Today, the European Championship was held in Prague. The first of its kind. And it was... the worst organized contest I have ever participated in. This is not only sad in isolation but also especially sad as the contest itself (the problems) was actually nice, and I would like to thank the authors for that!
So what was so bad about it?
Let me describe how entering the contest works. One first goes to the cloakroom. Then, one proceeds via a long corridor to another building, where in a relatively small space, all teams gather for half an hour. Then, "id check" begins. I mean... I have never seen this before but in itself, there is nothing wrong with it. They want to check your identity. Makes sense. However, what do you think would be a reasonable way to do it? I would think that one and only reasonable way to do it is the following: one comes to the entrance of the contest area, a volunteer checks their id and matches with their badge, and the contestant comes in. As you could have already guessed, it was not like that. The system works in the following way: you wait aimlessly for half an hour in this relatively tight space, and then they start calling teams one by one in random order. They check the ids of the team they call, and then this team goes further. To the contest area? No no no! To a different tight space where teams slowly gather, and then, after 20 more minutes teams are allowed to go to the contest area. This system literally makes zero sense and does not take into account the interests of participants in any way or form. I felt like organizers think about us like amazon thinks about its goods. Just transport them in the way they want regardless of how much these items need to wait at random spots because amazon products don't have feelings. But to the surprise of EUC organizers... participants have! And then the cherry on the top of this: again for no reason, this process was repeated twice: one day at the dress rehearsal and then the next day at the actual contest. If there was any reason to do it during the dress rehearsal, it could've been to understand that it is an awful system that should be abandoned. But no.
Ok, great! We are in the contest area. Suffering finished, right? Oh no! People put their stuff on the tables and are ready to go to the bathrooms? Huh! "You are not allowed to go to the bathroom before the contest starts". Excuse me? At first, I honestly thought it was a joke. It reminded me of some soviet-minded teachers we had at school. What is that even supposed to mean? Especially considering the fact that this conversation is happening 5 meters away from the toilet. You just kept us for like half an hour in a random tight place with no toilets and now when we arrive to the contest area, we cannot even go to the bathroom? We should wait until the contest starts and then waste our contest time? Is there any reason for that? Hard to believe.
Can't go to the toilet? Oh, maybe I can grab an additional bottle of water because for some reason there are three bottles at the workplace but one of them is sparkling? Oh no! Again. You can only take water when the contest starts. Genuinely. Are these rules there just to have rules?
Well, nevermind, sure, the contest started. What is happening? Volunteers just standing behind your back staring at your screen and loudly talking to each other. Sure... But not only that, no people in the contest area could provide any help to you regarding anything (in terms of guidance). During the dress rehearsals, we were given this transparent file which is supposed to hold a single piece of paper and we were told to leave ALL the things we will need at the actual contest inside this file. For example, food, pens, medication, three team reference materials 25 pages each already inside a larger protective case. Reasonable, right? Can I ask anybody in the contest area about WTH I am supposed to do about it? No! Because nobody knows anything. You are supposed to ask this kind of question in the system. Surely, it is so convenient to assess this kind of situation virtually.
Ok, let's come back to the actual contest. We are sitting in a place that is not made for spending prolonged periods of time there. I don't know what these things are called but it is like an atrium. So the ceiling is glass. At first, it is very cold. Surely, the organizers told you to wear the ICPC T-shirt? Well... You're gonna be freezing. Then... Surprise-surprise: the sun comes out. And it becomes insanely warm. For some, it shines directly into your eyes. For others, into the screen, and they cannot see anything. Clearly, absolutely unpredictable conditions, right? Then it becomes insanely cold again, then hot, and some more times throughout the contest. Magical experience. Loved it.
I would like to point out one red line that goes throughout these stories: random rules that should be followed just... because. I know that ICPC contests overall love random rules just to have rules. But this one... This one was pure fun. As a final rule that comes out of nowhere: link, link2.
copium
Too bad he missed dinner in order to write this
In total between going to the “check-in place” at the time specified in the schedule (at 9:05 we have been there for sure) and entering the contest room we spent 50 minutes in those tight spaces…
Previous instances when Prague organized an important ICPC regional:
I guess I was just privileged not to participate in those :)
Complaints abound with Prague-organised ICPC, just as I expected.
So the ceiling is glass.
One of my team members brought sunglasses into the competition day after experiencing this during the practice day... I wish I had done the same haha
The shades worked wonders
I am glad to read that blog! If these are the worst issues you had during the contest then it means that Prague organizers learnt a lot and really massively stepped up their organizational game! Imagine not having electricity for 2 hours and losing some codes because there was no backup system. Or having to wait a minute each time you compile your code. Or having wrong tests because none of the jury members cared to write a bruteforce and all of them bugged their model solutions in the same way. I would gladly take random half an hour waiting time over these! Btw it seems you haven't participated in World Finals yet as organizers there really do their best to force participants to wake up at 6AM so they can squeeze in 2 hours of pointless waiting for nothing before the contest :)
Who was in charge of preparing problems back then in CERCs? This seems like a more international thing with modern standards when it comes to the problems themselves.
For CERCs problemsettera are the same as local organizers. It's only this EUC that seems to have an external problemsetters
To add on to your experience, in last year's SWERC (2023) our team was given a broken table. It had significant slope and a hole in the middle... Paper would literally fall through the gap. We asked the volunteers during the practice session if they could fix it and nobody did anything. One guy looked at it and said he would try to fix it but never came back. Shit happens
So, you are complaining about: 1. too much waiting time before entering the contest area (1h30m), 2. not being allowed to go to the toilet just before the contest starts (10 minutes), 3. the temperature on the contest floor (too hot and too cold), 4. and the fact that the plastic bag to put the TRDs and some pens was too small.
Overall, the ceremonies were good, the buffet (the only one I could attend) was good, there were 0 technical issues, there were 0 issues with the problems, the website contained lots of useful information. This was not the worst contest ever. In fact, I think it was well-organized (here I am not congratulating myself or my friends; I did absolutely nothing for the organization and barely know the names of the organizers). There is surely room for improvement, but overall I think that the local organizers did a very good job. You are bending reality and overexaggerating.
Nonetheless, if I will be involved in the organization of the next EUC, I will inform whoever is in charge of complains 1 and 4.
About the no-flag rule, I think I will write a separate comment somewhere else.
p.s. I am glad that you liked the problems.
Hi! Thanks for your comment. I think we've got some misunderstanding about what I mean by "contest organization". By contest organization I mean all things that don't have anything to do with the contest itself. In other words, things that do not directly affect the team's performance, etc. Regarding all contest-related stuff, everything went perfectly, I agree.
But specifically regarding the things that I call "contest organization", I have never seen anything worse.
Huh. I never said anything about the violation of human rights :) I was just saying that it felt disrespectful, that's all.
Overall, the point of my post was not that these things are soooo bad. I was mostly angry specifically because these were simple stupid things that could just not happen. If there is a major problem with a contest, it makes sense. It is understandable. It is something that can happen, and it is impossible to avoid completely.
Making weird organizational decisions and inventing useless rules is something that can be avoided simply by thinking "is it a good idea to do that?", and then immediately answering "NO" to yourself. This is the point of this blog. This is why I was pissed. I was pissed about the ridiculousness of the things that were happening, not about whether they were major for the contest itself.
Hardly a "worst contest ever" from what you said. The organization was in fact quite nice, apart from this shameful "Ukrainian flag banning" incident. The most severe problem you mentioned would probably be the long waiting time before the contest. But then I've got bad news for you — in the World Finals this waiting time tends to be even longer, it is often precedented by some long bus transfer through a crowded city, and it is much louder on the contest floor during the wait. So...get used to it, there is no other way but somehow endure it.
Oh, and I'm very surprised nobody mentioned the EUC opening ceremony. That was lots of good Czech absurd humor in the works :)
A wise man one said:
Don’t cry because it happened Smile because it is over
Sad that people had to face it