All-Star Dallas Convention Center

[mybabywantstotumble]

I think the big snow storm (snicker snicker)
threw them off this year.
I'm sure some staff called out due to the weather and by Sunday there was no recovery

And I am sure that's why there was only one person working at Starbucks but the center should have been cleaned Saturday night before the staff left. You never leave a building looking like that overnight. It is a health hazard, if the Dept of Health had come in there early in the morning that place would have been shut down. And if the front of the house looked like that what did the back of the house look like???

 

[mollymags]

If the trash barrels were not all overflowing by noon time on Saturday, I would agree with you. But where does one put trash if there is no place to dispose of it?

I work for an EP and seeing the amount of trash in bleachers and on the floor after an event never fails to disgust me... It happens even when the trash cans are well tended and close to seating. However, a few months ago we ran an event and the trash cans were awful, constantly overflowing, and no one ever seemed to be around to change the bags out. At the end of the day, the convention center staff was standing around, staring at the garbage all over the floor, taking pictures. One of our staff asked what the issue was and they said they were probably going to charge us for the extra insane mess... So, our staff member started walking around taking pictures of the overflowing trash cans that made it impossible for people to throw stuff away (if they even bothered to try). Convention centers, you are in the business of running events that host thousands and thousands of people. You should know how to handle it and be prepared.

 

[The Sixth]

If the trash barrels were not all overflowing by noon time on Saturday, I would agree with you. But where does one put trash if there is no place to dispose of it?

That's a fair assessment, which I didn't personally notice. When it was an issue, I'd expect overflow trash to be stacked right there. Trash lining the stairs from top to bottom tells me, obviously NO effort was made to even get near a trash can.

 

[Boo21]

Not true. Trash cans were completely overflowing!! There was nowhere to put the trash we tried to take ours out and couldn't find an empty trash can. So while not everyone was throwing away their trash some were trying without success.

 

[Cheermom1969]

I know we are all incredibly disappointed in the conditions and actions of the convention center this weekend. NCA needs to hear it from us parents, athletes and attendees so that they can address all of the issues this weekend to ensure it doesn't occur again. This was not the first time that this town has held NCA Nationals nor was it the first time it was at the center.

I do admit that I am in the hospitality business and manage hotels and a convention center, so what I saw probably infuriated me more than others.

1. Cleanliness - I arrived at 5:30am Sunday and went into ladies room. It wasn't cleaned from night before, trash everywhere and no TP. Apparently there wasn't any TP in the men's rooms either. This building should have been cleaned before the staff closed the building up for the night! Halls never cleaned and Arena never cleaned either. By the time Large Senior rolled around on Sunday evening the Arena was absolutely deplorable.

2. Concessions - at 7am the only thing open was Starbucks and it looked like there was only one worker there. Probably because of the "ice" but why were there no other options open? No way to purchase drinks, coffee, nothing. At 7:30am I was finally able to find a cotton candy stand open to buy a bottle of water from.

3. Arena Concessions - Why were there no food options besides cold crappy pretzels? No one seemed to know what they were doing. At one point I was told I could get a pretzel but had to go to another stand to get Nachos - even though the stands were connected, but apparently there was no button on the cash register for Nachos. WTF?!? They could have made a killing from everyone camped out at the arena. Instead I left to eat. Oh and the credit card machine wasn't working.

The convention center obviously brought in some temporary staffing to man the bathrooms however every time I encountered an attendant the bathrooms were a mess with a serious lack of toilet paper yet the attendant was chilling on their cell phone. Literally EVERY TIME. At the end of the evening we encountered this again but there were two of them standing there with 3 bathroom stalls "out of order". I asked them what was wrong with the stalls and they said no toilet paper, but neither made an effort to go find some.

The Kay Bailey Hutchison convention center clearly feels they can do less than the bare minimum because they know NCA keeps coming back each year. The people who negotiate the contract from Varsity/NCA need to pay better attention to the details when it comes time to sign the contract.
The services were absolutely non-existent. I agree with everything you wrote above. The CC has an absolute monopoly over food sales and it's ridiculous. One actual food stand next to Starbucks and little to no choices at the food stands in the arena. Seriously? Other than the people raking in the money from this operation, who feels this is ok???

And the workers, gawd, don't even get me started on them.

 

[cheerKT]

@King has already addressed the lack of cell service as well. So many teams/coaches/parents rely on this on competitions weekends. Additional support (mobile towers, etc.) can easily be brought in for the weekend.

 

[mybabywantstotumble]

The Kay Bailey Hutchison convention center clearly feels they can do less than the bare minimum because they know NCA keeps coming back each year. The people who negotiate the contract from Varsity/NCA need to pay better attention to the details when it comes time to sign the contract.
The services were absolutely non-existent. I agree with everything you wrote above. The CC has an absolute monopoly over food sales and it's ridiculous. One actual food stand next to Starbucks and little to no choices at the food stands in the arena. Seriously? Other than the people raking in the money from this operation, who feels this is ok???

And the workers, gawd, don't even get me started on them.

seriously, i lived on nuts and jerky all weekend. i looked at my amex bill today and I spent $44 on jerky alone.

 

[Paria]

I did witness people using paper towels as toilet paper while waiting in line in the bathroom, but there also came a point where they ran out of paper towels.
The stalls were in nasty condition.
We managed to find a concession stand that sold pizza...that was probably the closest thing to actual "food" we could find.
Cell service was probably the most frustrating thing though. I had to come up with meeting places with my parents because I wasn't able to contact them with my phone on Saturday. It got a bit better Sunday.
Our hotel for STP was way too far away. A 30 minute drive one way. I'm not even sure why that hotel was considered for the STP program. The restaurant in the hotel ran out of food by the time we were back at the hotel. We went upstairs and called room service and they had the same issue. We ended up getting to-go at the denny's next door Saturday and on Sunday we got to-go from a different hotel restaurant near ours.

 

[mybabywantstotumble]

The city of Dallas and NCA make a killing off of us every year and since I know the business side of all of this it gets me so upset. With this competition being as huge as it is they want us to stay. I really doubt that the GM of the convention center knows how bad things were this weekend.

The Convention Center (CC) is owned by the city of Dallas. The CC typically gets a cut of the admission price into the competition, not to mention they charge NCA for the staff to run the ticket booths, ushers, security and extra bathroom attendants and all the $ they make on the food & beverage. I'm sure they charge some space rental fee for usage of the CC - although it may not be super high because of all the hotel rooms we use throughout the city.

Y'all know that 13% hotel occupancy tax that shows up on your hotel bill? That typically gets split and sent over the the Visitor's Bureau and the City as revenue for them to spend on whatever. And don't forget the sales tax.

STP sucks more money too. Connections gets a commission (usually 10%) for coordinating the hotel rooms. They also charge a rebate to the hotels which is usually $5 or $10 per room per night. I have seen this rebate go back to the EP or the visitors bureau to offset CC costs. So if you have a room for $159 per night, close to $16 a night is going to the Connections and let's say $5 back to EP. You are spending $21 more a night then you should per night. Stay 3 nights like most of us do and you are talking $63. The hotels don't eat up all of those commissions and rebates. We increase the sleeping room rate to cover those items. Hotels hate STP because we would rather work directly with the teams than work with housing agencies.

I obviously don't work for NCA so I have no clue what their contracts look like but in my close to 20 years in this industry these items above are pretty standard.

 

[TXcheermom]

The arena sunday was a huge trash mess. I got there at 630am and it was a dump of trash. All down the stairs , in the bath rooms and all in the isles of the seats.

I witnessed woodlands elite parents brooming up trash and cheetah dads taking bags of trash out of the arena.

It was disgusting

 

[HeyMom]

We were at NCA a couple of years ago with no ice storm and many of the concessions were out of food by 11:30 am on Sunday. I noticed this year that in the area where there are usually concessions (near the Omni walkway) was an ENORMOUS Varsity store. As if the food selections weren't bad enough, there were even less choices than usual. It is obvious the event has outgrown the venue.

 

[Momager]

The city of Dallas and NCA make a killing off of us every year and since I know the business side of all of this it gets me so upset. With this competition being as huge as it is they want us to stay. I really doubt that the GM of the convention center knows how bad things were this weekend.

The Convention Center (CC) is owned by the city of Dallas. The CC typically gets a cut of the admission price into the competition, not to mention they charge NCA for the staff to run the ticket booths, ushers, security and extra bathroom attendants and all the $ they make on the food & beverage. I'm sure they charge some space rental fee for usage of the CC - although it may not be super high because of all the hotel rooms we use throughout the city.

Y'all know that 13% hotel occupancy tax that shows up on your hotel bill? That typically gets split and sent over the the Visitor's Bureau and the City as revenue for them to spend on whatever. And don't forget the sales tax.

STP sucks more money too. Connections gets a commission (usually 10%) for coordinating the hotel rooms. They also charge a rebate to the hotels which is usually $5 or $10 per room per night. I have seen this rebate go back to the EP or the visitors bureau to offset CC costs. So if you have a room for $159 per night, close to $16 a night is going to the Connections and let's say $5 back to EP. You are spending $21 more a night then you should per night. Stay 3 nights like most of us do and you are talking $63. The hotels don't eat up all of those commissions and rebates. We increase the sleeping room rate to cover those items. Hotels hate STP because we would rather work directly with the teams than work with housing agencies.

I obviously don't work for NCA so I have no clue what their contracts look like but in my close to 20 years in this industry these items above are pretty standard.

And that $100 tax added to my hotel bill...

 

[lilmsthang75]

seriously, i lived on nuts and jerky all weekend. i looked at my amex bill today and I spent $44 on jerky alone.

But admit it, that jerky was good!

 

[specialtpass]

Dirty everything.. I used toilet seat liners at one point in the bathroom and then had no soap or towels to wash my hands. I cannot begin to describe the level of harassment by security and the Dallas police over any SINGLE empty seat in section 14, 15, 16 right above the judges..people were gone to get food, the bathroom or just shuttling kids to the arena. It was clear they only wanted to work those areas. God forbid they climbed the stairs into other sections and actually break a sweat. They were threatening to arrest us if the seats were not filled within minutes of the threat. This was going on when seats were clearly open everywhere in the arena. It was despicable.

 

[Cheermom1969]

We were at NCA a couple of years ago with no ice storm and many of the concessions were out of food by 11:30 am on Sunday. I noticed this year that in the area where there are usually concessions (near the Omni walkway) was an ENORMOUS Varsity store. As if the food selections weren't bad enough, there were even less choices than usual. It is obvious the event has outgrown the venue.

OMG, you're right! That's usually where they've had lots of food shacks. Instead they had two or three along the walkway into the Omni.