2015 Adult Sectionals - question on dates

[Live2Sk8]

Hi, below are the announced dates for the 2015 Adult Sectional competitions.  When these were announced, I wondered if the dates had a typo because instead of the Friday - Sunday dates I remember from previous Sectionals, these dates are Thursday - Saturday.  Does anyone know if this was a deliberate change to hold these competitions on Thursday - Saturday rather than Friday - Sunday?  For working adults, this might mean they have to take off 3 days of vacation (Wed - Fri) for Sectionals if events start earlier in the day on Thursday.

2015 Eastern Adult Sectional - March 12-14, 2015 (Pittsburgh)
2015 MidWestern Adult Sectional - March 5-7, 2015 (Springfield, Illinois)
2015 Pacific Coast Adult Sectional - March 5-7, 2015 (Las Vegas)   

I realize Adult Nationals typically ends on Saturday nights so perhaps they were trying to align Sectionals schedule with Adult Nationals calendar.

[CaraSkates]

Interesting...I had not noticed the switch to Thursday till you pointed this out. I plan to attend/compete at Eastern Sectionals this year. It doesn't impact me as much because I have a flexible work schedule but I know that my clubmates and I had been planning as though it was a Fri/Sat.

[lanamc]

This was a deliberate change due to requests from skaters to be able to travel home on Sunday to get to work on Monday.

[Live2Sk8]

Thanks for the update, lanamc.  Most of the skaters I have talked to are not happy about the change to a Thur-Sat competition.  If the competitions ended midday on Sunday, people could arrange flights home on Sunday afternoon/evening.  I realize it is impossible to know what a schedule will look like until close of entries but now people will potentially have to travel on Wednesday if competitions start Thursday morning or midday.  And if competitions run late on Saturday, that's another night of hotel just to be able to travel home Sunday morning.  So you could have 5 nights of hotel for a Thur-Sat competition and 2-3 days off work (Wed-Fri).  Oh well.  There's no perfect way to manage this and I appreciate the hard work from LOCs to host Sectionals.