A few random observations from state

[OnThisDayIseeClearly]

Why, again, did the city of Columbus decide to have the fair the same weekend as state?  1.  Most squads don't care about going, or don't have time.  2.  Fans can't afford it either, by the time they pay for parking, buy tickets, and those overpriced concessions, they're tapped out.  3.  The Peachtree Mall is indoors, plenty to do, and better-priced food.


I didn't get to watch as much this year.  Not a prude in any way, know cheer competitions are loud.  Had a speaker system in my first car. But the music both days, especially Saturday, was obnoxiously loud.  There was no need for it.


Other thoughts.  LOVED the music in Troup County's routine.  Unique.  One squad (Model?) had a really unique pyramid, locking hands and rotating in a circle.  Bleckley County really stepped it up again.  Loved their energy.  Armuchee had super tumbling, but Coosa was cleaner, Armuchee's pyramid did not go well at all. 

[Allstar3]

I agree that it was not the smartest thing, having the fair in the parking lot AGAIN.

I watched many teams, both Friday and Saturday. One of the things I discovered was that apparently the scoring was not consistent between the two days. During sectionals, hands down did not count as a deduction, but took off execution points.  For finals, either the judges were completely blind, and claimed there were knees down when there weren't, or they actually deducted for hands down. Either way, the scoring on Saturday was ridiculously subjective and in some areas, flat out wrong. How can teams drop 10 or 15 points in the time span of one day, when their overall routine was pretty much executed the same way? Was it a totally different set of judges? Did they use the same rubric? Did they even use the rubric at all?? Or did they, once again, choose the same teams they always like and disregard the ones they never seem to care anything about? I realize that some teams were absolutely clear winners, but some of the placement was very questionable. No surprise there, as it's happened all season.

[OnThisDayIseeClearly]

Without dating myself, let's just say I've been going to Columbus for a long time.  And you're 100 percent correct that there's often a discrepancy between sectionals and finals scoring.  I cannot say this for certain, but I think that there are different judges each day.


One thing to note, members of the South Georgia Clown Show were some of the judges at state, so that could have something to do with questionable scoring. 


As to the fair, I'm sure whomever keeps putting it on then is trying to attract people there for state.  But they don't understand that given how hard it is to get in and out of that place, how most squads aren't staying anywhere close to there since it's in such a bad neighborhood, not to mention the cost of going to state and the civic center alone, that people there for cheerleading couldn't care less about the fair.


All they're doing is making a bad traffic situation even worse.