I really liked Fantastics because of the high amounts of SCHOOL SPIRIT regarding Lynbrook & the other schools in FUHSD. I also liked the creative rally games that kept things interesting and the utilization of our Sing-A-Long game :DDD!!! What I didn't like was the order of the games especially with regards to the Human Table... 40 min was a little ridiculous and I was personally considering leaving... I also think that there needs to better officiating for example when MV dropped their balloon... TWICE.. there was no penalty called.. Overall a very successful event. CONGRATS IDC
I liked the IDC QTournament idea because I know we have been/are trying to stray from any form of bias in the selection process of participants and I think it was a good way to do so. What I didn't like about it was that I understand that we want to get everyone who wants to participate included and give them a chance, but I felt that as we are in a competition to win against the other schools, we could have picked individuals who are more skilled in certain games/activities than others are. Also, I felt that it was weird how we signed up to play and be in the fantastics with our friends, but in the end we would be separated (bc only certain people from each team could go) and i dont think people were aware of this and some frustrated. I also think we could've started promotion a bit earlier and it was just really busy week with movember going on as well.
Fantastics was awesome! Sadly we didn't win first, but we were runner up so that was good! I felt that we got a decent amount of people there, when I looked around, I felt that we were one of the bigger crowds in the gym. I loved how people came out to get face painted (although it was mostly athletes) but more than half of us who came through got half of our faces painted!! I heard a lot of feedback from people for whom was their first fantastics, and they all said it was fun and a good experience!!
I know our main objective isn't to win and dominate and destroy the other schools- but I feel like a bit more focus on training would be nice :D I know you guys have trained and went through the games but I feel like the other schools took it a bit more seriously. I like to have fun but I also like to win so ya just my opinion.
Overall, fantastic job idc reps :) I'm sad that it was my last fantastics...
I thought the idea of the qualification tournament was good, but people weren't excited about it. I was a referee for almost all of the games in the gym, and there were maybe ten total people who came to watch. I thought the games were fun and exciting, as they were competitive and fast-paced. Not many people knew that games were going on in the gym at all, so maybe we could publicize that a little bit more. I tried really hard to sell my five tickets, but no one seemed interested. If the time were at night rather than the afternoon, a lot more people would have attended.
I thought you guys did a great job of running the entire IDC Fantastics event! Good job IDC reps! I feel like there were some things that could be improved on though. I thought the tournament was an okay idea, but I feel like people should not have been split into teams. I think you should have judged individually rather than groups because if a person is really good and is in just in a bad group then it's not fair for that person to not participate. I also think promo could have been improved, but the Thursday meeting was great! I think each member of leadership selling 5 tickets was a good idea, but people just got really annoyed after awhile. I feel like we just kept pestering people rather than actually giving them an incentive/actual reason to go. Also for promo, I don't think it should be limited to just facebook because many people do not have facebook/ don't check their notifications. For next time, there should be a separate IDC Fantastics Lynbrook page and a school loop blast sent earlier! This way people can ask questions/figure out rides easier! I also thought that the face painting before was a huge sucess!
As Jimmy mentioned, the qualification tournament was a good idea, because it gave us a fair way to pick athletes, and created some hype for the event. It would be great if we could promo the qualification tournament the same way we promo spikefest, that way, we will have more interest for both our internal rounds, as well as for the main event.
In terms of selling tickets, it would be great if we could have some sort of system for selling them at the door. I know it's not entirely in our control, but it may work well if we set up a Lynbrook Booth outside the gym to sell tickets at the door. Or at least if we sold them afterschool before the event...
The games were solid, and entertaining for the most part. The performances provided a good intermission between each game. I feel, however, that it is time to discharge the human table. The schools are getting quite good at it, which is great (hooray for healthy habits), but it is unreasonable for a game to last 40+ minutes. We lost the energy of Fantastics and the momentum we had during the beginning of the event.
I really like the concept of Fantastics, and it's great that Lynbrook was able to do such a good job!
The event was executed extremely well, and ran very smoothly, kudos to IDC!
Great job IDC! Most people have touched upon the points that I wanted to bring up. However, I have one additional point. I thought it was a bit unfair that only those from winning teams were chosen to represent Lynbrook, considering that many of these large teams were haphazardly pieced together. I definitely saw some star athletes in the losing teams so maybe you guys can simply observe and judge each person's athletic individually in future years. The qualification tournament could be run in the same fashion, but a student's eligibility wouldn't depend on their teammates' performances.
I agree with what's been said before about the prelims, especially choosing the final x number of people from the winning teams. Try and take that choice away from the athletes, since then personalities and emotions come into place, while perhaps not getting the most athletic reps. Although at the same time taking people from both teams of a class made fantastics more holistic, and less sticking together with the friends you always hang out with.
The quad games, in my opinion, were a great form of promo. Next year's IDC, if they pursue the idea of prelims, should definitely consider doing them in the public.
As for the actual IDC, I loved the performances. The games were much more prepared than I had thought that they'd be. It seemed that kneepads helped a ton for skin the snake, and perhaps for human table double check on how slippery your shoes are and bring ipods! And David's strategy at the cup stack towel slide is something we should pass down to next year.
Promo was very well done, especially with the Thursday meeting and FB posts. Perhaps advertise the tournament as a pride sort of thing though, it got people interested when we tell them Lynbrook won the first tournament and we had to take our trophy back. In terms of other modes of promo, it would've been nice to have sent out an email blast to teachers a few weeks in advance just so they could at least mention it to their students. Mr.Erwin's pizza offering was helpful too, and people saw teachers and admin were getting involved. A suggestion I'd have is to make the raffle known to more students, and maybe more along the lines of a pie a teacher in the face.
Thanks so much for getting costumes together! It might've been small, but the athletes were proud of wearing them, and as people representing a whole school, they should be.
I absolutely loved IDC Fantastics and almost everything about it, but I think everything I could possibly say in favor of it has already been said, so I won't bore you with repetition. All I'll say is that I agree with everything that everyone said about energy, games, and entertainment value of the performances.
However, I did have a few issues with IDC Fantastics this year, starting with the qualification tournament. First of all, although this was later fixed on the last day of qualifications, the IDC Fantastics Facebook page still had an older/not updated rules handbook; this led to some confusion. Furthermore, even once it was changed to a newer version, there were still some instances in which the rules on the document were not very clear and had to be refined later. For most events, this didn't matter, but it did matter in events like Skin the Snake in which all groups finish around the same time. I think making more clear-cut and defined rules beforehand (keeping probable outcomes/loopholes in mind) would make for a better tournament.
In general, I also think that the Qualification Tournament (if it is going to be the new yearly routine) should be promoted more, especially the events in the gym. I think earlier promotion would also help, as I'm pretty sure no one knew about it except the athletes until the day of.
I also agree with what Anna and Will said on the athlete choosing system (see comments above). And in terms of the actual IDC Fantastics event itself, I think that having the event take place later in the evening (6-8, perhaps?) would lead to a higher turn out. In my efforts of searching for people willing to watch, I think the most common answer was: "Sorry, Coach won't let me." There are a lot of people completely clueless about IDC Fantastics, and to some extent there will always be people who don't know what's going on. However, shifting Fantastics towards later in the evening will at least allow some Lynbrook Winter Sport athletes to come support IDC.
And although the human table was incredibly impressive, it will get boring in future years; you could see the energy, enthusiasm, and spirit all drain out of the audience as time went on. I agree with Ruchi's suggestion; it should probably be taken out before Fantastics detracts as a whole.
In general, I LOVED IDC Fantastics. All the critiques I listed above are honestly really minor compared to how much I enjoyed the experience, so great job :)
A lot has already been said, so distilled version...
Pros -most games were fun -having leadership sell 5 tickets each was a great idea -- give us responsibility and hold us accountable! -crowd was respectable, people were into it at Fantastics -games were creative -performances were great! -face painting was a good pump up
Deltas -too much promo going on for events in general, hard to keep track of what is going on -couple of judges were more anal than others, but I'm sure this will always be a problem at Fantastics -human table went for too long (though the beginning was so intense) -cheering for Fremont during human table was bad sportsmanship, but I can't complain because I was also sick of the game by minute 20 and was sending fuzzies to them -can we set the date for early second semester and later in the evening so that we don't run into CCS problems? maybe it could be right after the January rally so that we can promo it at the rally itself? -make it mandatory for all leadership kids not in sports to go -have a non-IDC rep ASB officer organize carpools for underclassmen
Nice job guys! The event was a blast and I hope you guys can rest easy now :)
Cons: -maybe separate the promo because people kept getting the prelims and the actual event mixed up -i know this is a small details, but assign ONE color for lynbrook because it just looked like grey in my opinion -Make sure beforehand that everyone who signed up for prelims could actually make it to Fantastics, itll make the choosing process way easier -speaking of which, I agree with Will in that we shouldn't let teams decide on their own who goes and who doesn't because it was a definite conflict in my team -MORE PROMO ABOUT WHAT FANTASTICS IS. enough said. -Like Amit said, organized carpools -I thought we were gonna have a pump-up session or something, but I didnt see one? Only face painting... -Not just promo-ing through the QTourney, but I think it would be a GREAT idea (although a lot of work) if we did a legit mock-fantastics as a SPIRIT-IDC collab. where we could make a real rally out of it. Although, this would have to be A good amount of time before Fantastics so people could actually buy their tickets after consulting with friends (perhaps the Friday before?) -Just overall trying to get people to come. It was kind of embarassing to see such a small turnout, especially when there was MV right next to us. -Last thing, the CHANTS. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE try to specify which chants we are going to use so we can learn them in advance (again, here is where the Mock-Fantastics idea would come into place) Also the chants we did use were very simple like Lets go Lynbrook lets go and just very common ones that everyone knew, so if we came up with creative ones it could really set us apart.
YAY PROS!: -QTourney was a blast, esp. when they were in the quad (It was SO fun watching them!) -I loved the performances at the actual Fantastics cause they were super fun to watch -I liked how you guys let people use electronics while on the human table, I know that helped the competitors a bunch. -Like Amit said, the five-tickets-per-person idea was awesome, maybe we could add some sort of incentive to the person who sold the most (I even had a bet going with another leadership kid) -facepainting was such a relief so I didn't have to go buy any or struggle to put it on myself (thanks caitlin and hana!)
Overall, great job IDC! I had a blast at my first Fantastics and I am definitely going to go it in the future years :)
Pros: -Games were fun and easy to follow, so it's easy for the schools to know when they win -Having facepaint at the top of the quad was an awesome idea! It really helped us look more unified and spirited. -Having leadership sell tickets was a good idea because it was easier to approach people instead of waiting for people to come to the top of the quad. Deltas: -The tournament was a good idea, but like others have said, some athletes didn't like that they had been split up for the qualifications, or that they hadn't been chosen even though they were a good athlete. -At the end, human table was really getting to be a drag (even though I think it's an awesome game). Maybe you could have a time limit in place? -Timing was not the greatest with so much going on, but we could have the school meeting earlier for people to have more time to get money and talk to their friends and whatnot. All in all, I thought this year's Fantastics was great! I felt like it flowed more smoothly than last year and we had more participation from the school. Great job IDC!
This was my first IDC Fantastics, so I don't have anything to compare it to really.I also couldn't see out of the mascot costume, since my breath fogged up the plastic, so I would take everything I say with a pinch of salt. Overall, it was a really positive experience! Pros: -sound system worked well- I could hear clearly through my head the whole time. -performances went really well, especially the comedy club. Personally, I thought that ours could have been a little more together. The dance itself was good, but the costumes didn't feel as put together. -we sold a ton of tickets with our five ticket rule. I do think however, that some people TRIED harder than others to sell, and that our effort to sell should somehow go into our participation grade -people knew what fantastics was because of the qualification tournament. -games were fun and innovative -song game got the entire school involved -decent lhs turnout! -we got 2nd YAY.
CONS: -human table was really boring after the first 10 minutes. People were on their phones, etc. I don't know what to do for this one. -too. much. promo. I think this is a timing issue, with WF/Movember/Fantastics. I feel like we can have Fantastics later in the year- maybe March, between winter/spring rallies so everyone is ready for some fun? -athlete choosing process- a lot has been said on this already -everyone knowing the cheers- we should have figure this out beforehand -dress code- MV looked pretty amazing- let's go for sth like that!
As an athlete and a dire supporter of the whole fantastics experience, I loved it from beginning to end. Honestly, it was just a blast from the qualifiers all the way to the real thing. The qualifications tournament could have had better judges and more defined rules. Other than that the practices during the week before were very informative and productive and we were able to pull through even with less practice then other schools. the event itself was very smooth. It started kind of late but if it wasn't for the human table we would've ended on time so it was all good. On that note the human table next year should have some sort of extra rule after a certain time period. Like after 5 minutes 5 pounds get added onto each group and then 5 more pounds per every minute. This way, the 2 minute drama can be avoided. All in all fantastics was just plain fantastic. Awesome job guys!
FANTASTICS WAS SO MUCH FUN!! It was a great way for Lynbrook to come together as a whole rather than divided into four classes. Everyone that went seemed to have had a good time, and all of the games were fun to watch. I've been to IDC fantastics all 3 years, but this year was the first year I participated as an athlete. PROS: -performances were fun to watch -ticket sales through leadership kids rather than just at the top of the quad worked decently well -games were simple -we seemed very united almost since everyone there wore navy & had face paint!! CONS: -crab walking game was dangerous :( -human table got kind of boring after a bit -a couple of people did not want to participate in fantastics because they didn't like the concept of the qualification rounds/practices All in all, Fantastics was very successful and very fun and I'm going to miss it lots :(
I thought IDC Fantastics was a complete blast. It was super fun and active throughout the time even though I was only a spectator (cheering person!).
Pros: 1) Simple but fun activities to watch and cheer to kept every moment RESTLESS! 2) The last minute hype from the face paint made Lynbrook look extra spirited! 3) Incorporating some dances from different schools in between games was awesome, since it allowed us to see what other schools can do. 4) The speakers did a wonderful job explaining instructions and rules of each game.
Cons: 1) Start promo for tickets a little sooner, and make sure there is already an incentive from the beginning. 2) Switch human table with a more fast paced game or just alter some aspects of it to make it more interesting because passing the 15 minutes mark made many people feel bored. 3) A united cheer, since some people knew what to say while some people were confused. 4) Not all refs were as strict, but I think that can't really be changed.
Fantastics definitely worked a lot better than last year's! More people came and more people were excited for the event!
Straight to the deltas: 1. Having leadership students sell tickets worked for me, because I could get all my tickets sold and it worked faster than directing my friends to all go to the top of the quad to wait in a line to spend money to buy tickets. Good job! 2. Is it possible to reduce the price to $3 or something cheaper? The objection many students had was that they're paying money to go to a rally that's not even close by. Having next year's Fantastics at Lynbrook would definitely increase turnout for the event. 3. Face paint and Vikepounds worked well! I really liked how Caitlin organized a face-painting session at Lynbrook and there to pump everyone up! Good work for this! 4. Fantastics was definitely promo'ed well so mad props to Arnav who went all out with this! Everyone knew about but not everyone participated. 5. The Qualification Tournament worked to ensure that the qualifiers for the teams would come to the event, but not many people came to the Qualification rounds, which is something you could promote more! 6. People lost interest in the human table after Lynbrook fell, so consider a different strategy for that.
I really enjoyed going to IDC fantastic because it was really fun even for the people watching! PROS: 1. The games were well explained so the people watching could understand the concepts of the game. 2. There were games that let everyone participate in! Yay Annette for the sing along game idea! Cons: 1. The human table was very long so there should be a way to shorten the game. Maybe make it more difficult as more schools go down by putting weights on them. 2. IDC fantastic still needs more advertisement and more incentive to get people to go. BUT good jobs IDC you guys did a great job!(:
IDC was a fun experience, although I didn't get to meet many new people from other schools. Maybe have collaborative games or something to get the schools to be friendly rather than just competing.
I agree that we should start preparing for this earlier and that students who are good at certain games should be picked rather than from the winning team.
Also, there has to be a bigger emphasis put on this event so people are willing to participate.
I loved the games and how we were graded made sense. I also loved the face painting before and the sense of being a lynbrook family!
I didn't really like though that the rules were not very clear of what you could and couldn't do. I felt there needed to be a better clarification. Maybe before the fantastics start each team meets with their ref outside discussing each game in depth? The other thing was that I felt the distribution of how leanent (spelling?) the refs were was uneven. There were some schools who had a ref that would let things slide but our ref would yell things at our players while they were playing to remind them not to do anything wrong. And would go really hard on us. Also i know publicity and ticket sales were hard so maybe next time we have a personal Lynbrook video emphasizing that we need to beat the matadors or something and teach support and convo would be good too. And finally more music the better please!
Over all I loved the fantastics and thought it went well!
IDC. Super fun event, kudos to all the IDC reps from all the schools, especially ours. I found both the lead up and the event itself very fun. Pros: People got super pumped up and ready for the event during the preliminaries. Tons of fun to play the games during the trials, event itself was fun. Those who went to cheer on our school did a great job. Athletes did their best and did a great job. PEOPLE HAD FUN!!!!
Improvements: The whole thing about the rules and whatnot of the choosing people to go has been said too much already. More stuff done earlier before the event like carpools and whatnot. Everything seemed a bit crammed (like the viking mascot and ticket sales), which seems like a common problem among all our events. Cut off the human table at 20 min, or just don't play games that won't end quickly. Balloon popping one went on a tad too long.
I was pretty much forced to do the qualification tournament. I wasn't looking forward to it at all since my friends told me that Fantastics was exaggerated. But I had so much fun. My lunches were sacrificed, but I made some new friends and created new experiences. Plus, it gave me and everyone a taste of how the tournament would be like. I couldn't go to the tournament because of soccer, but definitely keep the qualification games next year. It was good promo.
Ways to improve the tournament: MORE MORE MORE promo. People STILL didn't know about fantastics even during the qualification games. More posters (have people walk around while holding them maybe). Or you can make Victor the Viking walk around with a poster or like a shirt saying IDC fantastics. THIS IS MEERA
Pros: -qualifications: I liked this new system because then people get to see what they are getting into while battling their friends and this removes the bias of idc reps just choosing who gets to go -team apparel and face paint was cute and spirited! -Even though it was far away, we tried our best to give rides and carpool to those who don't have rides which is really important!
Cons: -Even though we are suppose to be cheering for our own school, there was really no opportunity to meet new people from other schools because we were separated! -Promo: now that the word is out, we just need to encourage people to go and go with their friends -personally really hard to sell tickets and we should start ticket sales earlier
Although I was unable to attend, I just wanted to share feedback about pre-Fantastics!
Pros: - strong effort toward publicity - although we may not all have enjoyed the competition, ticket selling was pretty effective - team apparel and lunchtime practices were much more effective - more awareness about the event
Deltas: - I felt like our ticket selling targeted the same groups of people and did not expand beyond our certain circles. While this may be coincidence that we have similar friends, I feel like we should continue to promo selling at the top of the quad during the week. - Use promo beyond Facebook. Make posters and a-frames earlier in the week. - Raffle off IDC tickets to people for other activities during the week. - Reward the athletes who participated this year so they're excited and pumped for next year! I know MV handed out team photos after the event and people were very excited for it this year.
I thought the judge for Team Fremont Rocked it. I mean did you see how he showed his own school pride by wearing a viking helmet and how he got down on the gym floor to really concentrate on Fremont's human table.
As for the Human table - many have blogged about it lasting so long. So to shorten it, maybe after the first 10 minutes we can poor buckets of slim on them. Just a thought. By the way...Just kidding too! That would be dangerous.
Mr. Erwin's Pizza give away was totally last minute- but if it will get kids there (I mean here, see last comment) then by all means, allow me to stuff a kids face with a Mount Mikes Pizza.
We also need an inspirational speech from the Activities Assistant Principal or Leadership teacher. Something like:
"Fight and you may die. Run and you will live... at least awhile. And dying in your bed many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance, to come back here as young men and tell our enemies that they may take our lives but they will never take our FREEDOM!"
or...
That's just the attitude we don't need. Sure, Mohawk has beaten us twelve years in a row. Sure, they're terrific athletes. They've got the best equipment that money can buy. Hell, every team they're sending over here has their own personal masseuse, not masseur, masseuse. But it doesn't matter. Do you know that every Mohawk competitor has an electrocardiogram, blood and urine tests every 48 hours to see if there's any change in his physical condition? Do you know that they use the most sophisticated training methods from the Soviet Union, East and West Germany, and the newest Olympic power Trinidad-Tobago? But it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER. I tell you, IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER! IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER! IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER! And even, and even if we win, if we win, HAH! Even if we win! Even if we play so far over our heads that our noses bleed for a week to ten days. Even if God in Heaven above comes down and points his hand at our side of the field. Even if every man, woman and child held hands together and prayed for us to win, it just wouldn't matter, because all the really good looking girls would still go out with the guys from Mohawk cause they've got all the money! It just doesn't matter if we win or we lose. IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9mf3Bypyk8 (this link takes you to the Just Doesn't Matter Speech so you can see it in it's full effect)
Next year we need HOME SCHOOL ADVANTAGE! (It's not like I'm competitive or anything)
I really liked Fantastics because of the high amounts of SCHOOL SPIRIT regarding Lynbrook & the other schools in FUHSD. I also liked the creative rally games that kept things interesting and the utilization of our Sing-A-Long game :DDD!!! What I didn't like was the order of the games especially with regards to the Human Table... 40 min was a little ridiculous and I was personally considering leaving... I also think that there needs to better officiating for example when MV dropped their balloon... TWICE.. there was no penalty called.. Overall a very successful event. CONGRATS IDC
ReplyDeleteI liked the IDC QTournament idea because I know we have been/are trying to stray from any form of bias in the selection process of participants and I think it was a good way to do so. What I didn't like about it was that I understand that we want to get everyone who wants to participate included and give them a chance, but I felt that as we are in a competition to win against the other schools, we could have picked individuals who are more skilled in certain games/activities than others are. Also, I felt that it was weird how we signed up to play and be in the fantastics with our friends, but in the end we would be separated (bc only certain people from each team could go) and i dont think people were aware of this and some frustrated. I also think we could've started promotion a bit earlier and it was just really busy week with movember going on as well.
ReplyDeleteFantastics was awesome! Sadly we didn't win first, but we were runner up so that was good! I felt that we got a decent amount of people there, when I looked around, I felt that we were one of the bigger crowds in the gym. I loved how people came out to get face painted (although it was mostly athletes) but more than half of us who came through got half of our faces painted!! I heard a lot of feedback from people for whom was their first fantastics, and they all said it was fun and a good experience!!
I know our main objective isn't to win and dominate and destroy the other schools- but I feel like a bit more focus on training would be nice :D I know you guys have trained and went through the games but I feel like the other schools took it a bit more seriously. I like to have fun but I also like to win so ya just my opinion.
Overall, fantastic job idc reps :) I'm sad that it was my last fantastics...
I thought the idea of the qualification tournament was good, but people weren't excited about it. I was a referee for almost all of the games in the gym, and there were maybe ten total people who came to watch. I thought the games were fun and exciting, as they were competitive and fast-paced. Not many people knew that games were going on in the gym at all, so maybe we could publicize that a little bit more. I tried really hard to sell my five tickets, but no one seemed interested. If the time were at night rather than the afternoon, a lot more people would have attended.
ReplyDeleteI thought you guys did a great job of running the entire IDC Fantastics event! Good job IDC reps! I feel like there were some things that could be improved on though. I thought the tournament was an okay idea, but I feel like people should not have been split into teams. I think you should have judged individually rather than groups because if a person is really good and is in just in a bad group then it's not fair for that person to not participate. I also think promo could have been improved, but the Thursday meeting was great! I think each member of leadership selling 5 tickets was a good idea, but people just got really annoyed after awhile. I feel like we just kept pestering people rather than actually giving them an incentive/actual reason to go. Also for promo, I don't think it should be limited to just facebook because many people do not have facebook/ don't check their notifications. For next time, there should be a separate IDC Fantastics Lynbrook page and a school loop blast sent earlier! This way people can ask questions/figure out rides easier! I also thought that the face painting before was a huge sucess!
ReplyDeleteOverall, Fantastics were great!
ReplyDeleteAs Jimmy mentioned, the qualification tournament was a good idea, because it gave us a fair way to pick athletes, and created some hype for the event. It would be great if we could promo the qualification tournament the same way we promo spikefest, that way, we will have more interest for both our internal rounds, as well as for the main event.
In terms of selling tickets, it would be great if we could have some sort of system for selling them at the door. I know it's not entirely in our control, but it may work well if we set up a Lynbrook Booth outside the gym to sell tickets at the door. Or at least if we sold them afterschool before the event...
The games were solid, and entertaining for the most part. The performances provided a good intermission between each game. I feel, however, that it is time to discharge the human table. The schools are getting quite good at it, which is great (hooray for healthy habits), but it is unreasonable for a game to last 40+ minutes. We lost the energy of Fantastics and the momentum we had during the beginning of the event.
I really like the concept of Fantastics, and it's great that Lynbrook was able to do such a good job!
The event was executed extremely well, and ran very smoothly, kudos to IDC!
Great job IDC! Most people have touched upon the points that I wanted to bring up. However, I have one additional point. I thought it was a bit unfair that only those from winning teams were chosen to represent Lynbrook, considering that many of these large teams were haphazardly pieced together. I definitely saw some star athletes in the losing teams so maybe you guys can simply observe and judge each person's athletic individually in future years. The qualification tournament could be run in the same fashion, but a student's eligibility wouldn't depend on their teammates' performances.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what's been said before about the prelims, especially choosing the final x number of people from the winning teams. Try and take that choice away from the athletes, since then personalities and emotions come into place, while perhaps not getting the most athletic reps. Although at the same time taking people from both teams of a class made fantastics more holistic, and less sticking together with the friends you always hang out with.
ReplyDeleteThe quad games, in my opinion, were a great form of promo. Next year's IDC, if they pursue the idea of prelims, should definitely consider doing them in the public.
As for the actual IDC, I loved the performances. The games were much more prepared than I had thought that they'd be. It seemed that kneepads helped a ton for skin the snake, and perhaps for human table double check on how slippery your shoes are and bring ipods! And David's strategy at the cup stack towel slide is something we should pass down to next year.
Promo was very well done, especially with the Thursday meeting and FB posts. Perhaps advertise the tournament as a pride sort of thing though, it got people interested when we tell them Lynbrook won the first tournament and we had to take our trophy back.
In terms of other modes of promo, it would've been nice to have sent out an email blast to teachers a few weeks in advance just so they could at least mention it to their students. Mr.Erwin's pizza offering was helpful too, and people saw teachers and admin were getting involved. A suggestion I'd have is to make the raffle known to more students, and maybe more along the lines of a pie a teacher in the face.
Thanks so much for getting costumes together! It might've been small, but the athletes were proud of wearing them, and as people representing a whole school, they should be.
Amazing job, IDC Reps!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved IDC Fantastics and almost everything about it, but I think everything I could possibly say in favor of it has already been said, so I won't bore you with repetition. All I'll say is that I agree with everything that everyone said about energy, games, and entertainment value of the performances.
However, I did have a few issues with IDC Fantastics this year, starting with the qualification tournament. First of all, although this was later fixed on the last day of qualifications, the IDC Fantastics Facebook page still had an older/not updated rules handbook; this led to some confusion. Furthermore, even once it was changed to a newer version, there were still some instances in which the rules on the document were not very clear and had to be refined later. For most events, this didn't matter, but it did matter in events like Skin the Snake in which all groups finish around the same time. I think making more clear-cut and defined rules beforehand (keeping probable outcomes/loopholes in mind) would make for a better tournament.
In general, I also think that the Qualification Tournament (if it is going to be the new yearly routine) should be promoted more, especially the events in the gym. I think earlier promotion would also help, as I'm pretty sure no one knew about it except the athletes until the day of.
I also agree with what Anna and Will said on the athlete choosing system (see comments above).
And in terms of the actual IDC Fantastics event itself, I think that having the event
take place later in the evening (6-8, perhaps?) would lead to a higher turn out. In my efforts of searching for people willing to watch, I think the most common answer was: "Sorry, Coach won't let me." There are a lot of people completely clueless about IDC Fantastics, and to some extent there will always be people who don't know what's going on. However, shifting Fantastics towards later in the evening will at least allow some Lynbrook Winter Sport athletes to come support IDC.
And although the human table was incredibly impressive, it will get boring in future years; you could see the energy, enthusiasm, and spirit all drain out of the audience as time went on. I agree with Ruchi's suggestion; it should probably be taken out before Fantastics detracts as a whole.
In general, I LOVED IDC Fantastics. All the critiques I listed above are honestly really minor compared to how much I enjoyed the experience, so great job :)
A lot has already been said, so distilled version...
ReplyDeletePros
-most games were fun
-having leadership sell 5 tickets each was a great idea -- give us responsibility and hold us accountable!
-crowd was respectable, people were into it at Fantastics
-games were creative
-performances were great!
-face painting was a good pump up
Deltas
-too much promo going on for events in general, hard to keep track of what is going on
-couple of judges were more anal than others, but I'm sure this will always be a problem at Fantastics
-human table went for too long (though the beginning was so intense)
-cheering for Fremont during human table was bad sportsmanship, but I can't complain because I was also sick of the game by minute 20 and was sending fuzzies to them
-can we set the date for early second semester and later in the evening so that we don't run into CCS problems? maybe it could be right after the January rally so that we can promo it at the rally itself?
-make it mandatory for all leadership kids not in sports to go
-have a non-IDC rep ASB officer organize carpools for underclassmen
Nice job guys! The event was a blast and I hope you guys can rest easy now :)
Cons:
ReplyDelete-maybe separate the promo because people kept getting the prelims and the actual event mixed up
-i know this is a small details, but assign ONE color for lynbrook because it just looked like grey in my opinion
-Make sure beforehand that everyone who signed up for prelims could actually make it to Fantastics, itll make the choosing process way easier
-speaking of which, I agree with Will in that we shouldn't let teams decide on their own who goes and who doesn't because it was a definite conflict in my team
-MORE PROMO ABOUT WHAT FANTASTICS IS. enough said.
-Like Amit said, organized carpools
-I thought we were gonna have a pump-up session or something, but I didnt see one? Only face painting...
-Not just promo-ing through the QTourney, but I think it would be a GREAT idea (although a lot of work) if we did a legit mock-fantastics as a SPIRIT-IDC collab. where we could make a real rally out of it. Although, this would have to be A good amount of time before Fantastics so people could actually buy their tickets after consulting with friends (perhaps the Friday before?)
-Just overall trying to get people to come. It was kind of embarassing to see such a small turnout, especially when there was MV right next to us.
-Last thing, the CHANTS. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE try to specify which chants we are going to use so we can learn them in advance (again, here is where the Mock-Fantastics idea would come into place) Also the chants we did use were very simple like Lets go Lynbrook lets go and just very common ones that everyone knew, so if we came up with creative ones it could really set us apart.
YAY PROS!:
-QTourney was a blast, esp. when they were in the quad (It was SO fun watching them!)
-I loved the performances at the actual Fantastics cause they were super fun to watch
-I liked how you guys let people use electronics while on the human table, I know that helped the competitors a bunch.
-Like Amit said, the five-tickets-per-person idea was awesome, maybe we could add some sort of incentive to the person who sold the most (I even had a bet going with another leadership kid)
-facepainting was such a relief so I didn't have to go buy any or struggle to put it on myself (thanks caitlin and hana!)
Overall, great job IDC! I had a blast at my first Fantastics and I am definitely going to go it in the future years :)
Pros:
ReplyDelete-Games were fun and easy to follow, so it's easy for the schools to know when they win
-Having facepaint at the top of the quad was an awesome idea! It really helped us look more unified and spirited.
-Having leadership sell tickets was a good idea because it was easier to approach people instead of waiting for people to come to the top of the quad.
Deltas:
-The tournament was a good idea, but like others have said, some athletes didn't like that they had been split up for the qualifications, or that they hadn't been chosen even though they were a good athlete.
-At the end, human table was really getting to be a drag (even though I think it's an awesome game). Maybe you could have a time limit in place?
-Timing was not the greatest with so much going on, but we could have the school meeting earlier for people to have more time to get money and talk to their friends and whatnot.
All in all, I thought this year's Fantastics was great! I felt like it flowed more smoothly than last year and we had more participation from the school. Great job IDC!
This was my first IDC Fantastics, so I don't have anything to compare it to really.I also couldn't see out of the mascot costume, since my breath fogged up the plastic, so I would take everything I say with a pinch of salt. Overall, it was a really positive experience!
ReplyDeletePros:
-sound system worked well- I could hear clearly through my head the whole time.
-performances went really well, especially the comedy club. Personally, I thought that ours could have been a little more together. The dance itself was good, but the costumes didn't feel as put together.
-we sold a ton of tickets with our five ticket rule. I do think however, that some people TRIED harder than others to sell, and that our effort to sell should somehow go into our participation grade
-people knew what fantastics was because of the qualification tournament.
-games were fun and innovative
-song game got the entire school involved
-decent lhs turnout!
-we got 2nd YAY.
CONS:
-human table was really boring after the first 10 minutes. People were on their phones, etc. I don't know what to do for this one.
-too. much. promo. I think this is a timing issue, with WF/Movember/Fantastics. I feel like we can have Fantastics later in the year- maybe March, between winter/spring rallies so everyone is ready for some fun?
-athlete choosing process- a lot has been said on this already
-everyone knowing the cheers- we should have figure this out beforehand
-dress code- MV looked pretty amazing- let's go for sth like that!
Great job IDC ILY!
As an athlete and a dire supporter of the whole fantastics experience, I loved it from beginning to end. Honestly, it was just a blast from the qualifiers all the way to the real thing. The qualifications tournament could have had better judges and more defined rules. Other than that the practices during the week before were very informative and productive and we were able to pull through even with less practice then other schools. the event itself was very smooth. It started kind of late but if it wasn't for the human table we would've ended on time so it was all good. On that note the human table next year should have some sort of extra rule after a certain time period. Like after 5 minutes 5 pounds get added onto each group and then 5 more pounds per every minute. This way, the 2 minute drama can be avoided.
ReplyDeleteAll in all fantastics was just plain fantastic.
Awesome job guys!
FANTASTICS WAS SO MUCH FUN!!
ReplyDeleteIt was a great way for Lynbrook to come together as a whole rather than divided into four classes. Everyone that went seemed to have had a good time, and all of the games were fun to watch. I've been to IDC fantastics all 3 years, but this year was the first year I participated as an athlete.
PROS:
-performances were fun to watch
-ticket sales through leadership kids rather than just at the top of the quad worked decently well
-games were simple
-we seemed very united almost since everyone there wore navy & had face paint!!
CONS:
-crab walking game was dangerous :(
-human table got kind of boring after a bit
-a couple of people did not want to participate in fantastics because they didn't like the concept of the qualification rounds/practices
All in all, Fantastics was very successful and very fun and I'm going to miss it lots :(
I thought IDC Fantastics was a complete blast. It was super fun and active throughout the time even though I was only a spectator (cheering person!).
ReplyDeletePros:
1) Simple but fun activities to watch and cheer to kept every moment RESTLESS!
2) The last minute hype from the face paint made Lynbrook look extra spirited!
3) Incorporating some dances from different schools in between games was awesome, since it allowed us to see what other schools can do.
4) The speakers did a wonderful job explaining instructions and rules of each game.
Cons:
1) Start promo for tickets a little sooner, and make sure there is already an incentive from the beginning.
2) Switch human table with a more fast paced game or just alter some aspects of it to make it more interesting because passing the 15 minutes mark made many people feel bored.
3) A united cheer, since some people knew what to say while some people were confused.
4) Not all refs were as strict, but I think that can't really be changed.
Fantastics definitely worked a lot better than last year's! More people came and more people were excited for the event!
ReplyDeleteStraight to the deltas:
1. Having leadership students sell tickets worked for me, because I could get all my tickets sold and it worked faster than directing my friends to all go to the top of the quad to wait in a line to spend money to buy tickets. Good job!
2. Is it possible to reduce the price to $3 or something cheaper? The objection many students had was that they're paying money to go to a rally that's not even close by. Having next year's Fantastics at Lynbrook would definitely increase turnout for the event.
3. Face paint and Vikepounds worked well! I really liked how Caitlin organized a face-painting session at Lynbrook and there to pump everyone up! Good work for this!
4. Fantastics was definitely promo'ed well so mad props to Arnav who went all out with this! Everyone knew about but not everyone participated.
5. The Qualification Tournament worked to ensure that the qualifiers for the teams would come to the event, but not many people came to the Qualification rounds, which is something you could promote more!
6. People lost interest in the human table after Lynbrook fell, so consider a different strategy for that.
I really enjoyed going to IDC fantastic because it was really fun even for the people watching!
ReplyDeletePROS:
1. The games were well explained so the people watching could understand the concepts of the game.
2. There were games that let everyone participate in! Yay Annette for the sing along game idea!
Cons:
1. The human table was very long so there should be a way to shorten the game. Maybe make it more difficult as more schools go down by putting weights on them.
2. IDC fantastic still needs more advertisement and more incentive to get people to go.
BUT good jobs IDC you guys did a great job!(:
I don't know what more to say...
ReplyDeleteIDC was a fun experience, although I didn't get to meet many new people from other schools. Maybe have collaborative games or something to get the schools to be friendly rather than just competing.
I agree that we should start preparing for this earlier and that students who are good at certain games should be picked rather than from the winning team.
Also, there has to be a bigger emphasis put on this event so people are willing to participate.
I loved the fantastics they were so much fun!
ReplyDeleteI loved the games and how we were graded made sense. I also loved the face painting before and the sense of being a lynbrook family!
I didn't really like though that the rules were not very clear of what you could and couldn't do. I felt there needed to be a better clarification. Maybe before the fantastics start each team meets with their ref outside discussing each game in depth? The other thing was that I felt the distribution of how leanent (spelling?) the refs were was uneven. There were some schools who had a ref that would let things slide but our ref would yell things at our players while they were playing to remind them not to do anything wrong. And would go really hard on us. Also i know publicity and ticket sales were hard so maybe next time we have a personal Lynbrook video emphasizing that we need to beat the matadors or something and teach support and convo would be good too. And finally more music the better please!
Over all I loved the fantastics and thought it went well!
IDC. Super fun event, kudos to all the IDC reps from all the schools, especially ours. I found both the lead up and the event itself very fun.
ReplyDeletePros:
People got super pumped up and ready for the event during the preliminaries.
Tons of fun to play the games during the trials, event itself was fun.
Those who went to cheer on our school did a great job.
Athletes did their best and did a great job.
PEOPLE HAD FUN!!!!
Improvements:
The whole thing about the rules and whatnot of the choosing people to go has been said too much already.
More stuff done earlier before the event like carpools and whatnot. Everything seemed a bit crammed (like the viking mascot and ticket sales), which seems like a common problem among all our events.
Cut off the human table at 20 min, or just don't play games that won't end quickly. Balloon popping one went on a tad too long.
I was pretty much forced to do the qualification tournament. I wasn't looking forward to it at all since my friends told me that Fantastics was exaggerated. But I had so much fun. My lunches were sacrificed, but I made some new friends and created new experiences. Plus, it gave me and everyone a taste of how the tournament would be like. I couldn't go to the tournament because of soccer, but definitely keep the qualification games next year. It was good promo.
ReplyDeleteWays to improve the tournament:
MORE MORE MORE promo. People STILL didn't know about fantastics even during the qualification games. More posters (have people walk around while holding them maybe). Or you can make Victor the Viking walk around with a poster or like a shirt saying IDC fantastics.
THIS IS MEERA
GO IDC!
ReplyDeletePros:
-qualifications: I liked this new system because then people get to see what they are getting into while battling their friends and this removes the bias of idc reps just choosing who gets to go
-team apparel and face paint was cute and spirited!
-Even though it was far away, we tried our best to give rides and carpool to those who don't have rides which is really important!
Cons:
-Even though we are suppose to be cheering for our own school, there was really no opportunity to meet new people from other schools because we were separated!
-Promo: now that the word is out, we just need to encourage people to go and go with their friends
-personally really hard to sell tickets and we should start ticket sales earlier
Although I was unable to attend, I just wanted to share feedback about pre-Fantastics!
ReplyDeletePros:
- strong effort toward publicity
- although we may not all have enjoyed the competition, ticket selling was pretty effective
- team apparel and lunchtime practices were much more effective
- more awareness about the event
Deltas:
- I felt like our ticket selling targeted the same groups of people and did not expand beyond our certain circles. While this may be coincidence that we have similar friends, I feel like we should continue to promo selling at the top of the quad during the week.
- Use promo beyond Facebook. Make posters and a-frames earlier in the week.
- Raffle off IDC tickets to people for other activities during the week.
- Reward the athletes who participated this year so they're excited and pumped for next year! I know MV handed out team photos after the event and people were very excited for it this year.
Overall, "FANTASIC JOB" :)
I thought the judge for Team Fremont Rocked it. I mean did you see how he showed his own school pride by wearing a viking helmet and how he got down on the gym floor to really concentrate on Fremont's human table.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Human table - many have blogged about it lasting so long. So to shorten it, maybe after the first 10 minutes we can poor buckets of slim on them. Just a thought. By the way...Just kidding too! That would be dangerous.
Mr. Erwin's Pizza give away was totally last minute- but if it will get kids there (I mean here, see last comment) then by all means, allow me to stuff a kids face with a Mount Mikes Pizza.
We also need an inspirational speech from the Activities Assistant Principal or Leadership teacher.
Something like:
"Fight and you may die.
Run and you will live... at least awhile.
And dying in your bed many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance, to come back here as young men and tell our enemies that they may take our lives but they will never take our FREEDOM!"
or...
That's just the attitude we don't need. Sure, Mohawk has beaten us twelve years in a row. Sure, they're terrific athletes. They've got the best equipment that money can buy. Hell, every team they're sending over here has their own personal masseuse, not masseur, masseuse. But it doesn't matter. Do you know that every Mohawk competitor has an electrocardiogram, blood and urine tests every 48 hours to see if there's any change in his physical condition? Do you know that they use the most sophisticated training methods from the Soviet Union, East and West Germany, and the newest Olympic power Trinidad-Tobago? But it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER. I tell you, IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER! IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER! IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER!
And even, and even if we win, if we win, HAH! Even if we win! Even if we play so far over our heads that our noses bleed for a week to ten days. Even if God in Heaven above comes down and points his hand at our side of the field. Even if every man, woman and child held hands together and prayed for us to win, it just wouldn't matter, because all the really good looking girls would still go out with the guys from Mohawk cause they've got all the money! It just doesn't matter if we win or we lose. IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9mf3Bypyk8 (this link takes you to the Just Doesn't Matter Speech so you can see it in it's full effect)
Next year we need HOME SCHOOL ADVANTAGE!
(It's not like I'm competitive or anything)