Whats up with tourney/park rules this year!!

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Trying to schedule my teams tourneys and every time I (finally) find a site with the actual information on it, it says "absolutely NO food or drinks allowed to be brought into the park"! Water coolers only and they will be checked - must only have water! No personal coolers are allowed even in your cars. Seriously!?!

The majority of tourneys I have looked at all says similar things. No matter how much food or beverages you bring into the park, everyone still buys something at the concession stands! I refuse to go to a tourney that says they will check to make sure the water cooler only has water in it. It will also take 2 days just to get to the field, if they have to stop everyone!

Am I freaking out over nothing? What are your thoughts???

 

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Which tourneys are you talking about so I know what to look out for. PM if you want.

They probably get a cut of the concessions stands, and they are losing money.

 

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I would agree with you. Tell them your family is full of diabetics. Bet they don't confiscate anything then. I feel as long as they are charging the teams to play and charging admission then you should be free to bring whatever you want into the park.

 

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Trying to schedule my teams tourneys and every time I (finally) find a site with the actual information on it, it says "absolutely NO food or drinks allowed to be brought into the park"! Water coolers only and they will be checked - must only have water! No personal coolers are allowed even in your cars. Seriously!?!

The majority of tourneys I have looked at all says similar things. No matter how much food or beverages you bring into the park, everyone still buys something at the concession stands! I refuse to go to a tourney that says they will check to make sure the water cooler only has water in it. It will also take 2 days just to get to the field, if they have to stop everyone!

Am I freaking out over nothing? What are your thoughts???

Coolers in cars..... they will hate my grill and cooler and tailgate set up. If TDs start going down that road I can see teams pulling out quickly. We all buy something, but the way money is you cant buy everything there, all weekend.

 

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I would agree with you. Tell them your family is full of diabetics. Bet they don't confiscate anything then. I feel as long as they are charging the teams to play and charging admission then you should be free to bring whatever you want into the park.

Been there, tried that. Some call it "making a living"; I prefer to call it greed. If you treat people with respect, the majority will still buy from the concession stand. If a tournament director can't do the math to calculate a fair and reasonable entry fee, they're in the wrong line of work. The fun exchange of words I had with a jerk at "Softball World" was classic. He made the statement "I'll bet YOU don't work for free". Since he couldn't figure it out, I told him that if he was supporting his family from concession stand profits then he must be a very poor man, and as a matter of fact I DO occasionally work for free... It's called VOLUNTEERING FOR A WORTHY CAUSE!

Just tell your coach to refuse to patronize these greedy venues - they'll eventually figure it out, or else go away.

If you do get stuck at one of these "greed parks", there are answers.

1) The cooler in the car
2) The contraband in the chair bag
3) Stand just outside the gate and eat a McDonalds Big Mac.

Even as a parent, I always made it a point to look up the tournament director and tell them I wouldn't be back next year if they had "Cooler Police" - and I kept my word.

 

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we have a little girl, so we always claim we need the ice to store her milk, although it may be hard this year because she's turning 3 in Aug.
I know we will visit a few places as such, like Findlay was like that, but i was allowed becuase it was for the "team". it will interesting to see what happens at compuware...is stingrays cooler friendly? it was a few years back

 

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The last tourney I just looked at is a "12th annual" so they've been around for awhile. Don't know if this is something new or what.

Our team likes to have cookouts together, even if it is after all the games and at the hotel. It really brings the kids and parents together. We have also done this right at the park at several tourneys of the years and no one had a problem with it.

Being able to do this also helps keep the total cost of the weekend down. The way gas prices are and having hotel costs, everyone has to cut back somewhere. May not even be able to afford hamburger the way its looking this year!!!

 

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It is very tough to profit from a tourney. Throw in rain and the money spent to deal with it and you could easily go into the hole. That is why gate fees, no food in the park, etc. is becoming more and more common.

This doesn't bother at all as long as the prices are reasonable.

 

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but, like sammy says, if you are running tourneys for a living, you have to be one broke dude...about the only way is to have the maximum conditions (no rain)

 

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I agree and hate the extra fees, its like buying a airline ticket that started out cheap until thay add all the extra fees...If you know me, I drink around 6 to 8 liters of Diet Pepsi a day, I would go broke if I had to buy all my Diet Pepsi at the parks....

Lets put it this way, I charged teams $385.00 to join our tourny, NO GATE FEES, NO PARKING FEES, food and drinks can be brought in and in fact there is even Outdoor grills if you want to cook some thing up and pavilions to sit and eat under all in the park. We do fine with the money in fact i think we do better than most because we offer other things to make money were the parents and players get something in return for ie, merchandise, smothies, Bounce City play area, Home run derby etc...Plus our concessions stand does really really well...

The money is there to make and not by gouging the players and parents, but by offering them great things to do and enjoy while there at the park.

 

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Tip: an old bat bag holds a cooler and doesn't get checked at the door. ;&

 

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but, like sammy says, if you are running tourneys for a living, you have to be one broke dude...about the only way is to have the maximum conditions (no rain)

Agreed.

 

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One thing to consider: If the park has rules and we find ways to get around them, what are we teaching our kids? We can justify it any way we want but is it the right thing to do?

 

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No you teach them to take their money elsewhere if it is not a good situation for you. You teach them to be smart with their money.

 

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One thing to consider: If the park has rules and we find ways to get around them, what are we teaching our kids? We can justify it any way we want but is it the right thing to do?

Yep.

I'm making a bucket cooler this year just for these parks. Never had my "ball bucket" checked. May even put a false bottom in it to set a layer of balls in it so it looks legit. They'll need a Gatorade sniffing dog to catch me. I'll probably let my kids help me design and build it so I can teach them how to be innovative.

 

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New meaning to being busted smuggling coke.

 

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That is one reason we moved our tourney's to Smith Park - families have access to a water park (free), picnic shelters (free), a skate park (free) and a large fishing pond - also free.

We just ask for a $5/car fee to offset the fees we pay the park and city to use it for large tourney's...

 

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One thing to consider: If the park has rules and we find ways to get around them, what are we teaching our kids? We can justify it any way we want but is it the right thing to do?

I consider it a great opportunity to teach kids how NOT to run a tournament; similar to avoiding the shady used car lot. Maybe you could take THAT argument to the inventer of the radar detector.

Give me a break - kids know the difference! They could probably learn some great engineering skills, building Ringer's (patented) false bottom bucket, a hollow "cooler bat", a cooler chair bag - the possibilities are endless! :yahoo:

 

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Again we are justifying it.

I'm not telling you I won't /don't do the same thing, but it is just a thought that I had.

"Those record companies charge too much Sarah, just go find a bit torrent and download the music yourself, FREE!"

 

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Those are some great ideas!! Thanks for making me laugh about the situation!