Philadelphia 2025 - pretty good location!

[Dark Energy]

Enjoyed Philly.  Good place for NCAAs.  Not as awesome as KC but very good.  Easy in an out on the Septa line.  Downtown - lots of life and food / drink options.  

But do need to get away from Arena to find stuff.  And the smell of Pot was pretty much everywhere.

 

That said —- place is good for big upsets putting chinks in the armor of legends.  Bubba / Taylor … now Wyatt / Gable.

Had a great time.  Thanks Philly!!

[ionel]

4 minutes ago, Dark Energy said:

 Philly.  Good place for NCAAs. 

Philly?  Thought folks wanted time clocks and scores ... what happened to all those complaints and threads?  

[Scouts Honor]

i agree philly would be a great city to visit again, 

however, the arena too small. they had to put up warmup tents for the wrestlers.

i mean was it better than des moines, who had to put up bar stools along a walkway to meet the attendance criteria? 

 

ionel..can we blame the clocks on philly? or was that espn? 

 

[Caveira]

Just now, Scouts Honor said:

i agree philly would be a great city to visit again, 

however, the arena too small. they had to put up warmup tents for the wrestlers.

i mean was it better than des moines, who had to put up bar stools along a walkway to meet the attendance criteria? 

 

ionel..can we blame the clocks on philly? or was that espn? 

 

Rumor has it…. It was the secret service testing / securing the network.   Obviously limited details. 

[ionel]

Just now, Scouts Honor said:

 

ionel..can we blame the clocks on philly? or was that espn? 

 

Philly ... both Track and Espn weren't getting the feed.   

[ionel]

2 minutes ago, Caveira said:

Rumor has it…. It was the secret service testing / securing the network.   Obviously limited details. 

Yes it appeared that rumor may have been started right here on the forums.  Never seen a rumor here before so ... 

Heard though it may have been dark energy.  

Edited March 23 by ionel

[Scouts Honor]

you know. now that i think about it, i was like, what is with the table help.. the scores were messed up a lot in the beginning...

 

[Caveira]

Just now, ionel said:

Yes it appeared that rumor may have been started right here on the forums.  Never seen a rumor here before so ... 

it’s at least plausible isn’t it?  I’ve obviously no idea if it’s true though.  

[ugarles]

13 minutes ago, ionel said:

Philly?  Thought folks wanted time clocks and scores ... what happened to all those complaints and threads?  

tbh this was the one thing i hated about wells fargo. i've only been to two ncaas - Philly and NYC - and at NYC, the video screens all had the score bug on it. in Philly, they didn't - the only way to see the score on the matches you weren't focused on was to look at the on-mat scorer (not great for my current state of vision) or the ring underneath the second deck, which was designed by a sadist (awful layout if you were in the upper bowl; the score that was hidden *by* the jumbotron was 180 degrees from the score that was blocked because it was directly beneath your seat).

as for philly, it was great to go. and even though i disagree with @Coastal about whether our cities are burning, i have to agree that the philly roast pork sandwich is incredible (even though john's doesn't do broccoli rabe, so i have to go back to get one with it). The line at John's after Session 5 was >80% wrestling fans.

Edited March 23 by ugarles
thought i deleted an incomplete thought that i changed my mind about, but it was still there like a ghost

[Dark Energy]

@vsnej - we think alike.

@ugarles - I hear you on the wrap around screen with mat info around second deck.  Layout sucked.  Hard to read.  So spread out and much blocked.  KC had a much better one.

[MinnesotaMustang]

The arena being far from everything might work great for football/basketball/baseball but it’s not a great set up for a tournament with multiple sessions a day. You literally had to hop on Septa and go 20-30 minutes away just for lunch. 

Went to Angelo’s for cheesesteak and pizza on both Friday and Saturday. Got pizza Friday and cheesesteak on Saturday. Great food, but slammed and waited several hours each day. It seemed like everyone had the same idea. I was making small talk with the guy running it and he assured me this was a normal weekend for them (despite 90% of the crowd wearing wrestling shirts).

I prefer a venue with a central location and many nearby places to walk to. Cleveland, St. Louis, and Minneapolis should be be better the next few years. 

Also, it was hard to see the scores. This was an issue in KC for the first session last year but was quickly fixed. It was an issue in Philly all weekend. No one needs constant updates of team scores. Put the match scores on the jumbotron instead. 

[BloodRound]

Speaking from the perspective of someone who lives in the city, it was pretty great to go on a whim Friday morning and watch a bit!  Had a pretty good view from even the 200 level. 

Getting to Wells Fargo is easy all around, but its isolated location does make it hard to plan for city exploration between sessions (unless you wanna spend the afternoon at LIVE!).  Also ends up leading to traffic hell after any sporting event, as I am sure many of you who parked at the arena saw whenever leaving.  

That being said, it makes me curious to see what another city has to offer for any future tournaments I could possibly attend.

[Elevator]

The matside score clocks were too small to follow in many cases.   Arena did a poor job of tracking in an accessible manner.  Room for improvement there.