Question re: Long Island Highland Games

[A Dhuglas]

Yesterday (Saturday) was the date for the Long Island Highland Games. Our weather since late Thursday has been less than stellar -- sometimes boomers, sometimes bright sun, sometimes showers. It's been a forecaster's nightmare. And a bear for event planners too. Info about the LIHG is found on www.liscots.org. I can't believe I'm the only person who uses the site to keep abreast of who's coming, the events scheduled, etc.

Here's the question: is it unreasonable of me, an attendee of the event, to expect to find on the site information such as:

"event may be canceled due to inclement weather"; or,

if canceled, a notice stating that the event was canceled?

Based on the above it should be no big surprise to learn that the LIHG were canceled yesterday. However, the only way we discovered it wasn't on was by traveling to the venue and being turned away at the gate. :confused:

I was miffed and sent the below message to them.

<-snip>

Hi.

After driving from Westchester to get to the Games this morning, imagine
my surprise at finding it canceled. Surprising especially since I
checked your website before getting on the road just in case you posted
a cancellation/change/delay notice. I wonder: did the event contestants
receive a notice or did they get to arrive at the venue only to be
turned away? Suspecting that was not the case, it would have been nice
for non-contestants to have a shot at knowing the games were off ---
before packing up the car, rounding up another family traveling in
tandem with us, driving the venue and wasting the gas and tolls for two
cars.

Since you have a website I have two suggestions for you:

* First, conspicuously place a warning notice on the website that in
case of inclement weather the games will be canceled. Set the
public's level of expectation. I saw no 'canceled if it rains'
anywhere on the site and acted on the belief that the show must be
going on; and,

* in the event you do cancel, place a B-L-O-O-D-Y H-U-G-E notice
on the homepage that the games are off.

A few cars of other incredulous would-be games-goers passed by us as our
little party pulled over to figure out what to do for the day. Nobody
could believe an event associated with Scotland would bag out because of
rain.

I wish you luck in the future.

<-snip>

Too strong? I throttled it down quite a bit from what originally came forth from my fingertips. Regardless, I guess living in this area has turned me into a wholly unreasonable and whiny little upstate suburbanite -- at least judging by the tone of the reply I received. Its unaltered contents follow:

<-snip>

ITS A BLOODY SHAME THAT ALL VOLENTEERS ARE AT THE GAMES AT 6 00AM NOT BY A COMPUTOR TO POST MESSAGES ON OUR HOME PAGETELLING PEOPLE IF THE GAMES WERE ON SINCE THE WEATHER CHANNEL WAS TELLING US OF INCOMING THUNDER AND LIGHTING IT ALSO WAS FOR SAFETY REASONS.
BESIDES A LOT OF THINGS WE HAD PLANNED SUCH AS PIPE BAND NOT SHOWING AGILITY DOGS ,HEAVY WEIGHT GAMES NOT COMPETING BECAUSE WET GROUNDS.
IF WE OPENED LATE AND IT STARTED TO RAIN AGAIN YOU WOULD ASK FOR MONEY BACK AS NOTHING WAS GOING ON.

<-snip>

Whaddya think, folks? Am I completly off my nut in thinking somebody could post a "canceled" notice during one of the commercial breaks on the Weather Channel... Or have I been corrupted by the metro area and become a whiny New Yorker?

[David Dalglish]

I dont think it was too much to ask

[jfellrath]

I think you're totally justified in sending this as you wrote it. It might get them to realize how important their web site is to their marketing effort. I've worked with way too many organizations that just don't understand how a web site should really be used, they just see it as another version of a magazine advertisement.