My pro is registered. I'm not. Maybe I can get away with sandbagging in the future!! Whoo hoo!!!
Seriously, with respect to Joe pointing out that $25 would be hard for someone struggling to compete we need to put this into context. This is a very expensive sport, competing is very expensive for some very good reasons. We need lots of judges who must travel fairly far. We need decent facilities. Competition fees need to cover that. Competitors must travel, and so often need to spend quite a bit of money on hotel, travel and other expenses. For the most part, to be competitive, pro-am students need quite a bit of formal training, for which they pay.
I suspect a Pro-Am student stuggling to spend the extra $25 to compete would tend to be demoralized to discover they lost to a sand-bagger especially after spending somewhere in the mid-hundreds or possibly low thousands on other competition specific expenses. Even if jiwinco on earlier pointed out there have always been sandbaggers and it no longer bothers them, I suspect it's much more likely to bother someone struggling to compete than someone who has enough resources to make competing mostly a fun diversion.
Of course, it remains to be seen if registration will be the first step to enforce rules to reduce or eliminate sandbagging. Creating a system and maintaining it will require some funds. Someone running scripts to learn more about the demographics of dancers, to figure out how different rules might have strange effects and so on will require time and effort, and so cost money. So we do need a fee.
But I know even suspecting sandbagging on the part of others in a competition makes me a little grumpy. It would matter more to me if I were struggling to pay for entries fees. Lets face it: the cost of a competition is much more than $25. I'll gladly pay the $25 if it's role is to help competitions be fair; they aren't really competitions if they aren't fair.
Seriously, with respect to Joe pointing out that $25 would be hard for someone struggling to compete we need to put this into context. This is a very expensive sport, competing is very expensive for some very good reasons. We need lots of judges who must travel fairly far. We need decent facilities. Competition fees need to cover that. Competitors must travel, and so often need to spend quite a bit of money on hotel, travel and other expenses. For the most part, to be competitive, pro-am students need quite a bit of formal training, for which they pay.
I suspect a Pro-Am student stuggling to spend the extra $25 to compete would tend to be demoralized to discover they lost to a sand-bagger especially after spending somewhere in the mid-hundreds or possibly low thousands on other competition specific expenses. Even if jiwinco on earlier pointed out there have always been sandbaggers and it no longer bothers them, I suspect it's much more likely to bother someone struggling to compete than someone who has enough resources to make competing mostly a fun diversion.
Of course, it remains to be seen if registration will be the first step to enforce rules to reduce or eliminate sandbagging. Creating a system and maintaining it will require some funds. Someone running scripts to learn more about the demographics of dancers, to figure out how different rules might have strange effects and so on will require time and effort, and so cost money. So we do need a fee.
But I know even suspecting sandbagging on the part of others in a competition makes me a little grumpy. It would matter more to me if I were struggling to pay for entries fees. Lets face it: the cost of a competition is much more than $25. I'll gladly pay the $25 if it's role is to help competitions be fair; they aren't really competitions if they aren't fair.
