I know we are all incredibly disappointed in the conditions and actions of the convention center this weekend. NCA needs to hear it from us parents, athletes and attendees so that they can address all of the issues this weekend to ensure it doesn't occur again. This was not the first time that this town has held NCA Nationals nor was it the first time it was at the center.
I do admit that I am in the hospitality business and manage hotels and a convention center, so what I saw probably infuriated me more than others.
1. Cleanliness - I arrived at 5:30am Sunday and went into ladies room. It wasn't cleaned from night before, trash everywhere and no TP. Apparently there wasn't any TP in the men's rooms either. This building should have been cleaned before the staff closed the building up for the night! Halls never cleaned and Arena never cleaned either. By the time Large Senior rolled around on Sunday evening the Arena was absolutely deplorable.
2. Concessions - at 7am the only thing open was Starbucks and it looked like there was only one worker there. Probably because of the "ice" but why were there no other options open? No way to purchase drinks, coffee, nothing. At 7:30am I was finally able to find a cotton candy stand open to buy a bottle of water from.
3. Arena Concessions - Why were there no food options besides cold crappy pretzels? No one seemed to know what they were doing. At one point I was told I could get a pretzel but had to go to another stand to get Nachos - even though the stands were connected, but apparently there was no button on the cash register for Nachos. WTF?!? They could have made a killing from everyone camped out at the arena. Instead I left to eat. Oh and the credit card machine wasn't working.
The convention center obviously brought in some temporary staffing to man the bathrooms however every time I encountered an attendant the bathrooms were a mess with a serious lack of toilet paper yet the attendant was chilling on their cell phone. Literally EVERY TIME. At the end of the evening we encountered this again but there were two of them standing there with 3 bathroom stalls "out of order". I asked them what was wrong with the stalls and they said no toilet paper, but neither made an effort to go find some.