US Open 2018

says 2023 Certified Organ Donor
says 2023 Certified Organ Donor
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Yup... and at a location that is neither close to any major paying population, nor economical worth 1/10th a crap.

Flight to Vegas are perpetually inexpensive and last year Hotel cost was 30 usd a day.

Last year 4 of us Trouble Makers shared a room for 4 days. Our share of room was 30 usd each.

Such low expenses are an encouragement to go to Vegas in Dec...

I am not addressing the change of play formats, time and feedback will tell the story on that.

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says 2023 Certified Organ Donor
says 2023 Certified Organ Donor
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What is killing the attendance is a combination of much higher cost location and USATT not being able to finalize the easiest of basic details in a timely manner... such as a venue, play format, schedule, or a functioning webstore...

All this taking many weeks and attempts to get in place before the advertised deadline.

It is damned difficult to get fired from Government. Yet, if I was in Government procurement and did even half of this behind time not to spec I would surely be quickly unemployed.

A reasonable person outside looking at how this tourney was orchestrated (more like clusterfkdup) would be very unimpressed and never come away with the thought that US Table Tennis is a professionally run outfit.

Our 10 year old players can see this and figure it out.


It doesn't take a pattern of events to see the dysfunction... but there are many one could name off the top of ones head like...

The 20 times changes and many months it took to get a new ratings provider to get the ratings halfway functional...

The wildly unprofessional unplayable play conditions at the adult National Ranking Event...

The easy details and functionality of this year US Open...

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There are probably several things that are in play here.

Comparing ~230 *current* registration numbers to final attendance from last years is as 'apples to oranges' as it gets - can you tell me what numbers were in 2017 7 weeks before the event? I bet it was not 800.

Now - I won't be surprised if attendance is lower in the end:

1. It is much further away for CA players - what was a manageable drive in a car now became a flight, wich adds non-trivial cost. FL just does not have that many players to compensate.

2. For majority of players on the East Coast, I'd argue it's still a flight to FL, so not necessarily going to boost their attendance dramatically. For many players in the area JOOLA Teams is probably THE tournament to go to anyway, and these are only 3 weeks apart, so they are not going to rush to Orlando either (curious what's the historic participation overlap between Teams and US Open). JOOLA Teams attendance seems to be in line with previous years, by the way.

3. World Vets: plenty of folks from US attended it this year, so - many TT enthusiasts are now out of vacation time, disposable income, or both.

4. Orlando is not Vegas. This could swing both ways: probably a plus for families with kids, but other demographics might be happier in Vegas, just more stuff to do IMHO.

5. Format change: who knows whether it's a plus or a minus. Not being able to play in the Open might be a turnoff for some. New format did manage to confuse people at least initially, and it might be enough to suppress turnout. And by the way, figuring out whether new structure is a good thing or not simply from attendance numbers will be tough, since all other factors above are going to confound it.

6. Delay in registration start, payment processing issues - puzzled by that. It worked before, somehow...

We'll see how it works out.
 
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says 2023 Certified Organ Donor
says 2023 Certified Organ Donor
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Read 27 reviews
A few from East Coast might go, but if they already went to nationals, some already spent TT travel budget for the year.

The newer format might turn out good. The local is certainly NOT gunna be boring. People are still gunna meet old friends and new, it won't be a total train wreck no matter what.
 
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This year's festive location as a winter outdoor party seems to be attracting players from different parts of the world and the USA.

Burundi
Venezuela
Columbia
Taiwan
Haiti
United Kingdom
England
Canada
Peru
France
India
Jamaica
Japan
Netherlands
China
Trinidad and Tobago

South Dakota
Wyoming
Alaska
Puerto Rico
 
December 17-22

Presently 486 entries

USATT registration page is back online now

Final entry deadline December 1st

I think this is a great location for a winter vacation.

Cheers for the updated info Loopadoop. Any idea who has entered of late?
 
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