Dear FFG Organized Play,

Your decision to hold Regional events on November 25^th, 2017 on Thanksgiving weekend is a tremendously poor idea and inconsistent with your scheduling sensitivity around other highly revered American holidays that are known primarily for family travel.

Your nearest scheduled event to Christmas will be December 16^th, 2017 where two events (for Armada and X-Wing, respectively) are scheduled over a week before the holiday. The first events in 2018 will be a week after New Year’s Eve on the next Sunday. Much like Thanksgiving, these days are also traditionally held as celebrations to be enjoyed with family and friends. Most of your own employees probably have plans to enjoy these days, and Thanksgiving weekend, in close contact with family and will find that stepping away from that to spend the entire day gaming with strangers at a remote location to be difficult at best, or unacceptable at worst.

It may not be possible now to reschedule the five regional events that have been placed on November 25^th, 2017 even though many players, myself included, would rather you do so. But at least I ask on behalf of many Americans that you work to better separate future events from major travel holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. It is frustrating to have to choose between going to a local event and missing valuable time with visiting family and traveling to a distant location at significant expense.

Sincerely,

thecactusman17

I was under the impression the dates for these events were primarily the decision of the venue's owner/manager while FFG just kinda says "Yeah, sure" and signs off on it.

Just now, Skargoth said:

I was under the impression the dates for these events were primarily the decision of the venue's owner/manager and FFG just kinda says "Sure."

My understanding is that FFG gives each store a short list of available dates, and they are forced to choose from one of those dates. My contention is that a date this close to a major American holiday should not have been offered to anyone, especially given how remote some of the locations are from other Regionals and thus there would have been little risk of overlapping or cannibalizing Regional audiences from other locations or games.

Has anyone done a map with all the regional locations yet? I'd like to see how geographically bad it is this time around ..

35 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

My understanding is that FFG gives each store a short list of available dates, and they are forced to choose from one of those dates. My contention is that a date this close to a major American holiday should not have been offered to anyone, especially given how remote some of the locations are from other Regionals and thus there would have been little risk of overlapping or cannibalizing Regional audiences from other locations or games.

Your understanding is wrong.
Your sentiment for not going with friends and family to a X-Wing tournament on a holiday is imho wrong too, but your ymmv, so whatever. Still, Regionals are supposed to be community events, not random one-day stands with strangers. (edit) And speaking of community events, you would be surprised how many familiar faces there are even when you travel between a dozen nationals during the year. There is a small, dedicated player base who actually meets several times per year at those events have a great time together each time. In the end many of those "remote locations" are usually just a plane ticket away.

28 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Your understanding is wrong.
Your sentiment for not going with friends and family to a X-Wing tournament on a holiday is imho wrong too, but your ymmv, so whatever. Still, Regionals are supposed to be community events, not random one-day stands with strangers. (edit) And speaking of community events, you would be surprised how many familiar faces there are even when you travel between a dozen nationals during the year. There is a small, dedicated player base who actually meets several times per year at those events have a great time together each time. In the end many of those "remote locations" are usually just a plane ticket away.

A plane ticket away with a hotel room, meals out, etc adds up quick. I posted this on every affected game board, but just so you know every community I've seen has commented that players are unable to attend strictly because of the holiday weekend. In our California community (for Armada, XWing doesn't have a regional in northern California yet) roughly a quarter of the local player group has been forced to skip regionals this year just because of the date choice.

I wish I had a nearby regional on 11/25