About prizes, bribes, and scoring

[thegreatwizard]

As the Wizard, I am responsible for scoring the entire event. There are some basic questions to be answered:

1) Will the new 'simple' event even have prizes, trophies, etc?

There are several major reasons to have prizes. One is that, without them, the motivation for bribes disappears. Bribes have become a MAJOR portion of the event. Everyone would hate to see them go. Another reason to have prizes is that its a COMPETITION. The basis nature of a competition is to have prizes for the winners.

2) Assuming there ARE prizes, then where would they come from? Who would supply / make them?

3) Assuming there ARE prizes, when & where would they be presented? Could we get anywhere to donate the space, like the various restuarants we have used in the past? Or, would they be made-up on the spot and presented aat the actual event?

4) The entire method of calculating and selecting the teams who would get prizes might be re-invented. Right now the Critics score the teams, The Wizard computes the numbers, and the Kinetic Kommittee decides the discretionaries. There are presently some 35 prizes! This could be simplified.

5) The method of calculation involves many many numbers. The Great Wizard has used a data-entry service for YEARS to efficiently type these all in (they are incredibly fast and it is impossible to do this without them). They charge about $250 to do both the parade and the race. Maybe they would donate their time? I would be the one to check on this.

That's enough for now

>>>> The Great Kinetic Wizard

[dc]

We need to have some type of awards. This gives everyone something to strive for. We also need to have the rule in place, like Baltimore and Eugene , that the top prize winners forego all lesser prizes. "to share the Glory not hog the prizes" This would open it up for a lot more teams. It is the prize of the "title" not the $ that drives us on.

[bonehead]

As an out-of-towner, the more that can be done at race day, the better. Simpler same day scoring and award presentation is appealing to me. Big cash awards are not very appealing to me. Up the entry fee to cover cash awards and provide less trophies (3-4 cash awards and a handful of non-cash awards for a field of 30 competitive sculptures seems adequate to me).