Applications are live: here’s what you may want to know…
(Skip to the bottom for the TL;DR)
Hey rope enthusiasts, and welcome to another NARIX blog post/update from the steering committee. We’ve been working away on post-Philly follow-ups, L.A. planning, and getting ready for the next big milestone– today! Applications are now live, and with that come some changes and additional information and context we want to share (with a little reckless transparency; you’re welcome!).
First, the elephant in the room: tickets for L.A. NARIX are probably going to be more expensive. Right now we are looking at $250, compared to $180 for Philly.
To be frank, Threshold is an exciting venue for us, but bringing in hardpoints is turning out to be an expensive venture, and finding a solution that doesn’t cost tens of thousands of dollars feels like pulling teeth. We’re hopeful that we can bring the ticket price down (and we’re mostly confident that we won’t have to raise it)-- but most of all, we promise to figure it out before acceptance letters go out so you’ll know the final price you’re committing to. That said, if anyone can convince the tooth fairy to put rigs under our pillows, please let us know– or if you think you can help us, we’re all ears!
Next, you may have noticed that the attendee criteria has changed slightly: we are moving to explicitly require suspension experience from attendees.
While we’ve avoided this in the past (rope isn’t an escalator, and suspension isn’t at the top), we do recognize that NARIX is most successful as an event when attendees have a broad range of experience to draw from, and when there’s trust that everyone participating in sessions has experiencing assessing suspension risks for themselves. We’re going to try this out and see how it goes, but we’re open to your feedback about the impact this has.
Finally, some changes to the application process– we’ll no longer guarantee future spots for the waitlist, and will use an applicant score to help determine the final attendees.
With our recent Philly event, and the growing popularity of NARIX, we had a waitlist almost as long as the event capacity itself. And with our current policy of “if you’re waitlisted, you can get into the next one”, we could be looking at a nightmare situation where people applying now may be far enough down the list to get a spot for fall of NEXT YEAR. With that, we’re sunsetting our policy of “waitlist folks are guaranteed for the next one”. We’ll honor the Philly deferrals, but moving forward, we’re changing to a process that we hope will serve us longer, and feel aligned with the values and goals of NARIX.
So here’s how it’s going to work:
The applications are live now, and will be live until we get 150 applicants, or until the end of the month, whichever happens first. We’ll review applications, removing disqualified ones. We’ll also score applications with a 1-3 across 5 criteria:
Historical contribution to NARIX
Volunteering to work at this event
Strong contribution to home community or rope community in general
Did not attend the last event
From a region that is underrepresented at NARIX or doesn’t have a well-developed rope community
From a community or holding an identity that is underrepresented in the applicant pool for this event
Higher scores will then have more chances to be selected in the random lottery, but ultimately, the lottery will continue to be random for who gets accepted. Attendees who weren’t at the last NARIX will get some of a boost, and with this new process, offering to volunteer is another great way to boost your likelihood of getting accepted.
We’re going to see how this goes, and we may learn along the way and adjust again for Spring NARIX. We’re very interested in your feedback, and in seeing the impact of this process on the event itself in October. Please hang in with us through this, and feel free to direct your feedback to us via email or our post-event feedback forms.
And with that, happy application day! We can’t wait to hear from you. Apply here: https://forms.gle/gDcBc6HC9bYYJjYs9
TL’DR:
L.A. prices are higher because of the hardpoint costs we’re incurring
We’re requiring all applicants have suspension skills moving forward
We’re no longer guaranteeing future spots to waitlistees (after the Philly ones)
