We found the same thing too. The last regionals had a joyful feel about it but this felt so much more pressured. There were some amazing dancers but it felt so much more elite and less accessible to a normal dance school. The venue was great but there was hardly any parking and this was made much worse by only adjudicating at certain points in the day. A couple of times we had to wait for nearly three hours!!
I have noticed that AED have now invited some dancers that were close to an honours mark to finals because there wasn't enough to fill their particular section.
