Uhhh.... Unicon?

[Nurse Ben]

Yes I did. For my main event, flatland, I spent quite a few hours working on the location. I also spent all of Friday judging the men's competition. My mom came with me and she also volunteered, spending several days working on various events (mostly muni, I think).

Good for you! That's exactly what I'm talking about. When my teens get involved in activities, my wife and I jump in to help. I don't think a volunteer requirement will scare away anyone, like you said, you helped out anyhow, and besides, the NAUCC is "the only game in town/country".

What irks me is that, in terms of competitions, I went to unicon for flatland. And the venue was free, the judges were volunteers, as far as I can tell there was no money spent on flatland. But all of the competitors still payed 160+ Euros. Apparantly all of the money (and most of the time) was spent on muni/distance/freestyle ect ect ect. At a bare minimum, I expected a suitable location to be provided beforehand, which was provided for every other event.

It's hard to quantify costs, even simple things such as printing flyers, artwork for shirts, travel, rentals, space rent, etc... all add up quickly. Like many have already said, no one makes money on these events; some folks probably spent money and didn't get reimbursed.

It's a big event for a local riding group to sponsor, their resources and time don't just suddently increase; in other words the organizers have to work around their work and school. I live in a metro area of > 500,000 people, and there are ~one dozen unicycle riders in the area. In contrast, there are hundreds of mountain bikers and road bikers, so many that they can support race series, tours, and multiple group rides each week.

Maybe the overall organizers will be able to delegate individual events, so then there's a single point of contact for flatland, muni, marathon, etc...

When organizing events I find that "warm bodies" are scarce in advance of the events, esp when you are asking folks to do more than just show up; even then, folks still no show.

Is it possible that some events received less resources/emphasis due to the average age of the competitors in the events? Youth generally don't have the resources of their adult counterparts, so maybe the events that attracted older participants also attracted more resources...

It's a shame that unicycling can't attract more sponsorship.

[unicycledood]

For those of you that are wanting the Unicon organizers to open their financial books publicly, keep dreaming, thats not going to happen. Wheres my money? In their f***ing pockets. You know there are strong rumours that the freestyle hall and track grounds were free, hmm?

Screw the unicon organizers, seriously, I give credit when credit is due and they don't deserve any of it. If it weren't for the riders, the street and flat riders, there would have been no street or flat competition... How shit is that? We had to do everything... To the Brixen/Bressanone unicycle club, over my dead body will unicon be held by your group ever again. They even said to event organizers "we don't care about flatland and wouldn't care if there was no competition".

They didn't even provide the street and flat riders a place to practice through out unicon. Just imagine if it had of rained all of unicon, we would have all just been practising in the rain. Well done.

"If it rains, the street competition will be held in the icehall"

Bullshit, they wouldn't even let us build obstacles in the icehall, if they were so prepared to move everything into the icehall in the event of rain, where was their crew on stand by? There was none.

Unicon was amazing, but not because of the events or the organizers, but because of the riders and all things unofficial.

Two thumbs down. Good job.
No credit, what so ever.

Originally Posted by sarah.miller

way back in the year 2000 , Unicon was in China. China did not have a tradition of unicycle hockey, the hockey tournamnet could not start untill the hockey players had nagged the organisers into buying some lumber, screws & debris net and then built a set of goals......


its only 12 years ago, then the trials comp took place in about 6 parking bays with 6 pallets and a few skinnyies. Flat & street did not feature at Unicon at all.

In the Unicon programme, the website, and all forms of its media, it states quite clearly what a flatland and street competition should be. No delivery. They just saw the skatepark in Brixen and the icehall and said, "DONE!" they didn't even think to test it or ask the opinion of actual street and flat riders.

And sure I sound cranky, I haven't slept in days because I caught the unicon flu, thanks Elias Poham

[Panda]

Originally Posted by unicycledood

fury

The funny thing is, it's all true. But the organizers' defense will be something like "ooooh if you think you can do it better do it yourselves," or something like that. "If you didn't like it we won't do it again in the future."

Pfffttt

[tholub]

Originally Posted by unigoat

Part of the issue that occurs with unicycling is that the budget often requires concessions in ideals. The word budget applies to not only money, but time as well. At the NAUCC level, the local hosting club gets a lot on their plate in terms of making ends meet (I'm sure UNICON does too, but I can't speak from that experience). It can be tricky for smaller clubs in new locations to get the infrastructure of venues on board.

My view, after helping run U Games and attending a couple of UNICONS and other NAUCCs, is that we have a pretty major structural problem. The idea that the local club should take on all the financial risk, and run the event, is frankly insane. We're lucky we haven't had anyone take a huge bath financially, and there's no way we'll ever have quality and consistency in how events are run when it has to be reinvented every time, by people with different levels of interest in the different disciplines. IUF and USA need to take a more active role in running the event, contributing actual paid staff. Or, we need to bail on the idea of an enormous, all-inclusive unicycle event and connect with other organizations for our competitions. Flatland would fit a lot better at a BMX event than at UNICON, and MUni would do better at a mountain bike gathering.

[GizmoDuck]

Originally Posted by tholub

We're lucky we haven't had anyone take a huge bath financially, and there's no way we'll ever have quality and consistency in how events are run when it has to be reinvented every time, by people with different levels of interest in the different disciplines.

It can quite easily run over budget. For UNICON XV, if it weren't for a couple of large sponsors we would have been tens of thousands under, and it wasn't until a few months before hand that we knew we had enough numbers to make it work. There were still large bills coming in months afterward. And yes, certain individuals would have had to underwrite UNICON if it ran at a loss.

On the other hand, I don't think the IUF should be called in to bail out a UNICON (it doesn't have enough funds to do so anyway)...after all, each Unicon brings millions into the local community- it should be bid for and run like any major sporting event.

Originally Posted by tholub

IUF and USA need to take a more active role in running the event, contributing actual paid staff.

I agree with that totally- perhaps there should be a UNICON committee on the IUF specifically to deal with organising UNICON. And it would ideally have past organisers and event directors who have specific skills in each event. That way you don't reinvent the wheel every time. In terms of paid IUF staff, it was difficult enough charging 10 euros for 2yr IUF membership- the money would barely cover liability insurance for the IUF...let alone staff. The staff at UNICON are paid by the organisers, not the IUF.

Originally Posted by unicycledood

Wheres my money? In their f***ing pockets.

That's a bit harsh.

How much did those medals and trophy cost? Programme book? Website? Online Registration (take 2-3% off for paypal fees and a bit more for accountants)? Opening ceremony? Closing ceremony dinner? Insurance? Ambulance/First Aid? Publicity? T-shirts? Gym? Even if you didn't use it 2000 unicyclists can't just turn up and meet in the carpark.

200 Euros- and how much was an airfare from New Zealand? Most one day cycling events in NZ cost up to $100, with none of the complexity of a 12 day UNICON.

[unicycledood]

The ambulance and first-aid were on lunch breaks half the time and not even around some days it seemed, makes me think maybe they weren't being paid aswell?

I wonder how much money they got for the advertising in their programmes too, or maybe it was some kind of deal to get something from your list of expenditures for free.

We can't have Unicon fall apart. Flatland better at a bmx competition... possibly. But it would be the saddest thing to lose Unicon. We just need for the organizers to consult with one experienced rider for each event when planning the competitions, for advice and confirmation that the location is suitable.

[tholub]

Originally Posted by GizmoDuck

It can quite easily run over budget. For UNICON XV, if it weren't for a couple of large sponsors we would have been tens of thousands under, and it wasn't until a few months before hand that we knew we had enough numbers to make it work. There were still large bills coming in months afterward. And yes, certain individuals would have had to underwrite UNICON if it ran at a loss.

On the other hand, I don't think the IUF should be called in to bail out a UNICON (it doesn't have enough funds to do so anyway)...after all, each Unicon brings millions into the local community- it should be bid for and run like any major sporting event.

Major sporting events have organizing committees who run the event. It's not that the IUF should bail out the local club, it's that the IUF should be running the event with assistance from the local club, rather than having the local club (which has no experience, no sponsorship connections, and limited interest in some portion of the events) take on the leadership roles and the financial risk.

When IMBA runs a mountain bike event, they don't contact a group of local bikers who've never run anything before and ask them to figure it out.

Some of the other issues are just matters of scale. If there are 1000 freestyle-primary riders and 50 flatland-primary riders, the flatland riders are never going to get the attention they want at the event. (Including attention to the scheduling, the venue, the scoring, etc.) And they're going to be paying for a lot of stuff they don't use. Similarly for MUni, distance riding, and ball sports; I'm sure the French basketball tournaments work better for basketball than anything that UNICON can or will do; similarly with the German hockey tournaments.

[GizmoDuck]

Originally Posted by unicycledood

The ambulance and first-aid were on lunch breaks half the time and not even around some days it seemed, makes me think maybe they weren't being paid aswell?

I can't comment on this UNICON because I'm not involved

But in NZ it cost about $800 per event to have the St Johns ambulance people there.

[GizmoDuck]

Originally Posted by tholub

Major sporting events have organizing committees who run the event. It's not that the IUF should bail out the local club, it's that the IUF should be running the event with assistance from the local club, rather than having the local club (which has no experience, no sponsorship connections, and limited interest in some portion of the events) take on the leadership roles and the financial risk.

Sounds like you're volunteering to be on the IUF UNICON committee?

I think it is a good idea for the IUF to have greater oversight of the event- as the IOC does over an Olympics. Of course...different budgets...you'd have to do this for very little compensation.

[tholub]

Originally Posted by unicycledood

The ambulance and first-aid were on lunch breaks half the time and not even around some days it seemed

I take it you haven't been to Italy before.

[tholub]

Originally Posted by GizmoDuck

Sounds like you're volunteering to be on the IUF UNICON committee?

I think it is a good idea for the IUF to have greater oversight of the event- as the IOC does over an Olympics. Of course...different budgets...you'd have to do this for very little compensation.

Connie asked me after UNICON XV if I was interested in being involved. My answer then was the same as now; only if the organization becomes fundamentally different than it is now. Among the things we do poorly or not at all:

Publicity: Virtually all of the publicity effort we make is within the unicycle community. Even for our spectator-friendly events we assume that everyone in the arena already know what's going on; there's little explanation of the event, usually no introductions beyond the name of the person competing, no announcement of scores, no entertainment between competitors or at halftime, etc. We also do a shitty job of branding; NAUCC is a terrible name, and UNICON and EUC are not great either. If you're not an insider, we don't care about you.

Sponsorship: If we have a public-facing event, we have the opportunity to get real sponsorship for it. Having a salaried sponsorship coordinator position could easily pay for itself.

Specifc-purpose events: At the Olympics, Usain Bolt doesn't compete in synchronized swimming, and Alex Morgan doesn't do the pole vault. The world championship events should be designed for people who train and practice for them. We spend way too much time making sure everyone gets to do everything and go home with a medal; that's fine for a local event, but at the national and world levels, "You must be at least this tall to ride."

Because of the dominant number of freestyle riders, this probably means that other events need to have championships separate from the freestyle championships.

Non-competitive event sponsorship: Why did the USA let the Moab MUniFest die? This was the greatest non-competitive unicycle event on the planet, with 200+ riders, run on the cheap, accessible for anyone. One guy decides to stop organizing after 10 years, and we just let it go? It wasn't even on the USA's radar that they should try to do something to keep it going. UNICON is supposed to be a convention but it's so competition-focused that it's hard to do anything except prepare for competitions, compete, or watch competitions.


Just for a start.

[ghenzo]

Originally Posted by tholub

I take it you haven't been to Italy before.

That's completely gratuitous. Ambulance services and first aid in most of Italy are world class, and the service in the area around Bressanone is among the best.

[GizmoDuck]

Originally Posted by tholub

Connie asked me after UNICON XV if I was interested in being involved. My answer then was the same as now; only if the organization becomes fundamentally different than it is now.

Just for a start.

That's circular logic. To do those things requires people to get them done. If they have to be done in the first place, in order to entice people to do them...

...then it's not going to happen.

[tholub]

Originally Posted by GizmoDuck

That's circular logic. To do those things requires people to get them done. If they have to be done in the first place, in order to entice people to do them...

...then it's not going to happen.

It's not a question of joining and doing something. I've done that already, and any real MUni or distance riders who participated in the U Games can tell you I did a great job of creating the kinds of events I think should be in national competition. (Nathan was the distance director but I gave him a lot of help on course selection).

The problem is changing the nature of an organization that shows no interest in changing. If they're going to spend ages arguing about whether 102 or 100 mm cranks should be allowed in a particular discipline, and insist that you spend a bunch of money and time running Standard Skill, which is pretty much freestyle, only more boring, they're not at the point of being able to address fundamental change. Our big accomplishment in U Games was to get them to allow us to not run the Slow Race, and that took weeks of argument. I'm not going to waste my time banging my head against that wall; I'm going to do the things I find useful and interesting.

[unicycledood]

Originally Posted by GizmoDuck

I can't comment on this UNICON because I'm not involved

But in NZ it cost about $800 per event to have the St Johns ambulance people there.

Mhmm, I wish someone who could comment on this, would comment.