# Date-synced Regional Competitions



## Jimmy Liu (Feb 19, 2015)

Should we need a clarification that whether competitions held in multiple locations or countries simultaneously has its legitimacy?

Since the success of FMC USA and Cross-Strait FMC, I think we could apply this method on holding other events. For example, all 18 events are held in one competition in multiple states of USA, or some Asia countries gathered together to hold Asian Championship.

So why not hold World Championship 2017 simultaneously throughout the world, given divided scrambles according to respective time zone? It would remain controversial IMO.

What are the pros and cons for holding competitions in multiple locations or countries simultaneously?

Side Issues:
What is the main purpose and reason that we held FMC competition across multiple locations or countries? I mean, FMC competitions held in multiple locations is legit; therefore, holding other events in multiple locations should be legit. But now holding other events in multiple locations seem unrealistic, how could we held FMC competition across multiple location?


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## Dene (Feb 19, 2015)

I don't have all day to write a response, but here's my first issue: preventing cheating.


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## Kit Clement (Feb 19, 2015)

Dene essentially summed up my thoughts. FMC is the *only* event that can be near-perfect in synchronization, and also limits competitors in their ability to share information during an event. Here's the only application I can see that seems even partially reasonable for a world event on this scale:

1. All first rounds have "scramble groups" where each location has its own group (or potentially two).
2. All final rounds are extremely limited in the number of people that can advance. The schedule for finals is spaced out by solve (5-10 minute gaps) to guarantee that all solves can start around the same time.

However, I know the website/results team already doesn't like that we have multiple venue (especially multiple country) FMC competitions, and I don't expect them to be open to expanding this. But who knows -- I'm actually kind of interested in proposing a smallish scale competition like this within the USA.


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## cc9tough (Feb 19, 2015)

I could see this working for a national or a continental level, but I think comps spanning more than 4 time zones is a bit of a stretch.


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## Ranzha (Mar 4, 2015)

Date-synched regional competitions would be difficult to perform as one listed competition, but there's nothing that would prevent organisers from multiple regions to host regional competitions on the same day intentionally. i.e. Instead of one multi-venue competition, multiple competitions that happen to be labelled as regionals and happen to fall on the same day. Synchronisation of scrambles and whatnot would be near impossible without imposing heavy restrictions in other areas (on competitors, on the schedule, etc.)

I am very open to discussing such an idea with North American organisers and delegates with the prospect of hosting on a particular weekend on the opposite end of the calendar as US Nationals (so about 11 months from now). Of course, anyone from any region can compete at any regional competition. Better yet, the more venues that are booked, the more opportunities for organisers to hold more events/let in more competitors.
I am fairly confident that if there were a North America Pacific regional competition, more than 350 competitors would attend.


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## DGCubes (Mar 4, 2015)

It's actually a pretty great idea. Nobody (especially in big countries like the US) really knows when the next competition in the area will be, or if there will even be one in a reasonable amount of time. A regional competition every year would give that sense of "Oh, at least there's regionals even if there aren't any comps before that." I'm honestly surprised this hasn't been done before.


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## biscuit (Mar 5, 2015)

One of the big problems is that there would have to be a delegate at each venue... I think that it should at least be tested. Maybe even split a big comp into two venues just to test multi venue (which would allow bigger comps in the future if it worked). Like I said this should at least be tested small scale. Plus this (might) be a good way to get new organizers into it because the main organization team would work on delegates or what ever and the local organizer would just have to manage the comp and find a venue. I would love to see this work


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## Jimmy Liu (Mar 16, 2015)

Regional competitions between multiple countries may cause data error, for example, I was in Taiwan while competing Cross-strait FMC 2014, but WCA said that I was in Beijing though.

https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/person_map.php?i=2011LIUR02

Since FMC Europe is upcoming in the late March, and this competition is held everywhere throughout Europe, it should be on the WCA website that every country share this competion. I don't know how WCA deal with the data, as far as I think it's a problem.

https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/competitions.php?eventId=333fm&regionId=_Europe&years=current&pattern=&list=List


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## AlexMaass (Mar 16, 2015)

Kit Clement said:


> Dene essentially summed up my thoughts. FMC is the *only* event that can be near-perfect in synchronization, and also limits competitors in their ability to share information during an event. Here's the only application I can see that seems even partially reasonable for a world event on this scale:


What about MBLD though?


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