A TOs perspective on venue fee whiners.

[Flawed]

This makes absolutely no sense.

All I have to say is, any tournament host who wants to profit off the (local) tournaments they host, get a real job to find real income. There's plenty of volunteers (myself included) who are willing to take your place.

The fact that the op has so many likes is disgusting. This community is no longer the community I have grown up with

This made me a little upset reading. Lots of volunteers willing to take your place? Not many people have the dedication, persistence and the paitence to deal with Smash tournaments and the crap that smashers can put out.

We have to host the tournament, run the tournament, call out matches, make sure that people are following rules - because ****ing smashers like to try and sneak rule changes in locals- , we have to make sure everyone pays, we have to make sure no one steals anything, we have to make sure no idiot brings alcohol & or weed

I've had so many **** experiences TO-ing in Lithonia GA, that its a miracle that we still do them. Its our dedication that deserves respect

 

[victra♥]

I suppose it's dependent on your community and region and it was wrong for me to assume other communities were the same.

I'm really lucky that my community is filled with beautiful people.

 

[Juggleguy]

Most people who complain about a venue fee aren't actually worried about the price point. They're worried about not receiving value from the tourney experience that matches what they paid for. Notice how there are never complaints about the venue fee at the best and most well-organized events. That's because the attendees know they're getting the best value for their money. TOs should focus on hosting good events, then let the players decide where their money and attendance goes. Bad events will die, and good events will flourish. Let the free market play out.

The rest of the people who complain about a venue fee should ask themselves whether they're in a position to be attending a Smash tourney in the first place. Smash is a hobby that requires disposable income, and if the difference between a $1 and $5 venue fee truly breaks the bank for someone, then that's their problem, not the organizer's problem. TOs should not sacrifice their own revenue stream or volume of resources to accommodate poor attendees; the poor attendees should get their priorities straight and come back when they're in a financial position to participate.

Regarding the topic of TOs making money. There's a difference between hosting tournaments for the sole purpose of making money versus making money on the side as a result of hosting well-attended tournaments. TOs who fall into the former category will almost assuredly fail, because their heart isn't in it for the right reasons and because there are a million better and faster ways to make money. TOs who fall into the latter category will usually succeed, because their passion is directed at community development and because they know how to re-invest their money to do an even better job next time.

 

[SamSun]

I can't believe video game developers charge a $50 "playing"(???) fee for their new games!
aren't they in it for the love of the game? or are they just trying to make money off of a loving community??

(it's kinda crazy to expect TO's work for 8 hours and not get paid because it makes them less "pure")

 

[Narpas_sword]

I can't believe video game developers charge a $50 "playing"(???) fee for their new games!
aren't they in it for the love of the game? or are they just trying to make money off of a loving community??

(it's kinda crazy to expect TO's work for 8 hours and not get paid because it makes them less "pure")

I assume that you tip them then?

 

[SamSun]

I pay my venue fee with the assumption and permission to take a cut.

 

[Narpas_sword]

I pay my venue fee with the assumption and permission to take a cut.

Interesting.

but if you knew the TO was volunteering and never took from the venue fee? would you then add some extra for the TO?

 

[Bron]

If you feel the need to complain about venue fees, then don't go. Or get good and win to pay for you venue fee. Will only take like 8 years. Easy fix lol.

 

[BombsOnBombs]

I suppose it's dependent on your community and region and it was wrong for me to assume other communities were the same.

I'm really lucky that my community is filled with beautiful people.

The community here isn't horrible, I don't mean to imply that. They're just very entitled, probably because they are used to playing for free at campus because they're all students at the university. Which is fine, but I didn't run tournaments at the university, I ran them at a place of business, and I'm pretty sure that was the reason things went south. I understand that now. A business wants to make money and college students don't have it, lesson learned.

I wrote this post and many of the replies while I still had a pretty sour taste in my mouth, and a large part of it was the rather disrespectful interactions I had with a few of the players. (Particularly the guy I mentioned about the "I don't have to pay for that!") I shouldn't let the actions of a few people spoil my opinion of an entire group of people. It just felt right at the time. I'm just a human.

 

[BombsOnBombs]

Interesting.

but if you knew the TO was volunteering and never took from the venue fee? would you then add some extra for the TO?

When I played in college I would tip indirectly. Whoever organized the tournament usually ate dinner on me. We were all pretty good friends though so probably not the best example. I don't know the people who came to my tournaments as well as I knew some of the people back home.

 

[RedmanSSBM]

I don't anyone can put it any better than what Juggleguy said. He basically explained what I would have said in this thread, just gioes to show how smart of a TO he really is.

@ BombsOnBombs I'd absolutely be willing to help you run tournaments if it meant being a regular thing. We could get past all the BS that some people bring out, and we can get through it all and still run a pretty decent event. What bugs me is that Charlotte to begin with really lacks a good, consistent tournament series just for smash. We do have 49er Fight Nights at the college campus, but I'd like to see something more concrete and "out there" in this area. If you're down with working together to have a really legit bi-weekly in Charlotte, I'm all ears.

 

[BombsOnBombs]

I started working with a local homeless shelter on my Sundays now, so I don't really have the time now. Not to mention, like I said in the Facebook thread, the venues I used want nothing to do with Smash. Be There runs invitational qualifiers on Sundays now, and Retro Reboot just flat-out said no.

 

[RedmanSSBM]

I was maybe hoping to restore their faith in smash but if they really want to be that closed minded about it then so be it. There are plenty of other venues out there that we could use.

 

[Tripswag]

I just went through and read all of the comments on this thread. I'm a fairly new TO in Abilene, TX. I've hosted five bi-weeklies as part of our new series, and I'm hoping to keep building interest. So as for my relevance to the topic, I pose this question:

Is it fair of me to charge a $5 venue fee where $3 goes to the actual venue (our agreed-upon payment per player) and $2 goes toward a fund that will eventually buy a capture card so that we can record and upload matches? I feel this is a beneficial investment for the community as a whole, but I did have a couple of "entitled" kids that felt the need to snidely hand me $3 and say they had no use for a capture card, anyway.

What do you guys think? I'm sure it can go both ways, so I wanted to get some opinions.

 

[RedmanSSBM]

I just went through and read all of the comments on this thread. I'm a fairly new TO in Abilene, TX. I've hosted five bi-weeklies as part of our new series, and I'm hoping to keep building interest. So as for my relevance to the topic, I pose this question:

Is it fair of me to charge a $5 venue fee where $3 goes to the actual venue (our agreed-upon payment per player) and $2 goes toward a fund that will eventually buy a capture card so that we can record and upload matches? I feel this is a beneficial investment for the community as a whole, but I did have a couple of "entitled" kids that felt the need to snidely hand me $3 and say they had no use for a capture card, anyway.

What do you guys think? I'm sure it can go both ways, so I wanted to get some opinions.

Sounds completely justifiable to me. Those kids don't know what it means to have a dedicated recording device for a tournament. Don't let a few snobs bug you into changing what I believe is totally fine and makes sense.

 

[Tripswag]

Sounds completely justifiable to me. Those kids don't know what it means to have a dedicated recording device for a tournament. Don't let a few snobs bug you into changing what I believe is totally fine and makes sense.

I guess to that end, another question: Should I deny them entry into events if they don't pay the full $5 next time? The information is all over my event information page both on Facebook, Smashboards, and TourneyLocator, as well as on flyers. It's not a lack of information.

 

[RedmanSSBM]

I guess to that end, another question: Should I deny them entry into events if they don't pay the full $5 next time? The information is all over my event information page both on Facebook, Smashboards, and TourneyLocator, as well as on flyers. It's not a lack of information.

Yes. They are responsible for being informed about the tournament. Enforce the $5 entry rule or ask them to leave. Don't be a **** about it, but definitely show that you're to be taken seriously and you should tell them that it was in the information that you posted that said the venue was $5. You did your job, but they didn't do theirs and chose not to comply. Their loss.

 

[BombsOnBombs]

I guess to that end, another question: Should I deny them entry into events if they don't pay the full $5 next time? The information is all over my event information page both on Facebook, Smashboards, and TourneyLocator, as well as on flyers. It's not a lack of information.

Yes. You were under no obligation to share how you were allocating the money you were receiving from them, you volunteered that information so that other people knew that their money was going towards bettering the future tournaments, which is totally fine. The price should be the same for everyone, regardless of what you're doing with the excess. Otherwise, you would have instead set the venue fee at $3 and accepted donations for the capture card. (Which would have been stupid because you probably would have made no money towards that card if you had done it that way.)

Turn them away next time. Don't be a jerk, but simply state "Sorry, the entry fee is $5, it's the same for everyone." If they protest, clarify that it would be unfair to EVERYONE ELSE who paid the $5.

I was maybe hoping to restore their faith in smash but if they really want to be that closed minded about it then so be it. There are plenty of other venues out there that we could use.

If Be There were inclined to do it again, it would have to be a different day of the week. They're using their Sundays now, where before they were just open with no planned events. I mean they aren't going to run a Smash tournament on the same day as an IQ, IQs generally turn out like 100+ people and those people spend money like crazy, there'd be no convincing them to host Smash instead on that day, it wouldn't make sense for them.

To be honest, Retro Reboot was a combination of two things: the venue's refusal to let me run one there again because they made no money, and my lack of interest in doing so because of how unaccommodating the owner was. I ran into a lot of problems with that tournament that people don't know about. All of the tables and chairs came out of my pocket, and I only had so much in savings to spend so I ended up still coming up short on chairs. Lots of people sat on the floor for their matches and I was really ****ing embarrassed by that because my previous tournaments had set a much higher standard than that. Beyond that, the space we used had to be COMPLETELY cleaned out the day before the tournament, and I did all of the work by myself because the owner of the store said he was going to do it the previous week and completely flaked out on me, which left me with no choice but to do it myself. I know you weren't there Locke, but ask Steven or Vorosh how much stuff was up there. It was a lot. So setup took me about $200 and two whole days BEFORE the actual tournament, where I ended up only recouping $25 of it back after I paid the venue. Thankfully I bought those tables at KMart and their return policy is pretty lenient. The chairs didn't survive the tournament though, so I was still out about $50.

There's another store in the University area that I was considering talking to at one point (Get Some Game) but I don't have time on the weekends to dedicate to it anymore. If you're wanting to run some tournaments locally, I still have all of the actual equipment (Gamecubes, copies of Melee, CRTs, etc) so just hit me up on Facebook if you want to use that stuff.

 

[BombsOnBombs]

PS: There are certain players that I would let play against the house if I knew them well enough. One guy at the very last tournament had just gotten his wallet stolen a few days prior and only had like $6, I just let him play and took the $4 out of his winnings. Or I would have, if he hadn't scrubbed out. I just bit the cost on that one because he'd been to all of my tournaments and I felt like I should do him that small favor. But that privilege was not for everyone.

 

[Kenkoku]

I don't mean to bring up a dead post (does a month count as dead?), but I want a thread like this to be stickied for future reference and so that players and TOs alike can share their perspectives. I personally don't have a large majority of the issues presented by the OP, but I can certainly put myself in his/her place, since I have encountered those types of people in my life.

As for my own perspective, I am still rather new to this TO stuff, only having held 2 tournaments at a friend's (large-ish) house, both of which were about 20 people, and were about a month apart from each other. I understand that this is a very different scenario than the OP's, so he/she may not agree with what I say.

Being a TO has been fun. Since the participants are exclusively my friends and their friends, it's not too hard to communicate to almost everyone about very specific details, e.g., parking spaces, can someone bring a CRT, etc. Since there's not too many people and I always have a close friend there, I have time to play without worrying over someone watching the bracket and the money. Speaking of the money, this is one of the few points I disagree with OP on. I think of TO-ing as volunteer work, work that I do for the community, and work that I enjoy. For me, having a blast raising hype with my friends IS my payment. The week before a tournament that I spend scrambling for last minute setups and such makes me so excited, I can't wait for the tournament itself to start. As a result, I couldn't imagine taking from a pot that was meant to make everyone enjoy the event more, since stakes are higher. I'm not saying that it's wrong to take the money as a TO; I'm only saying that if you feel like you should, you would be better off not hosting Smash, and hosting something like MTG instead. (I draft at a nearby store occasionally, so don't think I look down on it.)

 

[Raijinken]

Smash is a hobby consisting primarily of sunk costs. You get the console, the game, and a controller, and your financial investment is largely done, almost completely done (bar electricity and maybe internet) if you don't plan on entering tournaments. Contrast trading card games where the hobby is notoriously expensive and $40 is nothing compared to the value of the deck you're competing with in some cases.

It doesn't justify the poor behavior, but it can certainly help explain it.

 

[Rubba Prime]

This thread made me sad. @ BombsOnBombs knows the struggles of being a TO and that Venue Fee is a necessary evil and expressed his thoughts. Then, in typical internet fashion, a bunch of users get on their high horse and try to make him seem like a horrible person who should be happy to serve ungrateful smashers. I feel a rant coming on, but instead a few points...


- $5/$5 is standard for local events. Good? Lets move on.

- Players do not need to know where the venue fee is going.
It's your right to charge whatever you want and use it for
whatever you want. ($20 venue that helps fund your crack
addiction is bad, but then people wont attend your events!)

- I don't care how much of a saint you are. TOing is not
charity work or community service. It is also not a means
to make large amounts of money. A good TO brings people
together to have fun and play an effing game! If that means
paying venue so it can happen every week then why
complain!?

 

[Sixfortyfive]

This thread made me sad. @ BombsOnBombs knows the struggles of being a TO and that Venue Fee is a necessary evil and expressed his thoughts. Then, in typical internet fashion, a bunch of users get on their high horse and try to make him seem like a horrible person who should be happy to serve ungrateful smashers.

It would have gone over better without his implied delusions of grandeur wrt building a premiere Smash circuit from small-time locals in a game store, or poorly thought-out lectures about how a game's scene will die out from a hypothetical lack of business acumen. The "what's in it for me?" angle comes off a bit too strong, even if almost all of his complaints are legit.

Like a few others have pointed out, it's all about communication. Make it clear exactly what people have to pay and what they're getting for their money, and if you're being even remotely cost-effective then things mostly sort themselves out on that front. You don't have to waste extra energy on critics who can't at least be constructive, either. I'm not sure if it's possible to satisfy someone who balks at the idea of a $5 venue fee.

 

[ObdurateMARio]

Reading through this thread has really given me (a new TO) a broader perspective on how controversial a topic money can be in our community. As someone who is really uncomfortable with the whole "making a profit" concept, here's what I think. A TO who uses extra venue fees to reinvest into equipment for the tournament in the future, be it capture cards, CRTs, more consoles, tables, whathaveyou, should be totally fine. The TO is running the tournament, and it's his/her/their responsibility to make that tournament experience as good as they possibly can for their players and their community. Anybody snooty with me over a venue fee to pay for more equipment can either pay up, or not play. That much should go without saying.

However, the thought of some TOs at larger local events, and the like keeping a few dollars is not terribly sinful. I wouldn't do it because my player pool is too small for it atm, but for all the work a TO puts in, a few dollars to send his/her/their co-host out to grab lunch while running bracket shouldn't be considered a problem. TOs trying to jack up venue fees to make money, or looking at smash TOing as a way to make money is not good. I disagree that Smash TOs should never be entitled to any compensation, but I also agree that Smash TOs shouldn't be hosing their players for their own gain. If a host were to net a few dollars for 8 hours of actual TOing, not to mention the countless hours promoting, editing captured video, uploading said video, etc, I don't think it would be amiss. I take less shifts at work so I can host, and I know that I won't make anywhere near what I would make at work, which is totally fine. But if whatever spare venue fee we would theoretically have helps me break even from running it (covering the upfront costs like equipment, printing costs for fliers, food since I can't leave the bracket, etc) I think it's okay.

And TOs at larger tournaments (over 100 entrants or so, and definitely with any that run more than 1 day) need to be compensated. Not hugely, but that is an immense amount of work. My first was only 40 entrants, and that was a lot of work. I couldn't imagine the logistics and effort that go into anything multi-day. I think as Smash grows in popularity, the thought of TOs making a few dollars will probably change. It might be from higher costs from players, or it might be from sponsorships/ad revenue etc. Of course I'm talking about larger events in this case, not smaller events like mine atm.