Rain Date for Boulderfest next year?

[Nate]

Hey everybody,

While climbing with Ben and the climbers from New England, I brought up the idea of a rain date for boulderfest next year. The rain date would be the next weekend and we'd call it three or four days before, if it sounded rainy so that people could try to arrange drives for the next weekend and before the food was bought. I'd like to see some discussion on this, what do people think about having a rain date?? This boulderfest was awesome, yet some more climbing and less raining would be preferable....

Nate

[tracstarr]

now that BF has actually had a mostly rainy weekend it should be looked at, but what if it rains that following weekend too? It also makes it pretty hard for those coming from far who have booked time off to get here. none the less it is something that will be looked at next year.

[visitor]

Seems to me that most people have to book their time off and make travel arrangements quite far in advance so I could see a rain date making it hard for some people to commit. Even with the rain, the event was great (though more climbing would have been ideal, obviously). Got to meet a lot of great people and made some good climbing contacts.
A big thanks to everyone involved in organizing it!

[martha]

We always have boulderfest the weekend closest to the summer solstice, however the last two years the solstice has fallen on Wednesday (leap year last year) so we chose the weekend after the solstice with the odds of good weather being better.

What we could do is hold it the weekend before the solstice.... which would have been last weekends amazing weather, with the following weekend the rain date.

But I agree.. that for people from away, it makes it difficult. I would only ever cancel based on 80-100% chance of rain on both days and I wouldn't cancel before thursday.

[Nate]

80 to 100% chance of rain was the kind of forecast I was looking at for a cancelation and then make the rain date rain or shine? And dudes, what is this? Climbing is much cooler than beer drinking! vote climbing!

[The Teth]

With this setup four of the six Boulderfests would have been moved to the following weekend due to high chance of rain. Three times the weather repot got progressively better, this time the weather report got progressively worse. Some people fly in for boulderfest, and even if they drive up, it may be difficult to change their itinerary at the last minute. Four days out the forecast is not reliable enough to make this type of decision, and by the time it is, it is too late to cancel.

If the forecast had been more accurate on Friday we probably would have delayed the event until next week, but a new system the forecasters were not expecting rolled in from New England and dumped on us. The weather report was not bad enough to delay Boulderfest until Saturday morning, and by then it was too late.

So yeah, them’s the breaks.

Teth

[dquinn]

It makes sense to have a rain date for an outdoor event that is completely weather dependant. For those die hards who insist this boulderfest was fun, I would ask: compared to what? Compared to sitting alone in your basement? well yes, it was more social. Compared to a weekend on Dover packed with climbing? Not even close. Everything you did in the soaking wet would be much more enjoyable dry, and with good weather you could actually do some climbing. What you did was camping in the rain, not boulderfest.

How many of the participants actually took a plane to get here? Should everybody else suffer because of that? I mean, they can still go bouldering and camping on Dover. For everybody else, call it 3 days in advance and then shedule it for the rain date. Offer a refund to those who can't make the new date. Simple. You wouldn't call it off for anything less than a 100% chance of ass (like this year). If this year was postponed for a better weekend, some people would have been at a loss, but the overall turn out would have been much better. Instead, 40 people missed out so the 3 people who took a plane would have somebody to sit in the rain with.

Even with a rain date, there are no guarentees, but it helps. The weekend before boulderfest was stellar. Would have been nice.

[The Mitt]

Sounds like we have our first volunteer to organize next years fest. Also sounds really easy to complain about events when you don't organize them. I really appreaciate the people who organize any event and generally follow the path that they set, If I don't like it then I volunteer to be the organizer and change what I don't like. Maybe some good advice for those who are not happy. Getting people to spend time organizing things like the fest is really hard because it takes a s_h_i_t load of time; time people could be climbing.

Just a thought.

Mitt

[tracstarr]

just to let you know dq-mc muffin, even until the night before they were only forecasting 80% for sat and 40% for sunday, that'd of been a go even with a rain date. and 3-4 days before the forecast actually showed 40% for sat. and how would you know how much fun we all had, you pussed out and stayed home. Missed some sweet shwag from Beta Clothing and stellar 3 hour session until 2am. Meet a bunch of new people from all over. I'd a rather been there than not. Beats a night out at a bar anytime.

refunds will also not be available in the future either. CNS makes $0 off the event. All that money goes to food/boats/stickers/etc.

Will we consiter a rain date for next year, yes, will it be definate, no. Lots of things to consider.

[dquinn]

I like how DQ-Mc Muffin actually encompases two fast food chains.

[Nate]

With the weather reports we had this year, I don't think it wouldn't have been a rain date option, but in the case of knowing for sure the weekend is going to be poop, like really poopy poop, then I think that having a rain date to move it to would be good.....more of a Hailing, Death-like, Hurricane date....ya know...

Nate

[Jen]

What kind of 'opinion' poll has 'this option is not cool' next to one of the opinions??? There are some obvious arguments to not having a rain date other than drinking beer in the rain - like the travel factor for the out-of-towners and the fact that the weather in NS is near impossible to predict. Not saying a rain date is a bad option, but if the policy is going to be no refunds there should be an exception in the case of someone not being able to make the second date. If the decision to go with the rain date is announced early enough then the food will not have been bought and it shouldn't be that much of an issue.

[Nate]

Sorry, my poll is biased, the options were more of a "would you like a repeat of this year?" Though this years boulderfest good, but there are cases were we would be able to see this prior to it occuring, in a super 100% poopy rain forecast, and I thing it would be advisable to aviod it. Yes, people from out of town have to re-schedule and what not, but they paid for climbing not sitting in the rain..

Chill out dude, it's an online poll made by a 16-yr old, how detrimental will the results really be?

Nate

[The Teth]

This discussion is all just academic anyway. The truth is that if the weather repot on Friday morning had said Rain for Saturday and Sunday the event would have been rescheduled for the following weekend, even if there was not an official rain date set. Unfortunately the weather forecast did not include that nasty word “rain” until Saturday morning, and it would be lame to cancel that late in the game as you would not have time to get in touch with everyone and would still have loads of the hard core people showing up.

The problem with announcing an official rain date is that a lot of people would bail at the first chance of showers and then be upset when the event ran without them. But then maybe this is not a good enough reason not to have an official rain date.

Incidentally, I do not have a problem with a biassed poll as long as the bias is clearly stated. I have more of a problem with a deliberately manipulative poll which pretends not to be bias (like that Sunday Shopping plebiscite which was designed to split the Yes vote by giving two options for Yes).

Teth

[Jen]

I didn't mean to complain about it being biased, I doubt it would have changed anyone's opinion.... It just sruck me as funny is all.