UKC

So Ratho...preferable to Awesome?

I think it's a better venue for the BLCC but I may be biased as I often climb there.

As it's been a while since the venue has been used, I'd guess it may be a new experience for a lot of the young competitors/parents. What did you think?

Anyone decide not go because of the travel/expense involved?

Awesome is more central. If you live in say Cornwall the distance to Ratho may well put you off.

But in terms of fairness I think it's best if the venue changes from year to year. The home advantage isn't just about travel time. It's about familiarity of the climbing terrain too.

In my completely unbiased view Ratho is better.  Awesome Walls felt cramped with that size of crowd and as a spectator it was harder to get parked and get a good view.  The walls at Ratho are larger and better and there is a regulation speed wall for BLSC.    Also Sheffield is a hell of a long drive from my house.

Well, we do live in Cornwall and it did put my son off entering. Also, most of the young competitors will have climbed at Ratho in the YCS finals.

In terms of the venue, Ratho is head and shoulders above anything else (but just not in midwinter, from experience). The issue is that there are easier walls to work with........

However, when it comes to putting on big events, such as the world cup / world champs, they put on superb events.

I live in Southampton and was planning to attend but decided against it when we tried to work out travel arrangements, flying was considerably more expensive (and inconvenient in terms of flight times) than I expected!
I have family nearby that I could have stayed with for free but the flight costs still made it a no-go. 

I'm willing to drive to Awesome but Ratho is too far for that silliness so personally I'd prefer it to be at Awesome walls.

On a side note, I never did work out how to enter this year, once I found out the flight prices I gave up trying, the BMC website had no information on how to actually register, I assume the comp is still open to all comers?

Only for mainland UK, if you take Shetland out of the box, Ratho is more central.

Erm. No. Sheffield is more central as far as people are concerned. Since it's people that enter comps, not trees or rocks or moorland, that is what is significant. Far more of the population live south of Sheffield than do north of it. So it could be argued that somewhere even south of Sheffield would be more central for most people.

Ratho might be equidistant between Shetland and London but there's a helluva lot more climbers in London than there are in Shetland.

AW may be more central but lots fly or train to Scotland due to the distance and this isn't so easy for Sheffield. 

Ratho definitely has the size and scale edge and is a way more impressive venue. Neither have great bouldering (esp AW which has one of the worst and coldest bouldering venues in the area).

For me AW is a lot more convenient and a nice climbing venue but Ratho is better for big comps and I suspect the centre of travel inconvenience for the masses from the SE is more neutral than distance alone suggests.

Certainly harder to fly to Sheffield but surely that's a plus point not a negative one. But Sheffield is perfectly accessible by rail so I don't think there's any difference there.

But it's not so much about which is best. If one is deemed 'the best wall' it could encourage the organizers to have the BLCCs at the same place year in, year out. I don't think that would be a fair or healthy way to run it. Much better is to rotate the event each year for both fairness and variation.