I am so sorry for the trouble we experienced with initial event registration today. We at FIRST HQ really do understand the investment of resources teams make to participate in our programs, and teams have the right to expect that we will be holding up our end of the deal by making things happen like we say we will. We failed to do that in this instance, and once again, I apologize.

While we did perform extensive load testing on the servers in preparation for this event, something still went wrong. Our Information Technology Department has been working feverishly since the crash to puzzle this out and come up with a plan to prevent recurrence. It’s not yet clear that it was the registration load per se that actually caused the problem. The system crashed immediately, before even a single team was registered, and this is strange behavior.

As you hopefully know from our tweets, Facebook posts, and emails, we are postponing initial registration until next week. Our goal is to be able to announce the specific day and time for registration before the weekend begins, so you can make appropriate plans.

Another goal we have is to be open and honest about what caused this issue and the steps we are taking to correct it. Our IT department has said they will do a guest blog explaining the situation in detail as soon as we have the facts.

Once again, I am sorry. Despite this issue, I do believe we have a great season ahead of us!

Frank