The end of robot combat in the US?

[leorcc]

The arena takes considerable time to build btw, it takes days (literally) to set the thing up, it's a by-product of the robots that fight in them (full on heavy spinners)

That is exactly why we don't have many DRG heavyweight events in Europe either, the cost of setup alone is higher than whatever we get back from it. Our arena is 2 lorries full of material and takes days with the aid of a forklift to be put in place.

Very sad for our US friends

Ed

Very sad indeed, and I want to thank the RoboGames organisation for doing an excellent job for all those years. Their events have given us much entertainment over the years with many awesome and brutal fights.

[typhoon_driver]

Feathers are the future of this hobby

[PJ-27]

Feathers are the future of this hobby

Here you there. What ever happened to BWs?

[typhoon_driver]

No arena and the initial interest seems to have died off

[razerdave]

If Kenny had bought the arena to events then the interest would have maintained and grown. I dare say Ants have become more popular since my arena was a regular feature.

I do agree with Gary that feathers are the future

A quick question about HW spinner arenas; what ever happed to 'The Vault' ? Only arena I have heard of in the UK that could demo Typhoon and Hypno disc..

[craig_colliass]

Feathers are the future of this hobby

Oh dear, should I get into the Featherweight v Heavyweight, and what people pay to see................................NO

[james...venom]

FW is already the future power to weight ratio is incredible and they dont require so much space to run. People invest into the FW competition every year

Real shame to hear about Robo Games

[psychostorm]

FW is already the future power to weight ratio is incredible and they dont require so much space to run. People invest into the FW competition every year

Real shame to hear about Robo Games

Ah but the downside being are feathers profitable?

I believe part of our entry fee goes towards putting up the Robochallenge arena. Robochallenge pay the ground rent & people get in free. There's nothing there to suggest it would work as a paid event, particularly with the smaller numbers of audience & touring logistics.

[grant_ploughbot]

Feather's can and have been very profitable, It all depends on what you want to do with events. For us, full combat isn't the sort of thing that you can host every month like you can when putting on a "show" because the robots getting broken too much. The work and time involved in selling tickets and advertising for an event is massive, and even with selling out we didn't feel it was worth our while. Feather's will sell tickets as much as heavies if done properly, but that's not what we as a company want to do.
We put on the competitions now to attract people to our brand and put on a spectacle, which is why we spend alot of time and money to put an event on at the Gadget Show Live.

The "vault" arena that BTP built I believe was bought by Roaming Robots. From what I understand they used the polycarb and weighed in the rest of the arena. Again, a similar situation where the arena was so heavy it required a huge amount of time and effort to set up.

[JamesDavies]

Sad news about robogames, credit to any EO who manages to keep going and moving forward- we really are lucky here in the UK...
Are there any photos of this "Vault" anywhere?

[leorcc]

Feathers do very well if they are run on their own. When you mix it up with heavy competitions Feathers get lost in the vast space of the heavyweight arena. What also happens at heavyweight events is just chucking all the feathers in one round, and that makes the fight confusing and the audience doesn't get to pick a favorite. The way feathers are run on DRG events, Robochallenge events and I assume in the past XFM events are just as entertaining as heavy events are. As long as you scale everything, not just the robots.

[leorcc]

The vault was an arena for Robot Crusade I believe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYIg8sQaAjM

[teamstorm]

Indeed as Leo says you have to scale everything

The bottom line though is that the Feather events just don't make the money that the heavy events make, you can't get as many people around the arena, and the tickets just don't command so much money. So if people want to run the events for fun as opposed to make a living out of it, feathers are the way to go, but to make a living out of it the feather events just don't cut it. Also remember we have one (at most 2) full combat feather events a year at the moment ..... would people still invest as much if they were attending 10 a year and getting the cr*p kicked out of them ?.... XFM's experience tells us that people wouldn't.

At the moment I think we have a good balance, the feather events are in-frequent enough for people to invest heavily and produce some great machines. The heavy events are there providing the funding for a few individuals to make a living out of this which is great.

The wise person realises that diversification is the answer to survival in almost any situation, to say 'the future is in feathers' or 'the future is in heavies' might mean that's where you see your future, but to see it as black or white isn't the answer.

Anyway - let's not get dragged off topic, this is about the sad situation in the US, not about re-igniting the same ground-hog day debate about feathers vs heavies.

Ed

[Garwulf]

If I might make the observation, assuming that James Cameron and Mark Burnett's Robogeddon has not fallen through, the minute that series airs in the United States the entire sport will have a massive "shot in the arm," as they say.

It is quite a pity that Robogames didn't last long enough to see it, though.

[grant_ploughbot]

As far as I'm aware that isn't going ahead - however there's not alot of info about.