Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-32129321-20170528014915/@comment-26397825-20170528020544

It does though. If they were hanging around the campgrounds, it means they weren't at the arena when the Nevermore broke through so they had no reason to join up with everyone else there considering the White Fang and Grimm were attacking the academy grounds and the city.

That iconic shot happened because all the people involved were in the arena, watching the Pyrrha vs Penny fight. If they're not in the arena, they can't be standing there for the iconic shot.

If you're in another Kingdom and don't have any of your friends going through to the finals, or even any interest in the finals, you don't hang around to watch the show. You go out and explore the city and the academy fairground, get a taste of another kingdom and how they do things. It's a vacation once you're knocked out of the tournament. They're likely off having fun (possibly even at that Arcade we keep seeing in Chibi), and simply never appeared on screen because they never got near any main chacaters when the fighting started. Vale is a huge city, it's not unbelievable to think that they were fighting elsewhere away from the main cast.