Dragon Boat West

1. Who the heck races on a river
2. Lanes are inconsistent
3. Fastest lane should be the middle but varies year to year
4. Team standings are inaccurate and depend on your lane assignment
5. Start starts when boats aren't lined up sometimes half a boat length ahead or behind
6. No teams other than edmonton ones enter because they know its crap

please add to the list as you see fit lol

Dear Edmonton,

Your race was nothing compared to our local race.....



1. Race Grid was wrong and required a brain surgeon to figure it out
2. What lanes? - Free for all
3. All lanes were fast because the start line was not used
4. Required Ouija Board to figure out team standings
5. Start starts when boats aren't lined up sometimes half a boat length ahead or behind - At least in Edmonton, you had a start line......
6. As a local, we were truly embarrassed. If we could, we would have refunded the entrance fee to all the teams.
7. Seattle was a GONG SHOW, by far the worst event our team has raced at.
8. Don't even add this to your calendar next year, race somewhere else and save yourself the aggravation, humiliation, and stress.

Positive comments:

1. Boats are raced on water
2. No one died
3. Teams were rescued by the police, after a few multiple capsizes.
4. All teams were laughing - not because of a great event but just due to how hysterical the racing was
5. Spare paddles supplied by the festival were UNBREAKABLE - the old plastic black blades with the silver aluminum shaft
6. No race officials could get yelled at because they were moving to fast too find.
7. Free toliet paper in the "honey buckets"


Please don't add anymore comments because I don't think anyone is listening.

Holy cow! Did I miss something?  :?

Hey, at least they have a festival, unlike a certain city to the south  :(

True but at least Calgary did not mess up anything this year.

I agree that the Edmonton festival is the dumps.  Who gives the second place team the best lane? 

Whatever.

Calgary has some great water, just needs a festival.

dbwest...

1. are you going to trash the Seattle races on every forum thread?

2. CTRL+C and CTRL+V is much quicker way to cut and paste...

I thought a lot of dragon boat regattas are on rivers. A quick list besides Edmonton are: Richmond, New York, Winnipeg are Singapore. Just having enough water is a plus.

We should have races in a pool like in Europe lol

exuse me OH LORDY, as paddlers, we want to improve festivals. if we don't voice our concerns, then races will never improve. we will just continue to put on "bad" events for people. So, Oh Lordy, if you want me to just clam up and let's tell everyone that the Seattle race was "awesome and great", please let us all know. We can lie to the public, it's not that hard.

There's already a thread about the Seattle festival so let's keep the "constructive criticism" of Seattle there and focus on Edmonton here.

Thanks.

Dear dbwest & jellyman123

First off - nice original name!

Second, I have some words of coaching wisdom for you...  Apply thy energy from thy mouth to thy blade - maybe then you will be able to face a current.

Are there challenges at Festivals? yes.. Were there challenges in Edmonton? - YES!  What their organization needs to hear is constructive feedback, not lip flapping!  Share your concerns - write them - man up, they need to hear it!

We all love the sport & we have such a short season - don't ruin the spirit by adding to problems!

DOWN WITH "DRAMA BOATING"

Sorry don't know what happened at your event in Edmonton. If you were only in Seattle, you would have laughed.

Yes we all spoke up at our event, it unfortunately fell on DEAF ears. as for applying my mouth to my blade - no problem. We were in the A final but the other teams that got "cheated" didn't get a chance to showcase themselves. It wasn't an even playing field.

For the inconsistent lanes comment, there could be something like that. The results may have shown which lanes were better than others.

Please take a look at the link below:

http://www.edmontondragonboatfestival.com/

and the results are near the bottom, especially from the finals on Sunday afternoon.

What can be done to make the lanes more fair? Not sure if anything can be done with the races being on the river and conditions changing all the time...

Dear Trident.

Hmmm I guess I could let the organizers know however most of them too stubborn to listen.  As far as Edmonton goes, there is a reason why it has become less and less popular.  How many away teams go to Edmonton, none.

If you know of a way for me to provide constructive feedback to the organizers please let me know.  Otherwise I am quite content on not wasting my time in Edmonton and spending my season in well run festivals like Vancouver.

Trident, I couldn't agree with you more that constructive criticism is absolutely more valuable than random complaining. But the problem with Edmonton is that our team over the last few years has found that the few times we've tried to approach certain members of the organizing committee with our concerns, we've been shot down with so much attitude and contempt, we were starting to wonder if we had somehow accidentally wronged their ancestors in a previous life.

Trust me, we weren't looking for a fight, just trying to find solutions. And if a solution couldn't be found, then to have just one single person say, "Well, sorry guys, guess there was a misunderstanding/miscalculation and unfortunately there's nothing we can do about it now." You know, it's true what they say, an apology really does go a long way. After all, we more than understand that mistakes will happen at any festival,. But perhaps that's too much to ask for...

I agree with jellyman123, I would love to help the Edmonton committee improve the festival, but only if I know our input would be genuinely appreciated and considered with respect. Until then, our team has made the gut-wrenching decision not to return to Edmonton, just too much conflict to bear...

Oh, but to be fair, there were a few rare individuals from the festival who truly did seem to care and were bending over backwards to help us out. I wish I knew their names, but sincere thanks and deepest gratitude to them!

Thank you for the comments... We all faced "the hand" from some individuals during the event - it is a shame.  BUT, there are some fantastic people with that association that want to make this festival the best it can be.  I heard that this year for the 1st time they hired an event person and have BIG plans for 2010.  THEY NEED TO HEAR FROM US!  I went on line and found a contact email of "[email protected]" and sent my concerns last night.  Please do the same - Please...  I let them know that the venue is absolutely beautiful & their volunteers are fantastic - it is the Race portion that needs WORK!  As for the lanes - they can not clearly mark their lanes due to the Edmonton Queen sailing on the weekend and taking out the markers.  Their only solution at the moment is to video from the top during the race - communicate with the chase boat - and review with the times and marshall after each heat in which they did...  My issue was with the start line...  When I receive a reply, I will post it...

As for away teams - there were some - Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, and Calgary - THANK YOU FOR SHOWING!