From what I remember from the last syracuse tourney, even with 70 people paying 10 dollar venue, more than half of that would in fact go straight to the cost of just renting the venue. It's not a cheap place, and without a guaranteed turnout, bry really should play it safe on the venue fee and make sure that he's able to cover his costs. Because at the last one, I'm not 100% sure he did.
There's plenty of options for what he can do with excess money from venue fees, most of which have already been listed at least a couple times. I'm sure bry isn't out to make a buck on this, but he shouldn't have to risk spending more than his share of the venue fee. Hell, he could just give everyone a couple bucks back if it turns out he's got way more in the venue fee envelope than he needed
One thing I do want to disagree with, is saying tournaments aren't a "social event". 80% of us going purely for the social aspect of the event. I'm not stupid, I know I'm not gonna be making any money at this tournament, I go because it's fun and I'm making a lot of friends in this community where I don't get to see them much, if at all, outside of tournaments. Things like the raffle are interesting for those of us who aren't competing for money. It's not like he's throwing 200 bucks worth of venue fee at the raffle, I think the gift cards at the last tourney totaled like 30 or 40 bucks.
Oh yeah, and food at the venue is SO awesome. Yeah going out for food and chilling with people is great, BUT you really don't have a chance to do that mid tourney, especially if you're competing in all of the events. This is melee and brawl in a single day, the last one went until 11:30 at night with like 15-20 entrants in each event. Going out for food isn't an option unless it's during an event you aren't competing in.
While I'm making a massive post, I might as well make the point now that people better ****ing show up on time, or be **** sure that the tourney is starting without them, no matter who they are. Even if only half the people signed up actually show to this thing, it's gonna be hard as **** to finish 4 events in one day without going stupid late. Don't be that guy.