Meet Venues

Description of Gymnastics Meet Venues for Grandparents
2018-19

A lot of effort, planning, and work goes into hosting gymnastics meets across the country. I can't even imagine the cost, amount of organization, volunteer help, and hours of work toward providing great experiences for the participants and their families.

The observations that I have made are from someone who is new to this experience. Hopefully, the suggestions in these reviews will be received as constructive criticism. Traveling with grands is costly. Parents, siblings, grandparents, family, and friends pay anywhere from $10 to $50 for each meet. After paying for hotels, travel, restaurants, and parking, this entrance fee can be a surprise if you are not expecting it. Thousands of gymnasts compete meaning double or triple that number of people come to watch. You might see where I'm headed. A lot of time and money is invested into these young athletes. There are a few things that would be easy to implement and attendees should expect as part of their entrance fee.

I have based my ratings on communication (website, signage, timely), thorough map of the venue, sound system, parking, entrance fees (seniors, siblings), seating, concessions, hotel discounts, and posting scores online.

Do you know there is a website that keeps up with meet scores in real time? We didn't either! And it's fun to keep up with these while you are waiting for your favorite athlete to compete (usually 30 minutes in between each event. Yes, really!). So checking the scores becomes everyone's way to pass the time. That is, if the meet is hooked into Meet Scores Online. If not, it's difficult to keep up with how everyone is doing. And it takes a while to figure out MSO and how to navigate to find your meet and your team and your athlete.

👍👍👍👍👍 Fantastic experience
👍👍👍👍 Great experience
👍👍👍OK
👍👍Needs a lot of work
👎Bad experience overall

Excalibur Cup VA Beach

February 2019
👍👍👍 OK

Great venue with just a few problems. On the plus side—stadium seating, chairs comfortable, padded; concessions OK and fairly reasonable, tables and chairs provided for eating. There were five gym areas competing at the same time. Signage easy to follow. Negatives—The sound system was very poor. We were unable to hear any of the announcements. The scores screen was so dim, we had to use binoculars to be able to see them. Way too warm in gym. Could not hear music. Evidently the gymnasts could but, when you pay top dollar to attend and even though you think your brain will explode if you hear that music one more time, you really do need to hear it when they are performing their floor routine. On the other hand, the warm up music while waiting for scores was way too loud. You could tell it was confusing to the participants. Our team did not do very well on beam because there was too much down time before it was their turn. Entrance fees too high. Siblings $13?

Website Easy to navigate, downloadable map of the venue but not accurate,

Admission $20, $13 seniors, children under 6 free, 7+ $13
Parking Free and easily accessible to the convention center

Nashville Nights Opryland Hotel 

👍👍 Needs a lot of work

The event was held in a bottom level ballroom. The gym was a huge flat floor, no risers, seating in chairs around the events. We actually prefer that to stadium seating that is located on one side. Chairs that you can move from event to event. And also gives you a chance to stretch legs. But be prepared to walk a long way from the expensive parking lot just to get to the room where the meet is being held. Traffic just to get here was awful we left the house at 6:30 and it took 40 minutes. Lots of other people got stuck in traffic. They didn’t open the doors until 7:30 and getting in the doors there was a huge crowd long line.

The wait for the beam was so long that all of our girls struggled, lost their momentum and also got cold. Many of them fell off.

The awards ceremonies were held in a room so large, we could not hear anything. The people in charge seemed to have no clue how to conduct the awards. The kids were not lined up. Names were called and kids were not there. Half of the kids didn’t come out for their award; moms went to question and were told they were volunteers and didn’t know what they were doing. One of the worst awards we’ve ever seen. Not exactly what people expect for the cost of the tickets.
Website More about Opryland than the meet.
Parking $15
Admission $15 per adult; for $15 to park

Knoxville Ozone

👍👍👍 OK 

Knoxville Convention Center
701 Henley Street
Knoxville, TN 37902 USA

Convention Center parking is a problem, especially for anyone looking for handicapped parking. We recommend that you park at Holiday Inn for $15. Long line to purchase tickets moves fast. Go down the escalator and each team it is assigned to a color gym part of the gym and that’s where you will see it. Chairs with cushions bleacher style. Do not forget binoculars! Bring snacks especially for siblings.

Circle of Stars, Indianapolis, IN

January 2019
👍👍👍 OK
Indiana Convention Center
100 South Capitol Avenue
Indianapolis, IN 46255

On the plus side. Parked at the mall beside the convention center. Had lunch at the Food Court, great choices. Walk inside from parking garage to convention center. Crosswalk so you do not have to be outside. Negatives. Long walk from the parking garage to the location inside the Convention Center, escalators not working. Allow for lots of time just to get to the meet. There were lots of places for these old bones to sit and rest! LOL
Website
Admission
Parking