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UBC Comp Review
- Thread starter Kartik
- Start date
I understand Cornell had a rough time at the comp - for that I send my condolences and wish you the best for future comps and hopefully you won't personally go through an experience like this again..
I had a great time at the competition, I felt like for a first year competition and with an organization that was committed to learning from their mistakes these guys will all be absolutely fine - and I encourage people to listen to EVERYONE'S views of the competition. I feel like after reading some of the previous posts - that I went to some circus or something - this is FALSE.
Yes the competition did have some disorganization - but if the sound guy is a douche-bag and shows up ridiculously late with no excuses and no one from the organization can find where he is - it's hard to blame ALL of that on the organization itself - i know they were pretty ticked about rehearsals being kind of rough -and b/c of that the show was rushed in a way.
Either way though the competition was alot of fun - after party venue was NICEEEE...mixer was short but also awesome b/c it was in the hotel
Musical chairs were excellent -although im still a little bit ticked I was the 5th one out :/ lol
Grade for the competition: B- to B
Some improvements for next year:
1) try to have more reliable liasons for some of the teams - i understand some of them had a hard time
2) work on a smoother show and rehearsal - this is VERY KEY for teams b/c this is the reason they are traveling to competitions - to compete!
Judging in my opinion was PERFECT
I thought it was extremely close with DCBC and NYPD but I knew they were going to be 1 and 2, along with Wolverine who put on tremendous performances! Judges gave excellent and honest feedback which reallyyy helps out teams to improve for the future
To all those who were absent from this competition and only "heard" stuff should stfu b/c you did not witness a single thing this weekend...to all of you who were here I hope you guys had a fun time!
Kuljeet, Jessica, Aman, and Jaspreet K Badesha were fantasticcccccc - i know they all worked really hard to put on a good show and it wasn't easy dealing with some idiots before the competition even began
I had a great time at the competition, I felt like for a first year competition and with an organization that was committed to learning from their mistakes these guys will all be absolutely fine - and I encourage people to listen to EVERYONE'S views of the competition. I feel like after reading some of the previous posts - that I went to some circus or something - this is FALSE.
Yes the competition did have some disorganization - but if the sound guy is a douche-bag and shows up ridiculously late with no excuses and no one from the organization can find where he is - it's hard to blame ALL of that on the organization itself - i know they were pretty ticked about rehearsals being kind of rough -and b/c of that the show was rushed in a way.
Either way though the competition was alot of fun - after party venue was NICEEEE...mixer was short but also awesome b/c it was in the hotel
Musical chairs were excellent -although im still a little bit ticked I was the 5th one out :/ lol
Grade for the competition: B- to B
Some improvements for next year:
1) try to have more reliable liasons for some of the teams - i understand some of them had a hard time
2) work on a smoother show and rehearsal - this is VERY KEY for teams b/c this is the reason they are traveling to competitions - to compete!
Judging in my opinion was PERFECT
I thought it was extremely close with DCBC and NYPD but I knew they were going to be 1 and 2, along with Wolverine who put on tremendous performances! Judges gave excellent and honest feedback which reallyyy helps out teams to improve for the future
To all those who were absent from this competition and only "heard" stuff should stfu b/c you did not witness a single thing this weekend...to all of you who were here I hope you guys had a fun time!
Kuljeet, Jessica, Aman, and Jaspreet K Badesha were fantasticcccccc - i know they all worked really hard to put on a good show and it wasn't easy dealing with some idiots before the competition even began
Ravi M. said:
I agree totally with the above statement. I tried my best to work with the information and communication that was provided. But once again there was a lot of confusion and disorganization which did not allow us to follow through with our liaison duties.
masterscorpiorv
New Member
- Messages
- 277
whoa whoa whoa...HKGrewal said:
I think my prior post could have been misinterpreted by many due to my use of /'s (slashes) instead of actual words because I was in a rush at work...
i did not mean that the head organizers were at fault for miscommunicating w. the liasons, I meant that the miscommunication between the VENUE and the head organizers, and the LIGHTING TEAM and the organizers, made it difficult for the head organizers to handle certain situations or convey proper info to us....they did the best they could given the restrictions the VENUE and LIGHTING TEAM had placed on them...
my criticism is primarily on
1) the liasons who signed up and never showed...be a better character -- idk who you are, cause I never saw/met you, i was just told you didnt show... but if you sign up for something, your signing up your character along with it...by not showing your letting organizers, liasons, teams, and people down everywhere...
It was cause of THEM that the committee/staff was understaffed...and cause of them that Achint, Jessica, Aman, Kuljeet, Manjeet, and and whoever else was there (who's names I dont know) had to do alot
2) VENUE staff/LIGHTING Staff going against w.e agreements they had w/ the head organizers
As for who is at fault for anything else I cannot comment cause I wasn't in 120480 places at once, and don't know all 120489 sides of the story...
Either way....ALLL of this is getting taken way out of proportion/being blown up way too much -- its wednesday people its been almost a full week...
go work, to class, or listen to some bhangra and call it a day...
P.S everything said is my opinion, not any of the teams im on, not any of the committees i've been on, etc...
it seems like its necessary to say that ^^^ w. every post now, or someone will feel the need to shit on you completely lol
I just want rajkaran from columbia to post "with a friendly brruah" to make it all better
DCBC
Active Member
- Messages
- 72
The UBC competition thread has been beaten up and thoroughly commented on, but our team still felt that we'd like to give our input/feedback on UBC especially if the organizers were interested in hearing a few of our suggestions and also since our team was referenced a few times in their response. Furthermore, we hope our input can be taken constructively by the UBC organizers as well as other competition organizers who plan to put on an event of this scale in the near future.
First of all, thank you so much to Jessica and Manjeet, who both went out of their way to help our team throughout the weekend with everything we needed. Both of you were great! Overall, there seemed to be a lack of communication between the organizers and liaisons and at times our liaisons were kind of lost or MIA. However, in the end – shout out to Kanwar and Perry for being nice guys and pulling through in the end as liaisons.
There were many fundamental issues with the organization of this competition but definitely some good points/aspects:
- Organizers and Staff – Many of the main organizers and staff members were unaware, rude, or unresponsive to our team. However, there were some who did go above and beyond to help even when they didn't have to. If you are running a competition, the number one rule is to do your best to make sure logistically everything is worked out and that the teams are taken care of and informed at all times.
- Mixer – food was not that good and many of our dancers got sick post-mixer. The mixer didn’t start on time, DJ was not that great, but the musical chair game was fun. Judges meeting was good and all the team captains were given the opportunity to collectively speak and ask them questions. We thought we would get a physical copy of our rehearsal times, where to be, etc. but it was all communicated via word of mouth which made information unclear. It would have been nice to have a hard copy of all the places and times we needed to be.
- Practice Time at Night – First few minutes of our rehearsal time was fine. When we began our second run through, however, we couldn’t hear our music anymore because the organizers decided to give one of the live teams a chance to practice during our time slot in the “room” next to us. The practice times were based on the line up so no other team should’ve been practicing at the same time as another team. Our team captain went 5 times to the organizer to ask him to please tell them to stop just until we finished our practice time so we could hear our music and practice properly. The organizer, Kuljeet, repeatedly refused to respond or listen even after our captain went so many times to ask him to please control the situation.
When she got upset and talked to another organizer, she explained that we have spent our entire second run through with the dhol in the background, and they gave us 7 minutes AFTER the live team finished as a compromise- perfectly fair; however, the live team didn’t stop and our captain went out AGAIN and the male organizer ignored her, said our team had only 5 minutes and we had to use it while the live team was playing even though he could barely hear her over the sound of the dhol… imagine how hard it was to hear our own music. We ended up leaving because there was no point in practicing when we couldn’t hear our music.
After we walked out, our team captain approached the organizer to speak with him privately about what had just happened. The organizer refused to listen, walked away, and would not talk to her. She told him that although we appreciate the practice space, he was being inconsiderate and the rest of the music teams should not have to experience what our team did. In the midst of this conversation, the organizer began texting, calling someone, started talking to other team members around him, was telling another team that they could have extra time if they wanted, and just said yeah yeah yeah and dismissed her. Our captain then went to another organizer who was very nice but tried to tell us that we should excuse his rudeness because he was so “stressed” and they could give us extra time post 1:30am if we wanted. Thank you to the other organizer for trying to work with us! Organizing a competition is tough and stressful– no doubt. Teams are not at fault though if your committee’s stress becomes the stress of the teams themselves. The first organizer who was apparently a main organizer should learn how to address people and take the time to at least listen even if you don’t agree or want to hear a team out.
Lastly, a member from Virsa Folksters walked into our rehearsal and the organizers did not stop him or take him out until our captain told him to leave.
- Rehearsal – transported on time to the rehearsal but when we reached we found out rehearsals were delayed. Multiple organizers and liaisons told us different things and no information was consistent. We were told we were going in for tech time in 45 minutes from one person, 2 hours from another, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, or 1 hour, etc. No one including the organizers could give any of the teams an answer as to when their rehearsal was. The rehearsals were running almost 3 hours late.
During our rehearsal, the organizers did not tell us exactly when time started. When we finished our first run through and had 4 minutes left, one of the organizers laughed and asked if we wanted it still. Also when we asked them to cue our mix it started playing about 10-15 seconds into the mix. Not a big problem, but it would’ve been nice for it to start from the beginning.
Post rehearsal a team member of ours was in severe leg pain/shin splints/muscle spasms to the point that she was crying. We asked our liaisons who finally came, organizers, other liaisons, and other staff members for ice and bananas which we didn’t get until almost 2 hours later as multiple staff members passed her and our teammates trying to help her in the main hall area crying in pain. It would've been nice to have a quicker response especially when dealing with an injured dancer. We've noticed that many competitions don't have ice readily available for dancers which may be something competitions should invest in the day of the show just in case.
While getting ready for the show, the organizers kept asking us if we would give up our room for Sher Foundation to get ready in – this is when they saw that most of the team was not even ready… and we were the only all girls team and had a small dressing room to ourselves - but the dressing room to ourselves regardless was very nice and needed for all of us girls!
- Food – breakfast was bagels and juice given to us in the morning which was nice. Lunch didn’t come until post 4pm. Dinner was pizza given to teams when they returned after the show which was good! They also supplied plenty of water throughout the weekend which was really nice.
- Afterparty - venue was fine but far. The shuttles were taking over 30-45 minutes to transport and come back. Would’ve been nice if the place was in the hotel or closer but it was still a nice place when we got there.
- Judges meeting – Our captain and coach went for the judges meeting within 10 minutes of arriving from the venue, waited about 45 minutes to get into the judges meeting sitting with 4 other teams who were made to come upstairs and just wait while no committee members were present to time or shuffle teams through. Judges meetings were not 5 minutes long as the committee said they were going to be, and they were not timed until randomly a committee member came up and decided to start timing the meetings. We were given less time with the judges as a result. Our captain along with a few team members were also late to the after party because of this and arrived with about 45 minutes left at the after party.
- Judges – Informative both before and after the competition. Thoughtful and gave good feedback and criticism for our team to use in the future. Each judge knew what they were talking about, were pretty detailed in their short comments to us, and genuinely paid attention to our performance and answered any questions we had.
Many of us on DCBC have been on other teams in the past, been competition organizers or staff members ourselves, or have been to enough competitions to be somewhat familiar with how a competition should run. Needless to say we were extremely disappointed with the organization of UBC. We hope that our review and the reviews from other teams are taken constructively by the UBC organizers and as a lesson to other organizers of how to prevent things from going wrong, and know what not to do when organizing a competition.
UBC Organizers:
1. If you are understaffed, at least communicate with the staff you do have.
2. INFORM your liaisons – we can’t even blame our liaison or others for being MIA or ill-informed because at times they were just not given the information they needed
3. Please get a watch or timer – practice space time, rehearsals, judges meetings, etc. everything could’ve run smoothly if someone was there with a watch timing things properly.
Cornell – so sorry to hear about your team member, we really hope he is doing better now! Some teams had a great time while others did not – we tried to make the best of the situation and appreciate the committee members who truly did go out of their way for our team. Thank you once again!
Great time chilling with all the teams and we had a great time performing – thanks to everyone for all the support!