Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Will Nationals be in St.Louis in 2010?

Yeah, my issue isn't with location, or distance, simply adequacy of the location. Heck, have it in Seattle. Far as possible for me, but one of the best cities in the country and Worlds '02 was a BLAST. Downtown Seattle is a great place to hang out. None the less, I assume they DO want to keep it somewhat centralized, in which case I still insist Indianapolis is by far the best choice. Chicago would be good too, but its downtown area is a bit hectic and like was addressed, the traffic is a nightmare at times.

I think Vince summed it up perfectly though in regards to his Regionals. Hes learned from what didn't work properly and he has gone out of his way to try and make improvements each year. PUI has done a great job over the years of doing this, and outside of the issue with Gathering Grounds, I don't mean this to be a thread about complaining, but more what could be improved on. I don't think anyone had a BAD time. Or at least only a very very few did. Its just that it didn't live up to the past years event wise. I have high hopes for next year :)
 
What most people are saying is true..... Alot of things need to be fixed in order to make a return Nats to STL a more enjoyable experience. (Food/Hotels/Vendor total... and the scortching heat index, geez.) The gameplay and competition rocked and that's the main thing that needed looked at. BUT you all need to realize something --- You now have a PTO Extrordinaire in Meganium45 that has seen what happens when 2000 people walk into the door after really not knowing if the total would drop off from the move from Origins. It has came, it has went --- NOW LETS SEE WHAT CHANGES can be made to make it what you expect it to be. Origins had several shots at it and while it was a great tourney, some still had problems with things that happened. Give STL another chance to iron out the bugs....

You begin to doubt the poke-drive of this PTO and his area.... you're nuts!
 
The bald guy was way disrespectful. He said this to me when I was selling him cards "do you think you'll get a better price for this garbage anywhere else?" you can't get much more rude. I wanted to beat him.
 
Arizona!!!! Easy choice here.
The food, no problems
Weather, 100 or so but it's a dry heat
Golf, Swimming, baseball, shopping
Something for everyone. Zoo is close. Airport centrally located. I say we go for it.
I have room to house about 50....
 
room

our son won a invite to nationals. we didnt get to take him but my mom did. the wife called the hotel before they went to verify that the room had a pull out sofa and a king bed as we were planning on having 5 people in it to begin with (all family) the desk said yes no problem. when my mom and my son got there there was a small bed and no sofa. the air was broke the whole time they were there. they did bring up a cot for them to use. also the security guard came to the pool at 7 and told them that the were not going to be nice anymore and that there was a person in a room trying to get some sleep and they couldnt be loud. how do u tell a group of kids to be quiet at 7 playing in a pool. we are so glad we didnt have to pay for this and hope pui gets some sort of reimbursment. the other thing that was bad is who charges 4 dollars for a hotdog. talk about taking advantage of the situation. people were taking cabs buying food and coming out cheeper than buying food at the hotel. i also sent a detailed list of cards (only 5 on it) that the gathering ground had no idea about. my mom had to call me and let me talk to him on the phone and everything we needed he said he left at the shop. older cards promos none of the collector stuff. seems they only had new cards that were way over priced.

now for the good news. in between rounds this yr didnt take an hour. our son had a great time. the pokemon staff helped my handycap mother several times. anything dealing with the pokemon play part of the turny was awesome. thanks for all the hard work. THANKS TO ALL THE STAFF WHO HAD ANY PART OF THE TURNY.


AWESOME JOB JUSTIN FOR THE BIG WIN IN JUNIORS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ps i cant spell so over look it lol
thanks
 
Our family loved St. Louis. I do not understand the food problem we had not problem finding food. Our hotel had a fantastic hot breakfast every day. On thursday we ordered Dominoes (oh that was just perperoni and a little cheese sread out on the cardboard) but the rest of the vacation we had very good meals. Friday durring the luch break we ate at the Italian resturant at our hotel two block from the convention center. It was very resonably priced. Then for dinner we walked 4 blocks down the street were we ate at an outstanding Tapas resurant called Moasic. We ate outside and had a fabulos time.

Yes Saturday lunch was a bit of an issue, but with 1,200 + players were wouodl this not be an problem?
Then for dinner we did the 4 block walk and ate at a Resturant called Kitchen K where I had one of the best hamburgers that I have ever had. It was only $9.00 anb my wife had Tortellini w/ 8 huge prawns and that was only $14.00. I can not belive how inexpensive and good the resturants were around the convention center. The food was easily 30% less then compareable resturants in the Seattle area.

Yes the heat was bad, but Monday it cooled down and we had a fantastic time at the Arch. I had not idea when I went there that there was so much to do. The underground measum was very interesting and the view from the top of the Arch was absolutley amazing. It was well worth the $14.00 price for the ride up.
And the store selling 1870's foodstuffs was a lot of fun as well. All the food we bought there was of so high quality that we ended up not minding the high price we paid for it. (no worse then movie theater prices, but 10 times the quality)

And it was fun to be able to say that we touched the Mississippi river. My wife really liked the casino. So yes we all had a verry positive experiance in St Louis and would gladly gp back if Nationals is there again next year.
 
You're going to have logistical issues no matter WHAT location it is held.

St. Louis is NOT the problem.
We were just in a NEW venue .. . that's all.

Find the holes. Fill the holes. Move forward... (and enjoy!)

As far as I can see, you're mainly miffed about the FOOD issues.
That can be remedied. Can it not?

I noticed a LARGE "food court" area.

Can we not get more kiosks from local food vendors in there?

Subway Express?
Burger King Express? ( OMG @ having Pokemon Kid's Promo Meals AT POKEMON NATS!!!)
Dominos Express? (can I get a Snorlax? )
I'm sure they'd LOVE the revenue...

Also, I really would've enjoyed room 123 to be ONE store and room 124 to be ANOTHER store (like Collector's Cache ... who's simply Amazing with online sales).. and another in room 125 .. lol
It'd be like a PokeMall :p

We, actually, had the SMALLEST room in the convention center ( I actually stood there and had a 30 min convo with a security guard ... random... but I learned a lot. .lol)

So, the layout was nice, but the players needed a somewhere to go after our matches were finished between rounds. Getting the larger rooms (i believe the guard said room #2 was HUGE...) would allow for, yet, ANOTHER group of tables for us to kick around and get AWAY from the playing area. I do understand how you never know HOW MANY tables to hypothetically allocate to each section. This years, layout could be a great reference nontheless.

I just think that we could make St. Louis work.
My drive took a total of 20 hours (counting car prob time...), but I'd do it all again... if you move it closer to VA, of course I'd benefit, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary.
 
You touched the Mississippi? Better wash your hands ........
It really doesn't matter where it's at,as long as it's set up correctlly. Origins was "set up"for this and that was it's advantage. Personally, I like Origins because you have an exibit hall to check out and other games to check out. Some pokemon players don't play other games, and they can just stay in the ccg area. So you have something for gamers as well as just those who play pokemon.
 
Sounds like St. Louis sucked! California has a lot of great places to hold Nats so that could be a consideration.
 
I really hope they don't move nat's to the West, or even the East Cost. It's just a bad move. Even if they have Nat's on the West Coast, then Worlds on the East Coast(Florida) I still disagree. PUI didn't expect our numbers, which is a shame, I mean events across the country this season has gone up, heck I think we figured at our States we grew like 30% from past years! THe room was too small for everyone. I think the VGC took up too much space, but I don't disagree with having it there(Although have it on Friday so some of the TCG players might actually have a chance to play.) A Friend of mine got to look at the bigger room, Twice the size of what we had, it would of been perfect. Plenty of space for everything he said.

I already hit on my issues with the vendor but 2 things

1) PLease don't invite Gathering Grounds Again. They were rude or had no idea what they were doing. Yes working with kids is rough, but you should not be rude. Vendors at Gen Con and Origins have dealt with more then they have and I never see that kind of bad Customer Service(Ok I have, but I don't go back to those Vendors because of the poor Customer Service). It's no excuse to say they were swamped. They said they were hiring extra help, well the help needs to know the game, or they won't be help. Also anyone who charges $6.00 for a Baltoy should be ashamed of themselves.
2) Have at least 2 Vendors in separate areas. PUI needs to make sure they have staff who KNOWS POKEMON. I can't stress that enough. One Person behind the counter with knowledge of the game is not enough. You don't take a Lawyer and put him at a construction site to work.


Also I think League PLay needs to be longer into the Evening.
 
Hiro, which of the staff did not know Pokemon?

Gathering Ground or the Pokemon judges and staff?

I think the staff was pretty well versed, as I got to know them all.

Vince
 
Thx Clay! :wink: The lawyers ROCK!

Keith

BTW Clay....why did you go back to Nashville after Nats? We passed you back and forth for over an hour going into Nashville. You were busy blowing bubbles and Taylor was playing her DS. No one would wave to Alex and I. LOL
 
meganium45 said:
Hiro, which of the staff did not know Pokemon?

Gathering Ground or the Pokemon judges and staff?

I think the staff was pretty well versed, as I got to know them all.

Vince
Click to expand...

Gathering Grounds. The Pokemon Staff was one of the Best IMO. I have no complaints about you guys. Especially with 1200+ players, your staff and crew was one of the highlights of the weekend

There was one member of the GG Team that had trouble finding the cards we pointed out. Cards Like Uxie, one of the most known cards of the format. Took the guy a good 2 or 3 minutes to find it, while we were all pointing directly at it. He even admitted he knew little about the game. Personally I had not problem with the Bald Guy, but I had about 1 to 2 minutes conversing with him while I sold some cards. They had the stuff to sell, but I think other Vendor's could handle things better.

I gripe, a lot(Ask my wife lol) but all in all I had a fun time. I understand that not EVERYONE will be happy with the choices PUI makes, and, as you said yourself Vince, every year we can grow and learn from our mistakes. But my major grievances, Vendors and Food, can be easily fixed, with proper preparation. I just hope that they do use this thread and others like it to help shape Pokemon National's into a better event.
 
Lawman said:
Thx Clay! :wink: The lawyers ROCK!

Keith

BTW Clay....why did you go back to Nashville after Nats? We passed you back and forth for over an hour going into Nashville. You were busy blowing bubbles and Taylor was playing her DS. No one would wave to Alex and I. LOL
Click to expand...

Sorry...deleted my 2 Lawyers judging Nats post...screwed up the quote :)

We went to Nashville to get my dog from mom and dad....got home to Memphis at around 9 that night.

I remember someone waving at me but I didn't make the connection. :smile:
 
Putting Nats in Baltimore would be asinine. I would rather have to drive twelve hours to Nats than try and justify forcing West Coast players to fly or drive 48+. It's downright unsafe.

It appears that multiple people are suggesting Indianapolis. Are the logistics of that truly viable for a 1500+ person event (counting TCG, VG, and staffers)?
 
Hey lets do it in Omaha! And move it up a week so we can go watch LSU win another baseball Nat'l Championship while we're there!
 
DarthPika said:
The West Coast players have to fly anyway, so why does it matter? :/
Click to expand...

If it were held closer to the West Coast, then the East Coast players would "have to fly anyway" while the West Coast players could drive. I know of a couple of West Coasters who drove to St. Louis.
 
prodigal_fanboy said:
Putting Nats in Baltimore would be asinine. I would rather have to drive twelve hours to Nats than try and justify forcing West Coast players to fly or drive 48+. It's downright unsafe.

It appears that multiple people are suggesting Indianapolis. Are the logistics of that truly viable for a 1500+ person event (counting TCG, VG, and staffers)?
Click to expand...

Gen-Con is held in Indy every year and has much more than 1500 people.
 
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