The website for the Rhode Island Convention Center has no links to nearby hotels. There appears to be a Westin nearby with 550 rooms, not sure what else.
It looks like the rack rate at the Westin is $216/night for mid-May of this year. By comparison, the Hyatt in Rochester is more like $160/night. That suggests that hotel rooms are going to be considerably more expensive in Providence RI than in Rochester NY.
It certainly was the perception. Even the USCF president said the office was moving to show that USCF “a national organization, not a New York organization.” The message boards at the time were full of anti-New York sentiment. We have never gotten an apology from the organization for that slur in the Annual Report.
The office then made sure to send every USCF New Yorker they could find a color picture invite to the Crossville Open House/Grand Opening to show us up. It certainly wasn’t done expecting attendance.
We’re fighting for now, though. Does demand play any role in the National Scholastic bidding process, or is it simply room cost based on the assumption we can fill the joint anywhere with an airport, combined with “ease of administration?” There doesn’t seem to be anything out in the open on these decisions.
I don’t have any involvement in the decisions as to where to place national events, though I am occasionally consulted regarding membership demographics for potential host cities.
Room rates seem to me to be an overriding consideration, along with ‘free’ meeting space. This gets complicated when dealing with separate convention center facilities, which may charge $25,000 - 50,000 a day. The convention center and the nearby hotels usually have a cooperating agreement based on room nights.
The suggestion that the room rate could be lowered with a corresponding increase in the entry fee to cover the rental of the convention center space seems to be unacceptable.
Sometimes the location depends on the Meeting Service.
How many of the New York players pay their own way to attend nationals? I am under the impression that a big factor in the attendance from NYC is financial support from non-profits. Please correct me if I’m wrong. If true, this explains why so many New Yorkers show up regardless of the location.
The vast majority of local players and teams pay much or all of their own expenses (including parents). The flights from California aren’t cheap. That might explain why there are hardly any entries from California at National JHS and National HS (12 total, 8 from a single school, and all from LA area).
Michael Aigner
On your question, I am sure that is true. While schools like Hunter and Columbia Grammar charge a fortune to attend and presumably pay their own way to Nationals, a good share are subsidized. If the money ever dried up, USCF would definitely feel the hit.
Hunter is a public school, though students have to score very high on the admissions test to get in.
How about Beautiful Rehoboth Beach, DE? Mid-Atlantic location, beaches, mile long boardwalk, many many hotels, dining…combine the nationals with your family vacation.
Have you ever been to a USCF national scholastic tournament, Bill? I have, I’ve even taken my son to one, they’re no vacation!
I don’t know that there is a facility with enough meeting space (100,000 square feet is probably needed for spring nationals), and enough affordable sleeping rooms and reasonable air transportation, since most of the participants will fly in.
Years ago we held a national scholastic in Pulaski VA. That site would probably not meet any of the above conditions today, I don’t know if Rehoboth Beach DE would be any better.
Rehoboth accommodates nearly 200k people every labor day. That’s to say nothing of the year round residents, the summer residents (probably 20times normal population), and bigger holidays like 4th of July (I couldnt find visitor numbers for the 4th.) I admit that I have no idea how many square feet the rehoboth beach convention center has, but I do know that the Bay Center, is even larger. The Philadelphia international airport is just up the road, and the smaller salisbury airport is about an hour away. A quick google search for hotels near ZIP 19971 turned up more hotels than you can shake a stick at. Tourists afford them, no reason chess players couldnt.
According to Mapquest, it is 112 miles from Philadelphia International Airport to Rehoboth Beach DE. That’s not exactly ‘just up the road’ to me.
2 hours.
If they didn’t fly the Stars and Bars in the Civil War, it’s an uphill climb for sure!
You really like to beat the same dead horse don’t you? 
Of course Delaware was a slave state and there was a succession movement there.
Ever consider that maybe folks would perfer Houston or Dallas or Orlando to NY in December for the grade level? Or that proven venues are less risky for the organization? Or that folks have told you to bid on the NYA or submit data to the office and the best you can do is say there is a convention center in Rochester? Oh, and complaikn that the staff does respond to you as promptly as you would like while they are in the middle of finalizing this year’s spring nationals?
Expensive taxi ride.
Why not have it in Philly then? The biggest open tournament in the country is there, so the usual excuses against Northeastern locations would have to be lessened. It’s a big city with a big airport and big meeting spaces. I played in a National Scholastic there in high school, so I know it’s possible.
I do think USCF has an interest in holding their major events in different parts of the country. Otherwise, just anchor them all in Texas and forget about it.
As for the office not responding, they have excuses all year. What they won’t tell you is how they award the events. You can’t directly bid on them.
Philly would be a better alternative than a 2 hour drive into Delaware. And there would be plenty of other things to do for families.
It’s hard to think of a significant metropolitan area in the United States with more scholastic kids in a four-hour radius than Philadelphia.
“and there would be plenty of other things to do for families”
If that’s the case,then please ask all those people coming down here from philly to please stay at home this summer.
Philly is a great city and would be a great place for a National. Not that our National Office staff is going to jump on it.