Thanks for all the positive feedback guys, i really appreciate the love.
Lowering the venue fee and taking up more time in the day is significantly less profitable for C3. $10 to hang out in the venue until whenever the tourney ends is a pretty legit deal, we are all just spoiled by older prices and prices of basement tourney venue fees. To play games at a usual LAN center can cost up to $5 per HOUR! $10 for 6-8 hours is more than fair. There's no way the price will ever go down, economic recession blah blah blah so on and so forth.
Other tourneys start at noon, but they still only let you stay for the duration of the tourney and then everyone leaves. C3 is no different, everyone can stay and play until the tournament is completed, and everyone leaves. Lots of tourneys start at noon and end AFTER MIDNIGHT, so people get the idea that their venue fee should grant them 12+ hours of smash time.
It's not like you are paying for less time, it's the duration of the tourney, just like everywhere else. C3 also still offers $5 for everyone that brings a wii+brawl until all the TVs are full (which most people don't take advantage of for some reason), so the venue fee is potentially only $5, AND the tourney runs faster and has more room to play friendlies and stuff.
Also, I've been to the last few C3s, and it ALWAYS good times. Everyone chills, there's tons of friendlies, at least 8 TVs to play on, lots of room to move around, there's even rock band in the other room. Everyone seems to have a good time yet everyone still hates on C3.
Seriously though, is $10 for 6-8 hours (or however long the tourney runs) of smash too much?
If there is really such a high demand for melee, than we can probably arrange the next C3 event to be for melee. Prices and times will be the same though.