OK, so I know things went very well overall, and we literally flew through the first half of the tournament, but I would like to address some things, even though there were no complaints.
Staff was there on time, I pushed for 4 so that people would be there by 5, and even some players showed up earlier than I expected. My goal was to get 3 casuals set up by 6 so there'd be something going on, but we couldn't get to the tables in the back due to the party. The reason why I didn't push it was because the mother of the kid whose party it was, clearly was a bitch. I got dirty looks from her and I could hear how she was talking to Ken at times. I didn't want to harm any reputation for Ken so I got into the office with Gary right before they started coming into the party room and got out of there with the quickness, and even still I apologized to her and she gave me a look like "Why are you back here?"
Even so I thought we'd be able to get one of the tables but they were inaccessible. I felt bad that a lot of players were standing around and/or playing chess while we waited to get set ups going. I literally had a pile of Asus monitors and PS3s by the front desk waiting to be used. Props to
Lulzlou for having extra setups on hand in case we needed them, and we almost did. At about 7:15 they finally cleared out of the back, so we got to do the setups, which for the 7 we were using took a bit of time but I had the real time of the tournament and casuals slated for 8PM to 2AM, with the tournament 9PM to 1AM.
Well, with the timing set backs and the crowdedness of the venue (not complaining just making a point, that place is awesome and deserves the business it's getting), it was just impossible to get anything going until after 7. We were all standing around that one 9 year old playing an FPS on TV1 so we could swap the reserved sign and use the TV2 area for casuals. That whole area wound up working out perfectly. The one hour setback in getting casuals started sucked, but it added an hour we lost to casuals on 7 stations, where it would have only been 3. We started the tournament around 10PM, and finished at 2:15AM? streaming at least 25 matches. 4 /12 hours, 36 matches, and this was done 2/3s at a FURIOUS pace. We used 7 stations to get winners down to top 4 on that half, and losers through the first two rounds. This wound up resulting in about half the tournament done in 90 minutes.
Props to
Claude VonStroke for manning up for us and taking the role of bracket calling, instead of bracket rigging in this event, while holding it down on commentary. This is a function that Phil and I are use to and it ain't easy. I knew I'd have next to no time to do any brackets or stream stuff, and
9.95 , even though I insisted he take it easy, couldn't stand by and let Claude drown, so he helped him out through about half the tournament. I believe this really showed Claude how efficiently a tournament can be run, and that you must be an asshole to do it. It's the only time you're allowed.
By getting 20 or so matches done in 90 minutes, we caught up to where we would have been had we started at 9PM and ran on 5 setups. I guess we were fortunate in a way that we didn't get the potential 50+ players. From what I could tell, the setups were used very efficiently, even though not quite up to
DarKNaTaS 's standards. But seriously, they were used very well and at least 5 or 6 matches were going at any one time until we reached the 4 match bottleneck, at which point, the unusable 4 stations became casuals as I had wish. I hope players got enough in for the time they were there, and also utilized the arcade.
Props to
Mikemetroid for handling his new found responsibilities as a part of our staff very well. Get ready for Winter Brawl. Props to
jamessmk for saving the day and picking up REO, Tom Brady, and Dark Rob. Rob's car had trouble and they had to turn back. Fortunately Jimmy had just left when we got a hold of him, so he swept down and snagged them, making sure it was the best even possible.
Props to
zaf ,
Jer and
Zyos for making extremely long trips for what was to be merely a local event. You guys really show dedication and inspire other players. I saw some new faces at this event and that really makes me happy.
Overall it was a very fun and successful event. Right now, we are penciled in for April 20th, "Project InJustice." I will run a poll in the coming weeks to see if there's enough interest in running a full tournament so soon after release, if not the following weekend to give players 10 days to warm up. I'd like to capitalize on the fact that players will only have a short time to developed a character's basics and it'll be anyone's game. Right now I'm looking to get 100 players there and book us for a 3PM to 2AM run on Saturday, get to top 16, then finish the event Sunday afternoon in a 3 or 4 hour block from about 2 to 6. This way players can get out early enough and it'll give us some time frame to work around. The preliminary pricing I've thrown around with Ken is $15 for Saturday, $10 for Sunday. This will enable players to leave Saturday if they don't want to stay the whole weekend, and not have to pay a full weekend venue fee, which is generally $40 nowadays. I will work with a local hotel where I have a relative who is a manager.
On a side note, we're looking to make the KombatNetwork Arena into a training facility for Injustice, called the Marlboro Slaughterhouse. Summoning made a small update post today about it here:
http://testyourmight.com/threads/new-marlboro-nj-training-facility-coming-at-kns-ultraspec-cables-warehouse-by-shock-summ0ning.27168/
This venture will be donation based entry, so in essence, free and if you have some cash to spare. it'll help us out. We'll set up a goal for money to raise to buy more equipment down the road after our initial inventory is ready. We will also use this as a way to get players the level up sessions they want, and promote VSM, YesterCades and Local Battles events, specifically for tournaments. I don't want to run free tournaments at the Slaughterhouse. How often we'll have it open and what hours is to be determined, and we will also likely incorporate Red Bank Rumble into the mix.
That should do it for now, I'll add more later if I think of anything.
looking forward to winterbrawl i'll be driving again so hopefully i can get in touch with some ohio players or players that can at leaset get to ohio