Scheduling Of Events On IFC

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#1

Hey everyone!

Every month, we have multiple fly-outs/flyins on the IFC.

However, many of these events are planned at the same time on the same date as other fly outs on the same date.

This creates a problem because:

  1. Some people sign up for both and this requires many event makers to send messages to make sure people decide which flyout to join in.
  2. Some people make events about a week before the date of the event, especially when there are 2-3 other events on the same date.
  3. Even when some event creators send messages, they may not get replies back as to whether people are participating, causing many last-minute dropouts.

What I suggest:

Due to many events and life, many event makers already understand that there are last-minute dropouts in many events.

Many people want to make events, but this creates a conflict when some last minute event is made (such as a week or two before the actual event date).

This causes people who have already signed up in events to drop out to join what they think is a ā€œbetter eventā€.

I suggest that in order to keep conflicting events in order, all event scheduling should go through an authority (like a board for events or something that works similarly to IFVARB for events).

There should be around a max of two to three events on the same day (can be decided) in order to avoid the problem of conflicting events.

What do you think about it? If you think something could be edited, let me know.

EDIT: After some very helpful comments, some things this board could maybe help with:

  • Less clunky titles and more appealing formats
  • Fewer complaints of people not attending events

Some people have said against making an IFERB, which I totally understand, because we may not need an IFERB. Something they have suggested:

  • Make a chronological order
  • Simple system notifying a clash
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#2

So basically an IFVARB for events but called something like IFERB, right? This sounds like an okay idea I would be more than happy to see this become a reality. I feel with this new board of people (should it become a reality) we may see less clunky titles, more appealing formats and less complaints about people not attending. So to some up I definitely feel that a board of people dedicated to sorting out events would be a nice addition to the IFC.

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#3

Thanks for your response! The input is very helpful!

#4

Interesting. The idea itself and the reason is solid, but all in all it comes down to the pilot to ensure they donā€™t double book themselves. Yes it can be frustrating for event owners, but I feel that if an approval system was put it place creating an event would only be even more frustrating.

Another thing worth mentioning is that the IFVARB was created with the goal of improving the quality of the VA sector of Infinite Flight - a purpose which it has well lived up to. The events sector on the other hand is driven by competition unlike the VA sector was prior to the establishment of the IFVARB. What I mean is, people are driven to create quality events that stand out from the others because they want people to turn up, and I think youā€™ll agree that there have been some pretty amazing events done. Weā€™ve had everything from a fundraising flight to a Flyout with 4 departure airports.

The way I see it, this is a small frustration that can easily be overcome by choosing event dates carefully on the hostsā€™ side and pilots being careful not to double book themselves. Hope this helps!

5 Likes
#5

I completely disagree with an authority over event scheduling because that takes a lot of freedom away from the event making process and a lot of restrictions will be imposed I feel. Maybe a topic where events are automatically compiled in chronological order, or the old feature in IF that would list upcoming events would solve this situation? Or a simple system that notifies the event maker when a possible clash is detected? (This system could have all event makers input the date and time manually and have permissions to change their event date and time). This could definitely work because of the date/time format we already have in place.

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#6

Is that even possible? šŸ˜‚

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#7

Anything is possible. Plus if people just included the bare bones minimum requirements that would be just perfect because it still meets the requirements of the category.

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#8

I personally disagree with some of the stuff here. Here are my 2 cents;

The idea itself isnt bad, but is it really necessery?

Firstly, its quite obvious that youā€™ve made this because of your previous event and how it was close to other bigger events, giving you a small number of attendants. There are several reasons too why people would not join your events, these include; Constant bumping making the topic boring, bad planning, or bad locations, etc.

These 2 things are what I disagree mostly with.

Just because an event thread is unorganized and not neat, doesnā€™t mean that it will be less appealing to other events. An event that is really fun and interesting but has a bad thread, compared to a neat thread that has a boring ā€œeventā€ is most likely to win, because its not only about the titles and threads.

I honestly think that adding this would remove many abilities available to us, as said above, out freedom to making these events. There are many inexperienced and new people on the forums that would like to make events (considering theyā€™re TL2 and above) but donā€™t want a neat thread for some reason. An IFERB in my opinion isnā€™t necessary, and will make the events category much more strict, removing the fun from events.

Just my 2 cents, afterall feedback is important to developing this idea further :)

@EyesSkyward I totally agree with you. Well said.

3 Likes
#9

Well, there are two things:
@EyesSkyward, I think you gave a good idea about making a simple system about dates and time.
However, @AlphaSeven, I think there could be some edits to that:

Firstly, if we have an IFERB, it should be run by people who the community vote for.

Secondly (Iā€™m guilty of this as well), there should be a character limit to how long a title should be. Thereā€™s no need of very long titles and with an IFERB, this will cause event creators to think out-of-the-box for title ideas.

I think appealing formats is a bit difficult, agree with you @AlphaSeven, but what I think is that even if not something very amazing, it should be something presentable. Maybe more clear and concise as to what the event is in the thread. (This probably wonā€™t be a problem because most of the events look pretty good, just a minor thing).

Maybe we donā€™t even need an IFERB, but having an IFERB can give some feedback as to how to improve or edit the event so that it becomes a better experience for all.

Even we donā€™t have an IFERB, maybe something to think about could be a reservations page? If we have 4-5 flyouts on the same date, people are going to leave events to other events they think are ā€œbetter eventsā€, causing event creators to lose people. @KaiM, I know that you said competition is a big part of event creating, but maybe competition should be lowered and quality should be given more emphasis.

A reservation page or website could help make sure that:

  1. We can have all events in chronological order.
  2. No more than 2-3 events on a specific date.
  3. Event creators should have everything before they plan to reserve their spot (or atleast most of the major stuff done)

We can use @EyesSkyward idea of having the simple time and date system on this page or website.

A lot of this is from my personal experience as you have seen how bad my event looks like, so I think if some of the ideas were implemented to Infinite Flight, they could make the entire experience of events on Infinite Flight more fun.

1 Like
#10

By the way, thanks @AlphaSeven, @EyesSkyward, and @KaiM for your input! Will definitely take those into account.

By the way, @AlphaSeven, I have more than enough people for my event. Itā€™s going pretty well so Iā€™m not worried as much about it.

What I was thinking was just in general. A board could help first time event creators like me to learn our way through creating events. For veterans, they could help with improving threads or any feedback in general.

I know my event is still a bit far away (@AlphaSeven, my event is yet to start, when did it end? :) and is at a time when many people travel, so I know many people are not going to join, but I thought, even with my mistakes, a board could help with the events.

Even without a board, I think a more orderly system could be put into place.

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#11

I love this idea, to be honest. As an event creator that has had multiple events fall on the same day (very frustrating), I totally am on your side. Although, maybe an IFERB wouldnā€™t be needed. Something like a universal spreadsheet would even be useful.

If there ever is one of these boards, count me in!

1 Like
#12

I like this idea. Yet, if it were to be made on the IFC and not pinned, it would be very difficult to find. We could suggest a website, but it would have to be a IF approved site, so we arenā€™t copying the company, if we were to have it off IF events from the forum.

This idea would be very useful as the day my event VHHH is on, another RJBB event is earlier that day, which could provide some great Peach Airlines routes, I guessā€¦ Last Saturday there were 3 major events. It would be great to see events not all stacked up, but being honest, they would be difficult to work with since everyone would want theirs on a weekend. Iā€™m thinking of making a small series over the Atlantic during a school holiday, but it couldnā€™t be a major event due to the tiny airports thatā€™ll be used.

2 Likes
#13

The weekā€™s schedule could be added on the Featured Airports post maybe.

1 Like
#14

Thanks for your input @Ecoops123 and @Thunderbolt!

Knowing about events and the vicinity of the events could maybe also create events that are partnered. The possibilities are endless, but I think first a reservation stage could be sent out, and then from there, we can continue and add new things.

2 Likes
#15

Also, one thing to add, we can also see the timing of events, so based on that, there could be slight flexibility on weekends due to the massive numbers of events taking place. However, somebody will have to oversee thisā€¦

This could potentially encourage more people to make events on Fridays and Sundays as well. That way, there can be a maximum of 9-10 events spread out on those three days (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) if that were to happen.

During the breaks, there can be more flexibility as to the dates because there can be more people to attendā€¦

1 Like
#16

The only problem I see is when VAs need to reserve their events, because VAs open at anytime, so maybe 1 slot can be reserved for a VA each week, and if no VA has reserved the slot ~3 weeks before the event, then it could be held up for grabs so that people have enough time to make the event?

These are just some ideas I have. Any edits or iterations would be great. Iā€™ll be glad to receive any feedback :)

#17

ā€œQuality Is Achieved From Competitionā€ - JR 2020

I understand your reasoning behind all of this, and to be honest, I donā€™t have much to say other than, sure, this will allow for event creators to try to do more quality events, and others can look at it and learn or get inspired by it, which can be done with or without this idea in practice. Now having, letā€™s say 3 events per day, meaning, as most events are on weekends, weā€™d have 3 on Saturday and maybe 2 on Sunday, does allow for high attendance rates, but I find one issue with this, that is the eliminating factor of having minor attendance rate events, which even though only got 10 people to join, was still fun to participate in, still successful in the sense that people had fun, still, something worth considering because they are a player in the world of IF-events too.

Iā€™ll say, Iā€™m a bit too tired right now and therefore even more confused about this whole scheduling thing, but when I did first see this thread, I thought, Nope, I am not supporting this, because, no matter if you have 1 or 100 events, people will join what they find most appealing. Titles play a big role, yes, formatting does, yes, location too, yes, in the end, the number of events on the day wonā€™t determine sole or to a majority what event people decides to join, itā€™s more or less what the participant is drawn to.

LAX, DXB, LHR, events will always no matter what be more popular than Adelaide, Hanoi and Chennai, thatā€™s how it is, location and route/aircraft/airline offer will pull participants to one event or the other, along with how the event thread formatting and such are, to give a first impression and seen inviting.

I know you talked about emphasising on quality, which will go up and down. By limiting events with only good quality, but them being on weird unpopular and mostly locations that only a minimal amount of people no matter what will join, wonā€™t make matters better.

Regarding quality, an event doesnā€™t have to be top-quality all the time. If all events were to match in first-class quality, overall then Iā€™d be quite bored by them and not willing to join, because many times, even those events with less structured, and less ā€œqualityā€ formatting are more fun to join and has more attendance. Also one may question, what quality actually means, you may give an event an overall 8, and I may give it a 3 after analysing the work put behind it, the structure, and how it looks visually, yeah, ā€œqualityā€, very subjective, and if we were to have, uh, IFERBā€¦ yeah no, Iā€™dā€¦ no, I donā€™t like that restrictive, constrained idea, sorry. Letā€™s say we go for a reservation page styleā€¦ it will be bombed by events from all places and who is going to be the judge, monitoring and choosing which events to allow for this day and that day. Event creators would have to push their events back by weeks or have them on a weekday when the majority are at school, work or have other chores to take, as most of us are busy during the weekdays, making those events less competitive, less good quality, less attractive, less amount of participants. Fridays are today widely used alongside Saturday and Sunday opposes an issue for many who have once again school and work the day after.

Those are my thoughts as of now, my concerns, my hopefulness, sort of for this, I- Iā€¦ yeah, no I donā€™t see this as a positive change. Maybe that is me thinking in a short term aspect, but in the long run, I donā€™t understand how this will bring forth much of quality or higher attendance ratesā€¦

Kindly,
JR

2 Likes
#18

Honestly, I think that the whole point of an event is for someone to fly with others from an airport or to an airport and just have fun, like a group flight. If we put in so much work, have people look at every event and oversee everything, spend hours/days working on one simple thread, it takes away the fun.

I know that long titles are annoying, and I try and keep them short-ish, but I donā€™t think something like an IFVARB for events would make it any more fun. If anything, I think itā€™s going to discourage events and cause only a few to actually happen. A board, like one for the VAs which you mentioned, would also make it harder to just create one for the fun of it.

When I make an event, the last thing on my mind would be contacting a board so I can take a slot. What if you need to change the date? What if not enough people have signed up so you decide to move it back 1 week? Whatā€™s going to happen if you canā€™t attend anymore? These things are so much easier to coordinate when youā€™re in charge, and with a board youā€™re the second power, not the one with all the control.

If you need to move an event and it collides with another, that can be annoying but itā€™s just tough luck. Then, you can see where you went wrong and improve on your next one. My first event I had 23 people, my second, I had 75. I donā€™t want to wait until 3 weeks to create my event, Iā€™ll create it as soon as possible, 8 weeks before. I donā€™t want to spend a lot of time just talking to other event creators, a board, and anything else to make something I just want to do for fun. Basically, my point is, when Iā€™m creating an event, itā€™s purely for fun.

It might be a little harsh, but itā€™s just my opinion. If there was an event board, Iā€™d certainly stop creating events because I probably would not have enough time and donā€™t want to put in so much extra work. I would look at the other event, figure out why itā€™s better, and improve, but I am not in favor of a board.

5 Likes
#19

As for us in the IFMEB, we have to take into consideration of the sheer size the events we make. The past two Regularsā€™ events, a TFR was needed, we need to plan and for 2-4 months, contact Tyler regarding TFR and ATC Schedule and if a board were to be implemented, itā€™s restrict, limit and make our work somewhat more difficult. Basically, we would have to get approval for ATC and Event Date and Time to match, and we canā€™t have events postponing left and right, which many other smaller events can to do.

2 Likes
#20

What would you guys think if a universal spreadsheet was created (like IFATC training spreadsheet)

1 Like