Winter Weather and Event Cancellation Policy

Our competition runs nearly every weekend January through April, and inevitably, our events are occasionally threatened by winter weather. Given that our events are part of a larger tournament, with venue reservations made a year in advance and our staff coming in from throughout the region to make the show happen, it is next to impossible to reschedule our events. Therefore, we do not cancel for inclement weather, unless the venue itself physically cannot open. We encourage our competitors and patrons to exercise caution and good judgment when deciding to travel to our events.

We understand that this seems harsh and unreasonable, but we want you to understand the many obstacles to rescheduling our events. We have to take into consideration: (1) scheduling availability for the 10 groups competing – if fewer groups can attend on the rescheduled date, it defeats the purpose of rescheduling; (2) scheduling availability within our tournament – this event feeds into another event and cannot take place after the semifinals, nor can it take place on a weekend we already have an event scheduled in that region (because of production team availability), which is nearly impossible because our events take place nearly every weekend January through March; (3) scheduling availability of another regional venue of comparable size, when most venues this size book up at least a year in advance; (4) scheduling availability of our production team, including the Varsity Vocals producers who are busy nearly every weekend leading up to semifinals producing our other events, five judges who are booked many months in advance, and a crew of qualified sound technicians, who are also very busy producing our other events as well as other events locally and regionally; and (5) affordability of such an endeavor, after losing funds for canceling the first event, essentially doubling production costs.

Despite the above, if we are in fact able to reschedule an event, we will do so. If inclement weather has been forecasted and we have not yet changed the event, please know that we are working diligently behind the scenes to try to reschedule it.

It is our responsibility and obligation to provide the ICCA and ICHSA experience to our competitors in a way that best serves the majority. Sometimes this means some students will be impacted by weather and others will not, in which case the event will go on as scheduled and some students will have to make a difficult decision. Sometimes this means the event will be cancelled outright and all students will lose the chance to participate at all, ending the competition before it can begin. Sometimes we are able to reschedule, which will disappoint those who preferred the original date and often means some students cannot participate at all.

In every case, the choice to travel to attend or participate in an event is entirely your own. This is a non-mandatory, optional life event. When competing groups opt not to participate, we respect their choice and do whatever we can to make that as comfortable as possible.

In our 30 years of producing this tournament, we have absolutely canceled events when conditions truly necessitated it. If we do need to cancel an event, ticket holders and competitors will be notified and refunded immediately.