Parents Anyone ever had a meet cancelled do to weather?

[MaryA]

Hopefully I'm not jinxing myself, but in 6 years of competing, we have never had a meet cancelled or not been able to get to a meet due to weather. There was one meet last year where we probably could have left in the AM and not paid for a hotel, but opted to go the night before because weather was supposed to be bad near home (which it was) but not in the area where the meet was held. But surely with meet season overlapping "bad weather" season for much of the US, this must happen. When our gym hosts a meet, we rent the equipment, so in a true "weather emergency" the truck wouldn't even be able to get the equipment to us. What happens when a meet has to be cancelled due to weather? Is it rescheduled (difficult because most teams already have a really full meet season)? Are entry fees refunded? That could be devastating for a team who relies on their home meet as their main fundraising activity. Just wondering.

 

[AlexsGymmyMom]

We have never had a meet cancelled due to weather either. Even for state when we were in the middle of a blizzard. Even the employees at the hotel we stayed at were talking about how hard core gymnastics must be because that was the only event that did not get cancelled that day!

 

[Quadqueen]

We've never had a meet cancelled. I know one year for our gym's home meet, the weather was really bad, and lots of gymnasts from the other part of the state didn't make it...but the meet went on. The equipment's already been rented, etc. I don't know what happened with those girls, but I'm assuming they didn't get their fees refunded. ??

 

[Natasha]

I think as long as the host gym can get everything set up and they can get minimum # of judges there, the meet will take place even if hardly no one can get there. If the host cancels the meet, then they would have to refund money and they would stand to loose a lot of money, however if they still hold the meet but people just can't get there, they do not have to refund it. I do know of a meet though that cancelled their first session of the day but continued with the rest of the meet.

 

[Muddlethru]

We've never had a meet canceled either. Some meets clearly indicate there will be no cancellations/refunds due to weather. They usually will hold the meet despite the turnout. In your case, if a truck cannot get to the venue to deliver equipment, and as such cannot physically hold the meet, I would think a refund would be in order.

 

[lhmom]

Last year, we had some snow occur during our local meet. They delayed the first session on the 1st day by an hour. I heard there were some teams who couldn't get there that first day but the meet still went forward.

 

[rsm]

Our state had a few cancellations due to weather/snow storms last winter. One was rescheduled to another weekend, a couple only lost one day of the meet and just went ahead with the other days and tried to fit in extra sessions. I know of one that was cancelled outright due to a state of emergency. I don't know about refunds, but I'm sure it wasn't good for the gyms. They make most of their money from admissions.

 

[MaryA]

I hope you can all tell, from my post (though not from the title of it) that I really DO know the difference between "do" and "due."

 

[AlexsGymmyMom]

How funny Mary, I didn't even notice it!

 

[KCHAMP]

Our girls team had 2 meets cancelled last year due to a state of emergency blizzard where the state said no vechicles on the road. One meet did not refund any money (only 1 or 2 sessions were cancelled), the other refunded 87% and offered a 13% dicount on next year's entry fee which I thought was incredibly fair. I can't imagine recovering from the loss of revenue from a meet you depend on though so I understand why so few cancel.

 

[skschlag]

We haven't ever had one cancelled. Even this past weekend, with the massive flooding the girls had a meet. That one shocked me. But other than that, we have always had the meet.

 

[gymmiemom]

We've never had a cancellation here.....but in our area severe weather is normal and nothing (including school) is ever cancelled. We pretty much just always just plan on everything taking longer than it should when we travel. If we know the weather is supposed to turn we leave a day early, or sometimes we stay an extra day if my husbands work schedule allows it. There was meet last year that was 5 hours from home (very minimal travel time for us, we live in a rural state) and it took us about 11 hours to get home from it. But 3 of that was sitting at a complete stop for wrecked semis while the wreck got cleaned up.

 

[Bajanswife]

Nope, never. We don't go to any meets in winter in northern climates. I guess the worst that could happen is a freak blizzard in the Charlotte area in mid-November that would make it hard to get to Crown of the Carolinas. The meets we go to in our Caribbean region are Feb - May usually, which is not hurricane season. Our own meet is in late April, so weather is not an issue for anyone who may come.

 

[kandkfunk]

We've had 2 meets cancelled during my DDs career. We live in an area where even a little bit of bad weather halts travel across the region. LOL.

One of the meets was in the hotel part of an indoor waterpark. The ice storm caused the power to go out in the hotel. No power, no meet . The host club lost their deposit on the location and received no money back from the venue. It was devastating for them. This was a couple years ago and they haven't held the meet since that year.

 

[2G1B]

A few years ago we had some awful weather - it was a lot (for our area) of snow followed by a lot of ice. It was a mess. Apparently our old gym had a meet scheduled and decided to go ahead with it. One gym was apparently really mad about it and made quite a stink.

 

[htimcj]

We have never had a meet canceled but we had one delayed a couple of hours because of ice. We've also never had to not go to a meet because of weather either. Pretty surprising really since we can get some really bad weather in the winter.

 

[kandkfunk]

I think those of you who get frequent bad weather are just better at navigating through it. We get very little snow, but just an inch or two can cause our entire metro area to come to a stand still.

 

[htimcj]

I remember living in Houston and there was just a bit of snow/ice and EVERYTHING shut down like there was 2 feet on the ground!

Those of us in the blizzard states do just get used it and plan well for it.

 

[Krystan]

Most meets around here have a policy that they will only be cancelled if there is a declared state of emergency. Last winter, this happened a couple of times, but never on a meet weekend. The winter before that was pretty tame. So we've lucked out so far!

 

[2G1B]

In defense of those of us who live in the metro areas that shut down in the snow, I know that some areas are just set up to handle it so much better. It doesn't make sense for Houston or Atlanta to keep all of the sand/salt on hand or to have snow plows for the once every 5 years that there is enough snow/ice to warrant the use of those things.

Compare that to when we go out to WY and ID each winter. There are days that we get 1-2 FEET in a day and I'm still out driving in it, no problem. Even driving up a mountain. Because those states are prepared to handle that amount of snow. In the South the roads just become covered in ice and it doesn't matter how good at driving in snow you are, there is no being good at driving on ice. (oh, and we also don't have chains or snow tires down here.)