Posted by unfortunately.... on May 20, 2003 at 14:01:55:
In Reply to: Texas RTEC posted by Just Wondering on May 19, 2003 at 13:21:33:
I was in attendance at this regional ITEC and as great as the most of the lectures and guest artists were, I believe there were several issues that left many attendees frustrated. I realize that Richard Murrow and his team of organizers worked very hard, but there were some loose ends that really tainted the experience. First of all many to most of the events listed on the calendar started and/or ended late. The competitions were extremely disorganized. The euphonium artist category was scheduled for a certain time and the competitors were gathered well before that and had to wait for quite some time AFTER the scheduled PERFORMANCE time before anybody official came to inform them what to do. Then they switched performance halls for the competition at the last minute. )Many other events ended up being held in different halls than scheduled.) Now I understand that things come up and people must be willing to be flexible, but what about the fact that the judges for the competition weren't informed they were judging until five minutes before the event? What about the fact that one judge had to leave in the middle of the competition and one person was heard by only two people, rather than the panel of three? What about the fact there was no performance order for the musicians or their music and the competitors were left to decide for themselves what order to go onstage since there was nobody to direct them backstage? Also competitors never received information about whether or not there was prize money or other award for the winners, they received no information about how to obtain their reward once offered, and the finalists for these events were not even posted on the official conference website. They posted the finalists on this message board, where postings are lost after so many days. In fact the website said it was under construction and failed to offer directions to the conference or any updated information even while the conference was taking place. Most of the events I attended started well past their scheduled times, and even some of the lectures I went to were so unorganized that the presenters had little to no idea what they were to talk about. I must admit this wasn't the case with most guest lecturers, but this did in fact occur. The entire conference seemed to be in various states of disarray. The lack of attendance was very disappointing and from having served as the organizer of similar events I can testify to how hard it is to bring in people- BUT it can be done, and more effectively I must say. Based on what I saw from the actual conference, it was not suprising at all how few were there. I know this is all very negative, and I apologize, for I in no way mean to undermine the hard work that went into this conference. But when you advertise something of this nature and when people pay good money it is very frustrating for things to seem so disorganized and inefficient. I benefited from going to the conference, and I am not sorry that I did. But I seriously doubt that I would attend another conference hosted by TCU.