Future of Empire State Indoor Champs

From: Robert Clemens <robert.clemens_at_att.net>
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2006 12:44:29 -0400

To interested members of the Yahoo Indoor Group,

The annual business meeting of the Western New York Free Flight Society will
be held On November 18. An important item on the agenda will be whether or
not to continue holding our annual indoor contest, the Empire State Indoor
Championships, at the Buffalo Bills fieldhouse- or anywhere else, for that
matter. As some of you know, attendance at these meets over the past four or
five years has been minimal, with only 18 contestants showing up for the
most recent meet, held May 21. Both my club, the Western New York Free
Flight Society, and the co-sponsoring Flying Aces Club, took virtually
unacceptable financial losses as a result. These are chiefly because of the
building rental fee of $1,000 for the day which requires a turnout of at
least 35 open contestants at $30 per to break even. The inclusion of an
after-the-meet RC electric fun fly saw only a handful of fliers show up and
failed to stanch the bleeding.

I recently heard from a fellow modeler who kindly passed along the results
of an informal survey he'd done to seek reasons for the continuing epidemic
of no-shows at the contest. He found three. Here they are, with my
responses:

1. Bad impression of the place because the excessive heat
generated from the indirect lighting pushed the planes to the girders or
formed a difficult to penetrate "ceiling."

This is certainly a legitimate criticism from those flying the ultralight
events
such as Easy B, Penny Plane, etc. But the lights have caused no significant
problems with other events, such as scale and catapult glider. And we turned
off some of the lights at the 2006 contest which, according to John Kagan,
apparently solved the "ceiling" and drift problems. But attendance by
those who would fly non-lightweight events has suffered as much as the
lightweights. Some of the scale guys from out of state tell us that they
love the site but a one-day
contest isn't worth the trip. We did try a two day contest two years ago but
attendance was a disaster.

2. The nearness to the USIC at Johnson City.

There's not a lot I can do here. Sandwiching the Buffalo contest into a busy
spring schedule is no easy task, and the building with heat turned off would
be very uncomfortable if we tried to hold the contest on most weekends in
February, March, or April.
Also, the treacherous upstate New York late winter weather could easily be a
factor in getting to and from the site during any of those months. We tried
a fall contest once, and it was another attendance
flop.

3. The uncertainty that the event could be canceled in short notice due to
the Bills deciding to practice at any moment.

This one is specious, since only once in all the years we've held the
contest at the Bills fieldhouse did they pull a switch on us that required a
change of date. But once doesn't make a trend or a continuing threat. This,
I
believe, is a complaint without merit.

So there we are. We've worked hard to make this contest attractive to indoor
fliers. Those who have attended have told us we've succeeded. The site,
lights or not, is still one of the best available in the entire eastern
portion of the country. I don't know how the two clubs will vote on this,
but speaking for myself I'm about ready to throw in the proverbial towel.
Gentelemen, I believe the future of the ESIC hangs by a thread.


Bob Clemens
Western New York Free Flight Society
Received on Sat Oct 21 2006 - 09:57:42 CEST