwest and East teams in terms of 
traveling, 
> and yes, that sucks, but I'll just say this:  I think that NAQT 
would 
> probably make more money if they had the ICT somewhere in the 
Midwest 
> or in the East, because teams from those areas (who make up the 
> majority of College Bowl teams in the nation, mind you) would be 
more 
> likely to come if they've qualified.

Well, that may be true, but to be honest, if making money were the 
most important thing to NAQT, we'd be doing a lot of things 
differently.  Heck, most of us probably wouldn't be doing NAQT at 
all.  :-)

What's *really*, *truly* important to us is running a quality ICT (or 
HS NCT) and knowing that people had fun, learned things, thought the 
tournament was fairly decided, and leave thinking that they got their 
money's worth.  UCLA and Caltech showed us with their bid (and their 
clubs' history) that they could help us run a great event and that is 
why they were chosen.
 
> Last year, we drove 14 hours to get to UNC to play in the ICT, and 
we 
> thought that was a pretty long drive, relatively speaking.  
According 
> to Mapquest, driving to LA would be about 33 hours, not to mention 
> those tiny hills called the Rockies.

NAQT still has tournament sets available for use in Illinois for high 
school and/or college events; running one or two tournaments could 
probably make you all the money that you need to attend the ICT.

-- R. Robert Hentzel
President and Chief Technical Officer,
National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC