Random Question

Does anybody know how long the Welsh Open is contracted to the Motorpoint Arena for?

Hopefully 1 year...

Hopefully so. Then Ronnie won't complain in playing in a mall every year he comes to Wales (not WGP lol).

In defence of the Motorpoint, I think the problems arise from World Snooker having not quite fine-tuned the best way to host a flat 128 structure yet.

As I said in the Welsh Open discussion, I went up for the semis and the final, so was only at the one-table set up. It was chronic. They'd essentially divided the venue into a quarter of it's size. Meaning, that a venue that was advertising Michael McIntyre comedy gigs, a Katherine Jenkins concert, Disney on Ice and some WWE Wrestling, was struggling to hold 1000 people. It was obvious it could hold more than people than were there, but because they had to scale down the size of the venue for the sake of their only being one table, they had basically the venue too small to be used very well.

But, considering 128 players start at the beginning, and the tournament is only a week long, World Snooker is going to struggle at one end of the tournament or another. Either it's cramped at the start of the week, or it's size becomes problematic towards the end.

The trick is going to be to find a venue that is suitable for the entire tournament.

So which venues do you think are suitable for these 128 flat draws?

gcjdavid wrote:So which venues do you think are suitable for these 128 flat draws?

Hard to say personally, because the Welsh Open is the only tournament I've been to that has this structure. I went to the UK Championship a few times, but back when it was just a final 32 at the venue tournament.

What you really need, is a tournament that doesn't feel compacted once you've closed most of the venue off.

SnookerFan wrote:

gcjdavid wrote:So which venues do you think are suitable for these 128 flat draws?

Hard to say personally, because the Welsh Open is the only tournament I've been to that has this structure. I went to the UK Championship a few times, but back when it was just a final 32 at the venue tournament.

What you really need, is a tournament that doesn't feel compacted once you've closed most of the venue off.

The Barbican would be absolutely fine if it was the full two weeks long and the "sports hall" wasn't utilised - i.e all matches played in main arena.

AC or LT? wrote:

SnookerFan wrote:

gcjdavid wrote:So which venues do you think are suitable for these 128 flat draws?

Hard to say personally, because the Welsh Open is the only tournament I've been to that has this structure. I went to the UK Championship a few times, but back when it was just a final 32 at the venue tournament.

What you really need, is a tournament that doesn't feel compacted once you've closed most of the venue off.

The Barbican would be absolutely fine if it was the full two weeks long and the "sports hall" wasn't utilised - i.e all matches played in main arena.

Therein lies the problem. Flat 128 is a difficult thing to squeeze into a week.