GenCon: 2010, and 2010 National Planning ~

[Vyse]

I want all the TO's in here to talk about what's going to happen next year.

Queensland key dates​

Definite LanSmash Dates:

- 13th of Feb

- 10-11 April

- 3-4 July

- 18-19 September (Weekend before GenCon)
- 23,24,25,26 September <- GenCon 2010

- 11-12 December

Most of these are by no means 'national' tournaments by any degree, but there is one thing I want to talk about concerning GenCon (this is the big news I've been alluding to for a while).

Basically GenCon event organisers have approached me and have asked me to run a national level smash tournament for their 4 day event. The big thing about this is that GenCon is a huge deal in terms of gaming in all forms and if the emailing I've been doing is anything to go by, they're pretty keen on making it big.

Sponsors tend to act on numbers. If we can convince them that instead of an event with 200 players, that we have an event with 10,000 attendees and show them some of the pics of people playing Smash Bros, I think we may be onto a winner.

The hope would be to have people's entries to the competition "sponsored" by the Sponsors along with prizes and Screens. We can then use that to promote our show at the same time - basically we want more computer games as well.

My vision for this is as it is outlined to some degree there. A tournament where the prizes and equipment is sponsored and heavily advertised at a massive gaming convention with lots of entrants (Ideally, 200).

You might be skeptical about how successful a tournament at a convention might be, and I wouldn't blame you since they didn't do me many favors this year. Though, I chalk that up to a lot of miscommunication between LanSmash staffers and GenCon.

Well, I've given them a very long list of things to consider, which I'll just quote in:

Oh I understand that it's definitely a good deal if you're there for the convention and regardless I'll run again next year.

But a lot of pro players in the smash scene are used to cheaper venues, letting more money go towards the pot for a tournament.

A similar debacle happened last year with a national smash tournament held with the Ozhadou Fighting Games Nationals, where a lot of smashers felt ripped off when the money they paid to get in went towards funding everything but smash (namely arcade machines for other games).

The mindset of a lot of smashers when they see GenCon is "I have to pay $50 to play smash? Yeah no thanks". Basically to make traveling for smash more viable, our community has always worked towards making it as affordable as possible, even offering free housing for people who travel interstate.

Gen Con is relatively cheap compared with other events on, and very comparable to most other gaming events around the country who cater for electronic gaming.

LanSmash events provide me two full days at $25, money from the entry fee goes back into fueling the prize money on top of event entry fees and as tournament organiser, I get to set the entry fees. What's more smash isn't some small side event either, it's a main game on the lineup at an event that places an emphasis on tournament e-gaming.

Running a national tournament alongside Gen Con has plenty of good points I love about it too though.

- Parking access
- Extremely accessible by train
- LOTS of space
- Food at and around the venue
- Draws in much more people than LanSmash, meaning many more random signups for tournaments (which I love the most)
- Variety of things to do there

At the end of the day, it is feasible for me to run a national level tournament with you guys, but I feel if I was to run such an event next year with the way things went this year, I'd receive a lot of backlash as soon as I put up the details in our community.

That reminds me. Imagine my surprise when on Friday afternoon, I'm still on the Gold Coast, and I get a call saying the smash comp shoulda started an hour ago. You guys told LanSmash that all our events would start at 6pm on each of the days. That REALLY messed up a lot for me. (A mistake, but these things happen).

For me to run a national smash tournament with Gen Con, I'd at the very least need two, full days to allow me time to run:

Super Smash Bros. Brawl Doubles
Super Smash Bros. Brawl Singles pools
Super Smash Bros. Brawl Singles

Super Smash Bros. Melee Doubles
Super Smash Bros. Melee Singles Pools
Super Smash Bros. Melee Singles

Add to that the provision of enough CRT televisions (IE, older TV's, not LCD/Plasma because they lag), as well as at least 1 projector (Which I could probably get through LanSmash anyway).

I know I sound like I'm demanding things I have no right to, but I can't very well expect Australia's best players to travel if all I'm offering is 'Everything else at GenCon' to them and not 'The very best national Smash tournament' I can muster.

(Don't get me wrong. I'll sell the idea, and sell it hard for next year, because this year (my first GenCon) I didn't know what to expect, but I thought it was really good.)

This all may sound like it's a bit much, but in the competitive community there's been a lot of antagonism lately towards smash living on the backs of other gaming events instead of on its own two feet (like it almost always used to). So yeah, I'm just trying to gauge where we stand, and how much GenCon would be willing to support a National Smash Tournament.

Either way, I'm excited that you're wanting to do something big. I devote a lot of my free time to the pursuit of running tournaments for this game and I'd be honored to head a national tournament run through GenCon. I'm just being critical right now because I want any such event to be the very best it can be.

If you'd like to contact me my email address is in my profile (or it should be, since notifications for this thread are being sent to it). So reply here or email me.

I'll email you my details anyway if you wanna chat about it too.

So yeah, there's a lot of things for me to consider, and to do over the summer holidays to start preparing for it.

If you read the quote, I outline a lot of the strengths, and a lot of the things I'm expecting from it too.

The best thing about this event is how heavily they advertise it. I mean, for a week I couldn't look in any direction at my University without seeing 10 of their posters, and that's not exaggerating (much). If they feature this tournament on their advertising material, and on their TV commericials as a main event, it could be a bloody huge turnout.

The sheer numbers could make it amazing, it could also make it a pain in the ***, but still, we'll have to wait and see.

=-=-=-=-=

There's an issue though. I think it's an issue in my opinion though.

The timing for one, it falls on school holidays, but not necessarily to Uni.

There's another thing.

With the days it runs on, the times aren't consistent. 4 days of smash would be epic. Time for crews, time for everything, but yeah, the times are a bit iffy sometimes (Thursday = 1pm start I think, and Sunday is a 5pm close, or it was this year, which was different to last year).

I wondered for a while if I should have to just cut Melee from the agenda completely, but then I thought about something else. Back at the top of this post you'll notice a LanSmash event a weekend before this.

I could do Back to Back tournaments catering for each game individually.

This is something I envisioned for next year as well, a new tournament series I wanted to start up called 'SmashCon' with a Brawl and Melee edition once each a year.

This is all food for thought at the moment, so chime in with whatever you want to say.

Other states need to speak up and talk about what you guys are thinking about, or not thinking about yet at all. lol.

But yeah, I think this tournament could be veeeery big if I can figure out what to do with it.
(It would be 100x better if I can confirm a late end to the Sunday for GenCon, lol).

We'll see.

(Also, sorry if my news is underwhelming. haha. It's just the prospect of having everything sponsored that's got me. As of now I'm quite skeptical too, but, we'll see. Either way, this is happening with or without Australia behind it )

 

[Jupz]

I would also like to say Perth plans to host a national next July. So don't make it near then please

 

[Vyse]

Well the July LanSmash is something I don't have much control over, lol, but that won't be a HUGE event.

No way I'm missing EI3

 

[Melancholy]

A four day, sponsered, national smash tourney? That would be awesome.

Your exciting news definitely didn't disappoint.

 

[CAOTIC]

There was a lot of information in that post and it was indecisive and confusing. What is the most basic idea of your proposition? To claim late September for a QLD GenCon major?

 

[Vyse]

Well a 4 day would be ideal, but I don't know how feasible it is.
The worst part being that its in the middle of uni time.

It's scheduled to coincide with school holidays here.

:/

Y'know, it's made me realise how we're beginning to follow tournament trends in America. When America came to the realisation that in order to run both games, it needed to run even longer than usual.

I have, and always will regard Fast1 as having one of the best tournament formulas.

EDIT:

@Dave: Yeah, that's pretty much it.

I pretty much wanted to get all my thoughts down somewhere I could refer to them later. Pretty or not. It's easier to brainstorm somewhere that I'll actually refer back to, lol.

 

[CAOTIC]

Done and done.

I'm sure Rocky's successor will be sometime in Q4 2010, but I have quite a bit of leverage with CW, so we can work on a date that spreads apart all the majors equally.

I'm personally a fan of 3 day tourneys. 4 days? I'm too old for this ****!

 

[Vyse]

Sounds good man.
That means NSW has to kick things off next year! lol.

I WILL See Mic next year

EDIT: Also, now that this is off my chest at least, I can focus my energies into SQUAT Uni assignments.

 

[CaLibUr_1337]

well this sounds like a good opportunity. Ur probs the best organizer I know haha.

With school holidays, if you mean that in a bad way in the sense that people will be away on vacation then I wouldn't worry too much. I for one didn't do much around then, I was a sloth half the time.

I noticed the odd times for gencon this year although I didn't go. Brawl on friday afternoon cuts it a bit close for me and some others who may still be in the middle of getting home after school. Then again gencon is in school hols next yr and I sure as hell won't be at school anymore. Plus as u mentioned with the time stuff up, it didn't allow for any delays whatsoever.

For next yr I'd just allocate melee half the time/brawl half the time over the 4 days. I'm probs pointing out things you have already thought of but oh well. Of course that's assuming this goes ahead the way you have described.

 

[Redact]

i can see the future of professional smash gaming in aus now....

gencon tourney turns out to get amazing amounts of hype, having like 200 confirmations months before it starts

aus gaming teams start to scout out players

Team eXile 5 picks up melbournes own CAOTIC, Kupo, Dekar, Tibs and Attila

Kaz, Scrubs, Accelerate, Syke and chris are picked up by ENCORE gaming

Shaya, Luke Ateyo and Tedeth are picked up by QLIMAX crew

corpsecreate is picked up by some heaps ghetto gaming team (c2i? rofl)

before you know it, theres cevo smash in aus, gotgames is having 5k prize money tourneys, theres live streams of all games





i wish

 

[C~Dog]

3 day tourneys would be perfect, with Brawl Double + Melee Pools/Singles on one day, Brawl Pools/Singles + Melee Doubles on another, then Melee + Brawl Crew Battles on day 3.

 

[Jei Jei]

I didn't really read the first post...too long lol.
But I got the idea that this is for discussion about tournament activity for next year?

IF that's the case, I'll be running Melbourne's Brawl scene once again (not related to whatever Brawl activity goes on at CW events and Cao) and these will be run on Saturdays.

X and I are planning a major (not national but interstators obviously welcome) for sometime next year. Looking like Q2ish, 2010. Mostly based on how Don't Come went. Whether it will be Brawl/Melee or just Brawl hasn't been discussed though.


Anyway if what I just said is irrelevant to what's on going on in this thread please let me know/criticize me/infract me lol because it's my fault I didn't read the first post (will get around to it.)

 

[Vyse]

well this sounds like a good opportunity. Ur probs the best organizer I know haha.

With school holidays, if you mean that in a bad way in the sense that people will be away on vacation then I wouldn't worry too much. I for one didn't do much around then, I was a sloth half the time.

I noticed the odd times for gencon this year although I didn't go. Brawl on friday afternoon cuts it a bit close for me and some others who may still be in the middle of getting home after school. Then again gencon is in school hols next yr and I sure as hell won't be at school anymore. Plus as u mentioned with the time stuff up, it didn't allow for any delays whatsoever.

For next yr I'd just allocate melee half the time/brawl half the time over the 4 days. I'm probs pointing out things you have already thought of but oh well. Of course that's assuming this goes ahead the way you have described.

What I meant was, it's catering for school holidays, not uni holidays.

The reason why this is bad is that some of us need to be at Uni on that Thursday and Friday sadly

Otherwise I'd be more than happy to spread the smash love over 4 days. It's just not feasible atm is all.

Also, sounds good Jei.

 

[Aussierob123]

I think the biggest thing to take from it all is that a major gaming event wants to sponsor it, which will be massively boosting to the advertising of smash all round.

don't read the post and think hes discussing a simple 4 day tourney, this is much bigger.

 

[xXArrowXx]

assuming first day of gencon there is friendlies/ setting up?
first day could be pools?
second day brackets?
third day crews and friendlies? since 5pm close?

this format might have trouble with attendance :< but i like it.

something like pre-pools could be posted some sort of sorting so those who cant come on the second day can do it on the third day :S just something to consider

maybe the usual cram brawl on one day, melee on the other. and have crews and friendlies on last day. also maybe scrub tourny on first day?


Also try to get a deal... because dont want to pay entry fee 3 or 4 times ya know..
some deal for smashers only, something that cant be abused by people who dont play.. some kind of pot contribution thingo..

 

[Vyse]

Prizes will be sponsored (hopefully). It'd be good because then people will get drawn in for sure.

You can pay $50 for a 4 day pass. ($40 if you pre-register - 1 day is like, $25 I think I'll have to get back to you).

 

[xXArrowXx]

so we dont put in for a cash prize... guess lots of mms =p

 

[Vyse]

That's the plan. Free entry to the tournament (but not the venue). Just sign up and play and walk away with whatever cash prize it is (I'll be using Rocky as a model for them to examine).

NinjaEdit: Er. you won't walk out with the prize, they send the cheque to you in the mail.

 

[xXArrowXx]

giant novelty check ftw.

people really need to know the register deline.. hate it when those scrubs want to play but didn't reg :< makes me sad... imma just saying randomly cause i am pumped.

assuming its byo controller and some people will bring extra for randoms.

 

[Toby.]

This sounds very promising. Potentially difficult to fit in, but very very very promising. Btw redact don't forget ILAG in your list of sponsored nsw players. He's pretty legit.

 

[EverAlert]

In regards to Smash 2010:

Provided I find myself a decent source of income relatively soonish - I've been planning on starting up a tournament series here in Sydney next year, probably biweeklies (I'm thinking along the lines of more frequent tournaments, but with fewer events each and a bigger focus on friendlies). It's an extremely long shot and I don't really want to hype this at all, but I've done a little research into venues/logistics/etc., and the only thing I'm really lacking at this point is the money to put down on deposits, equipment and the like.

It'll also depend on who else is running what next year, NSW is really really active right now so we might not even need more tournaments for a while, I know at least two others who want to do some things next year too. So maybe, maybe not, but it's on my mind.


In regards to GenCon National:

I already had an idea of what was going on after talking with Sieg and reading into your clues, but it looks like what you want is far more extravagant than I anticipated.

As long as it's a sweet, 3-4 day event, I don't mind paying $50 for a tournament. Compared to Genesis that is a bargain and a half, and sans the $1000+ flight, all of which I happily paid for. I don't know how many people will feel the same, but for a national spanning several days that is a reasonable price, imo. We paid $40 for Rocky.

If you're looking into sponsorship, it might be an idea to get hotel deals. If you're worried about a $50 entry being too high, you can always relieve it indirectly a little by reducing other costs of attendance. I'm sure I don't need to say that, as a National, free housing will assuredly run out at some point. Also food deals, if that's even possible.

Also, I can never say this enough, but there is no need to be fussy over LCD TVs, as long as you do your research you won't need to worry about lag. The main thing CRTs have over LCDs is affordability and also how common they are.

The concept is good so far, I look forward to watching this develop.

 

[xXArrowXx]

its not like you are just paying for smash.. you get eliminated you are free to enjoy gencon experience...

food deals ionno.. maybe the boys will just pool an eskie for cheap drinks.. and tins of lollies. if we r up for that idea... gotta save room for buffets and nandos XD

 

[Jupz]

2010 will probably be a quiet year for me at least. I've got year 12 and taking the 6 hardest subjects available I need to study a lot. I doubt I will be able to go interstate until after end of year exams.

Hopefully the smash scene is just as active in 2011.

 

[Browny]

go interstate before year 12 starts then in January to reloaded jupz

btw 6 hardest subjects? do u mind me asking what they are. I didnt even know it was possible to do 6 (assuming) full year subjects :O thats pretty nuts

 

[Hobobloke]

Yeah I dunno what you crazy backwards easterners do but we do 6 here

In regards to smash 2010 Perth does plan on hosting Eastern Invasion 3 with hope of getting possible sponsors and media coverage, the current plans are for a 3 day tournament on fri, sat, sun. This will be a lot of effort by us (mainly Bsrk_) who will be making formal documentation and approaching proprietors/managers. We feel confident our numbers will well exceed 100 in Perth alone and hope this will entice the eastern players to venture over.

This is still in the very early stages of planning but simply be aware of it's presence.

 

[ACCELERATE]

I guess its about time i went to perth... Been everywhere else for smash.

Cant wait for all this **** to take off. Gonna be epic.

 

[S.D]

I want to visit wave rock, have a tournament there and I might come.

 

[...Ellipsis...]

Assuming there are no big uni assignments due around that time I will probably end up coming. I should team with Toby for the epic lols when we 6 stock every other team

 

[CAOTIC]

Road trip to the pinnacles if East Coast crew goes to Perth

 

[Hobobloke]

It will most likely be held in July to coincide with winter holidays so youngins like me can attend and people in Uni. I'm sure you old *******s can organise to get a few days off.

Good to see the positive responses so far (especially after our obnoxiousness from Rocky ) hope to keep them coming and remember Lord Bowser personally guarantees at LEAST 100 entrants.

 

[CAOTIC]

Where are these 100 people coming from? I'm guessing the Perth Smash scene is around 30 people?

July date is bad for me, but that's OK! It's good for many others <3

 

[S.D]

Where are these 100 people coming from? I'm guessing the Perth Smash scene is around 30 people?

July date is bad for me, but that's OK! It's good for many others <3

I can't really envision 100 people attending.

My future is very uncertain at this point, so I may or may not come depending on a great many factors next year.

We'll see how this all pans out I guess.

 

[CaLibUr_1337]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CaLibUr_1337 View Post
well this sounds like a good opportunity. Ur probs the best organizer I know haha.

With school holidays, if you mean that in a bad way in the sense that people will be away on vacation then I wouldn't worry too much. I for one didn't do much around then, I was a sloth half the time.

I noticed the odd times for gencon this year although I didn't go. Brawl on friday afternoon cuts it a bit close for me and some others who may still be in the middle of getting home after school. Then again gencon is in school hols next yr and I sure as hell won't be at school anymore. Plus as u mentioned with the time stuff up, it didn't allow for any delays whatsoever.

For next yr I'd just allocate melee half the time/brawl half the time over the 4 days. I'm probs pointing out things you have already thought of but oh well. Of course that's assuming this goes ahead the way you have described.
What I meant was, it's catering for school holidays, not uni holidays.

The reason why this is bad is that some of us need to be at Uni on that Thursday and Friday sadly

Otherwise I'd be more than happy to spread the smash love over 4 days. It's just not feasible atm is all.

Also, sounds good Jei.

Yea true. Hopefully by then everything turns out awesome. :D

 

[Hobobloke]

When we have had tournaments hosted by game stores crowds of around 100 people have turned up and these weren't even well publicised apart from in their stores. Though most will be scrubs but that just means more money in the pot and hopefully get some new people in the community.

 

[Browny]

^^^ lol I hope you dont link said hopeful entrants to this thread where they will see that post

and isnt this thread for QLD national stuff? or all states?

 

[Vyse]

It's for everything.

I just wanted to talk about GenCon as well. lol.

 

[kupo]

Four days just seem like an overkill. Unless you have a massive turn out of something like 200+. I think those things will come in time pending on interest. But still...four days... ~_~

I'll do anything to make this. Missed out on recent big tournies make me regret spending time on WoW (I quit, but I still wub my characters). -_-

 

[_X_]

So we're talking about a sponsored Major in Perth? What is Gencon - their emails seemed a bit vague...

In any case Perth is logistically a bit out of the way for a lot of the smash scene. If *all* the Perth boys go, about 20 interstaters and 20 misc/off the street types that's really not nearly 200 people...

Who're you going to pull this off...

 

[Toby.]

go interstate before year 12 starts then in January to reloaded jupz

btw 6 hardest subjects? do u mind me asking what they are. I didnt even know it was possible to do 6 (assuming) full year subjects :O thats pretty nuts

Most people in my year did 6 full subjects. Some did more. I guess NSW is nuts too.

 

[Hobobloke]

X are you confusing the Perth national with Vyse's Gencon one or am I misunderstanding you?