General topic regarding upcoming major EU tourneys

[Helios]

Just thought I'd get this started.

With Brawl coming up, and the European communities getting both bigger and growing closer to each other, there should be a discussion going on regarding the future tournaments that will pretty much set the standards for what we'll be playing the next five years.

With this in mind, I would like to announce that there is a sequel to the Renaissance of Smash series in the works. Therefore, any and all input on the following matter could come in handy. Obviously, this sort of information will be of great help to any and all organizers looking to go big in 08, 09 or later.

I would like to see input from both well known tournament organizers and lesser known players. Everyone's input is appreciated.
Feel free to contribute with different topics that should be discussed, and we'll try and go about them in an orderly fashion (or just all at once, lol).


Subjects worthy of mention being:

# Venues (My main interest here being sleeping arrangements - separate halls, or hotels?)

# Housing (Pre- and post-tourney. A major deal considering rox4 and esa2)

# Tournament formats (RR - one or two rounds, DE, Swiss, bo3, bo5, bo7?)

# Tourney events (What should be emphasized, what extra events should always occur?)

# Rulesets (perhaps a general euro ruleset, which allows for minimal tweaking from host to host)

# Set ups and equipment (CRT vs LCD TV, # of setups, recording equipment, projector screens etc)

# Efficiency (Staff, How to divide different areas of responsibilities, how to make things run smoothly, etc)

# Information for participants (Making sure rules, pools, bracket info etc comes across clearly)

# Event dates (2-4 day events, weekdays or weekends, general holiday dates, etc)

# Costs (What's acceptable for different kinds of events, )

# Prizes (Cash only, or cash + stuff, pot distribution, singles/teams ratio)

# Sponsorship (Brawl = many opportunities for sponsors to invest in tourneys)


Now, considering the above mentioned topics (although any and all input is appreciated), we want to hear what has been good, could've been done better, or what you'd want to see at future events. Go on, give it a shot

Remember, when posting larger pieces of text, try and save the text in another document or ctrl+c it, just in case smashboards is a ***** and goes gay on you!

 

[Kone]

I really didnt read much of your post hence the real lack of depth in this post. Will make more of an effort soon. Anyway, all id like to input is regarding tourney events. With the amount of players travelling to tournaments now and varied nationalities then there should be a greater emphasise placed on international crews. Especially if brawl greatly increases the number of players at tournaments.

International crews should be as important as singles at large european events instead of a badly ran side show that either never happens or finishes rushed. I deem it much more important than doubles.

Ed

 

[Helios]

I definitely agree on that matter, Kone, although I would honestly like to see Brawl 2v2 be of equal importance as the other main events (esp with brawl being slower and whatnot, 2v2 really shines in competitive play).

 

[Kone]

Ive yet to play 2v2 in brawl. Im confined at the moment only being able to play between me and GAwes. But, hopefully with SDB (jam and co.) coming up soon ill be able to evaluate the merits of doubles compared to its melee counterpart.

I think my main point wasn't to out doubles in place of international crews, but to shift alot of emphasis onto internationals. It should definetly be rotared into a large tournaments schedule with as much importance as singles and doubles.

The UK needs as many oppertunities as possible so that we can win our first inter. crew match

 

[Helios]

One more thing I should add:

I hear lots of people asking for Melee to still be a part of future tourneys, and I can understand this.
However, as most of you probably already realized, Brawl is going to be the future for European smash, whether we like it or not.

There won't be new players joining Melee tourneys in a couple of years from now, and many of us have already stopped playing Melee altogether.

We could, however, see Melee as side events at bigger tourneys, and I'm sure some people will keep doing Melee-only events. We just have to accept that Brawl is the new **** =)

 

[Luffy Dahean]

Having cash prices for crews would be nice, but I dont want a crew with random spanish smashers >.<

I will suggest (as an opinion), having crews not by countries, by teams (I dont know the word in english, maybe "clans", I dont know >.<). Teams with 5 players more or less instead of a crew with the tops of the countries

 

[Ryuker]

Regionals

Yeah it's a shame they hardly happen. Somehow they are in the timeplanning but the tournaments almost always start later then planned so they get cut out. These crew events are why some players like too travel though and I agree they should be more important. I think we need to plan them in between the pouls or something since we almost always spent a long time waiting inbetween those. One thing that delays crews is organizing the crews last minute. It takes a long time for all the players to assemble and chose which chars will play.

I think the main concern for future tournaments is the timeframe. Almost every major tournament has had issues with this and were always running late. I think we need to start pin pointing why we run late and what can be done to run on time or prevent that. I also think brawl is gonna make this even harder cause matches take longer in brawl then in melee.

There is almost always confusion about best of 5 or best of 3 as well something that should be very easy to make clear at the start by having it written down on a rulessheet next to the tv, announcing it at the start of the tournament and not deviating from it or project it on a beamer.

 

[Kone]

Crews just become pointless in that essence though. Many 'real' crews don't enter and mega crews get formed that win the tournament.

International pride is much better . Upto yourself to help your fellow spanish players to meet your standards and better!

 

[Ryuker]

I agree on that. Having crews is only interesting if real crews are formed. This is hardly the case though unlike in the us were a lot of crews are formed.

 

[Luma]

Subjects worthy of mention being:

# Venues
-I would say 1 big room for playing, 1 big room for sleeping.

# Housing
-Foreigners should get housing before the local players, I think the hosts should try to handle this aswell. (I think it was done pretty good at Epita 2)

# Tournament formats
-2 rounds of pools, first couple rounds Bo3, then Bo5, WB/LB/OA finals Bo7

# Tourney events
-Singles, doubles, regionals, crews, lowtier, in that order. (Singles dont have to be on the first day, just that they will be played before doubles etc, you get the point)

# Rulesets
-Well for that i think we kinda would need our own backroom, haveing like 1-3 players from every country, depending on how "good" those countries are.

# Information for participants
-At nearly every tournament i've been to even sometimes the hosts didn't knew the rules, and nearly no one who had to organize the pools had no idea. (Like Doraki at Epita 2, takeing every CP stage in random)

# Event dates
-The whole weekend should be enough, maybe starting Thursday with stuff like lowtiers or something, but Singles and Teams should be on the weekend.

 

[Witchking_of_Angmar]

Are major Melee tournies going to be continued being held? It would be a shame if Melee died, imo.

I would be happy if a Melee singles event was as prominent as Brawl at major tournaments, though I doubt that will happen.

 

[Catharsis]

Well, I have had Brawl since the first day.
First I thought that Brawl would be as competitive as Melee
But after the ESAII my opinion has changed: Melee is ****ing better than Brawl, Brawl is nice (good graphics, good music, really nice) but I think that Melee tourneys are necessary (Am I sad because my first big Melee tourney is possibly going to be the last one? maybe).
At ESA II people used to play Brawl at free4all with the Final Smash, and that sux.
Well my opinion is that the best solution is a 50/50 tournament where, if you want to participate in one of the two single tournaments, you have to participate in both.

And, please, Final Smash is the worst innovation for Smash, don't allow it for tourneys.
Hm, and I think that is better that the matches are of 2 or 3 stocks. In Brawl is really usual being at 150-200% so a 4stock match is too long. We are used to play matches of 4 stocks, but Melee is Melee and Brawl is Brawl.

 

[Jeffz0r]

I wanted to make a huge post, but it's gonna be even bigger than expected, so here are my thoughts on the first 3 out of 12 subjects


*venues*
Venues with sleeping possibilities are preferred of course, especially for tournaments more than 2 days and lots of foreigners attending. Separate rooms is a must. People smashing and sleeping in the same room is far from ideal. This brings me to the next point on this, showers. At 2-day tournaments I’m sure people understand if there are no showers, but people should then have the possibility to shower before or after, at the place they’re being housed. At tournaments of 3 or more days, the should be some amount of showers in the venue, or at the very least close by. Showering at public showers at the beach like at ros tournaments is really not done I think. And having no shower at all is even worse of course. Hotels is a possibility, but not absolutely necessary. And besides, not everyone will be willing to pay for that.

*housing*
This should not just be the responsibility of the host, but of the guests as well. If a tourney has a couple dozen of foreigners, it’s hard to get everyone housing. I’m not saying they should just figure everything out themselves, just that you can’t rely on the host 100%. Same goes for food, if someone houses 10 people, don’t expect there to be enough for everyone.

*tournament formats*
Starting with poules is obvious I guess, unless it’s just a couple of participants, but that’s not what this topic is for. 2 rounds of pouls takes a lot of time and should tried to be avoided. I would put the limit at 128 people (16 pouls of 8 people). More people should conclude in 2 rounds of pouls. Like 160 people, would mean 32 pouls of 5 people, and 2 advance to 16 pouls of 4. Or if time is really limited, a 64-man bracket.
In the bracket, to save time, there should be more bo3 sets. I know everyone likes to play longer sets, but brackets take forever this was. I think, that in a 32 man bracket, it shouldn’t best bo5 until semi-finals winner’s bracket and in a 64-man bracket, at quarter finals. You could also let the number of participants be the deciding factor for this, instead of the size of the bracket. I guess that’s up to the time limit and the opinion of the host.

 

[ivootjes(nr18)]

*tournament formats*
Starting with poules is obvious I guess, unless it’s just a couple of participants, but that’s not what this topic is for. 2 rounds of pouls takes a lot of time and should tried to be avoided. I would put the limit at 128 people (16 pouls of 8 people). More people should conclude in 2 rounds of pouls. Like 160 people, would mean 32 pouls of 5 people, and 2 advance to 16 pouls of 4. Or if time is really limited, a 64-man bracket.
In the bracket, to save time, there should be more bo3 sets. I know everyone likes to play longer sets, but brackets take forever this was. I think, that in a 32 man bracket, it shouldn’t best bo5 until semi-finals winner’s bracket and in a 64-man bracket, at quarter finals. You could also let the number of participants be the deciding factor for this, instead of the size of the bracket. I guess that’s up to the time limit and the opinion of the host.

Disagreed. The bracket should always be bo5. I mean, it's what we've all been waiting for huh? Why would we rush the part where the better players have to play each other?

I'll post up some more things when i'm not lazy.

 

[Jeffz0r]

It's because there's ALWAYS delay. Having too many bo5's is just one of the reasons. If the rest of the tournament goes absolutely smooth, this can always be modified of course. It all depends on the size of the bracket, the remaining time and the number of tv's.

 

[Marc]

If time is to be saved like that, it should be taken from pools, not the bracket. I'll post more later.

 

[Marc]

Good initiative. I’ll post things point by point.

Venue and Housing
The most important thing a venue needs to have is obviously space. Some form of ventilation is also important, because it can get really hot and smelly with all those unwashed gamers. An example of a good venue is the school that was used for ESA2. They had multiple rooms for playing and there even was a separate room for free play (admittedly, because those tv’s sucked =p). If people are being housed at the venue there should be a separate restroom (something ESA2 also had). I personally never stay at a venue because I care a lot about personal hygiene and getting some rest, which I entirely pay for myself. As things are now those two things are hard to attain by staying at a venue. I’m fine with paying for a hotel, though I almost feel forced to do it. I don’t know how many people have trouble with getting little rest and hardly a chance to shower, but I can imagine it being important at least for the good players. Things are okay as they are now, but hygiene and getting players more rest definitely need to be improved.

Tournament formats
The best and most accurate is RR, which should definitely be implemented for regional crews. It’s simply not feasible for singles and teams though, at least not for the entire tournament. Having one or two rounds of pools to separate good and bad players while providing everyone with at least some matches has always worked well. The best option after that is probably the DE bracket, although some people inevitably get screwed by that. I do think that the bracket should be best of 5 as soon as possible, but best of 3 can work for the first one or two rounds. Basically I think what we have works well.

Tournament events
Besides the obvious singles and teams, regionals should get high priority. As I pointed out in the ESA2 thread, I care about them a lot. Kone has already provided some good reasons to have them and I think they are a lot of fun. These three events take 2-3 events already, despite the intention to make them go quicker. After that there’s room for stuff like low tier singles (or teams perhaps) and SSB64. In the future events will probably be mainly about Brawl, but I’d still like to see Melee singles as an important side event. I never thought much of regular crew battles, since you can’t do much about supercrews, which results in maybe one exciting match in the entire tournament.

Rulesets
Despite 6 years of debates there is no single best ruleset for Melee. Having a set ruleset for big international tournaments would save a lot of trouble, but there’s no way every country will adopt the same ruleset for their regular tournaments. So maybe have major hosts and good players create a ruleset for the big events, but don’t force it on regular tournaments.

Set ups and equipment
I’m not good with the technical terms, but I’ll give it a shot. TV’s need to be of decent size and what’s more important, free of lag. A projector is really nice, but not compulsory. Recording equipment is pretty important, at least be able to record the later matches in singles. The number of set ups really depends on the number of attendants. More is always better though, since free play is a big part of the events as well. Announcing pools can be made much easier (which saves time) by projecting them or writing them down where everyone can see them.

Efficiency
Having a big staff is important for big events. Having a big staff that doesn’t participate in the actual tournament is even better. Often things slow down because the hosts are playing matches, the event needs to keep going all the time. Many people need to be available for questions and complaints or the hosts will have gone nuts by the end of the tournament. There also should be a strict policy for starting on time and for people to be ready for matches. It sounds simple, but this is what usually goes wrong.

Information for partcipants
When the tournament is announced, the ruleset should be posted as well. Changes can be made, but only until like 2 weeks before the event takes place. People should get clear information on how to reach the venue, housing, contact info from the hosts etc. This is usually done pretty well. I already covered announcing pools. I’d like to add that I also like the bracket being projected or written down somewhere where it’s easy to see. I usually have to push away 20 people to reach a laptop that shows it, not good.

Event dates
You have to use the weekend and general holidays if you want any participants at all. Really big events should be 3-4 days IMO, so nothing has to be rushed and at least singles, teams and regionals can be done properly.

Costs
Costs depend on what you get for them really. Just for participation 20-30 euro’s should be enough. It’s up to the hosts whether they take from the entrance fee to cover their costs, ask additional money from participants or rely on sponsoring. I wouldn’t like paying more than 10 euro’s just for covering that. If hosts are providing food (which is only necessary when it’s hard to get otherwise) they have to be clear about what it’s gonna be and make sure it’s enough. They also have to make sure costs aren’t getting too high for that. People usually are willing to pay quite a bit for big tournaments, since they are already willing to travel from afar. Just don’t go overboard with costs. The limit should be 50 euro’s or so.

Prizes
Cash prizes are fine. At big events it’s nice to give at least some money to the entire top 10, but the top 3-5 takes priority. I like 60-30-10 for the top 3 at small events, which could also work for big events if you first take a little money from the pot to give #4 his entrance fee back or something like that. Something like 70-20-10 is too American for my tastes. Singles and teams should both get 50% from the total pot, regionals doesn’t need a cash prize. Participants can choose to bet money on that themselves (like 5-10 euro’s per player).

Sponsorship
Not too familiar with that, most events I went to didn’t have it. I don’t know what the options are exactly, all I know is that I don’t want to be pushed into stuff I don’t want by some sponsor.

 

[Jeffz0r]

Next 3:

*tourney events*
Singles is obvious, that’s always the main event. There should also always be teams at big tournaments and regionals if there are lots of foreigners (at least 1 foreign country with 10 or more attendees). If there’s time left, side-events like low tier, low tier teams, normal crews or whatever are possible, but that should be up to the host. Unless he thinks of something ridiculous of course, like lightning melee tourney (*kuch*BF.com*kuch*)…
How this will go when Brawl is released, is just speculation for now. I think initially there will be both Melee and Brawl tournaments, but Melee will die soon, unfortunately.

*rulesets*
Probably the hardest subject of all. There’s always discussions about it at every big tournament. At Rox foreigners demanded less stages, at Epita foreigners demanded more stages and at my tourney (JST5) foreigners demanded ASP (it wasn’t normal yet back then in the Dutch scene). I think this will always stay a discussion, unless we decide on a European ruleset, so I think this should be implemented for international tournaments. I won’t go into ruleset details in this post.

*set ups and equipment*
One of the things that I find really important, but unfortunately missing at ESA2, was a microphone. Constantly shouting is annoying for both the host and the participants. Also, a beamer. If a tournament has 16 or 32 pouls, than this makes everything way faster and easier. And it can also be used for the bracket and / or live matches. I guess any kind of tv is ok, as long as there’s no lag. Recording seems to get better and better, so I don’t think that’s much of a problem anymore. Only it would be nice to be able to record matches from multiple tv’s at the same time.
Even at ESA2, there’s was only 1 tv on which matches got recorded.

 

[Ryuker]

There were 2 but hardly anyone noticed there were.

Ofcourse I am not sure but I don't think many people will travell for brawl yet. There were some brawl setups at epita but hardly anyone felt like playing. There wasn't a line for it or anything. Sure it's new but if brawl is gonna get anywere near this amount of attendants it will be at it's soonest next year and not earlier. So don't count out melee just yet which is why I think we gotta keep the discussions about brawl outside of this thread right now. I wouldn't want too see our tourneys schedules change drastically only for something of which we don't know if it will have a big following yet.

 

[Helios]

For you information, Brawl will have a much bigger following, regardless of how it turns out competitively.
We'll just have to live with it

 

[Kone]

^ As Helios said. Brawl, regardless of its current or future competitiveness, will have a much bigger following than melee. As he previously said, there will be very very few new melee player and alot of melee players that go to brawl. Its just natural, thus, melee will greatly diminish in terms of those willing to travel for large tournaments. Brawl will become the main. With autumn looming, its only natural that brawl should take a huge role in this thread.

 

[Luma]

just look at the current big esports-games, all of them are pretty old (starcraft, counter-strike, warcraft)
i think it could be possible that that we will stay with melee instead of switching to brawl

 

[Kone]

There all online. . . .

 

[Helios]

Also, they've had no real successors.
Starcraft 2 is going to be the game to play when it's released, and most people will move on from SC1.

The only "real" example would of course be CS1.6, but realistically, those followers are VERY lucky to still have tourneys, and it's sad to see how divided the CS community is between CS:S and 1.6.

Let's just all come to the conclusion that Brawl is going to be pretty friggin' huge, and we need to prepare ourselves best we can for the MASSIVE tournaments that can and will take place in the coming years.

 

[Aldwyn McCloud]

I'm just gonna say this: I have no idea what thread I'm posting in.

 

[Marc]

This isn't an ESA2 thread.

 

[Luma]

plus adam is imo better with marth than makenshi (adam is da ****!!!!!!!!!!)


we could just get more people through brawl to melee, but anyway, just because brawl will be out soon doenst mean the first major tournaments should be with brawl since we wont have a ruleset or something

 

[Helios]

Well, seeing as how many people will be playing Brawl already, even though it won't officially be out this summer, I guess doing a Brawl/Melee tournament is the way to go.

Now, let's move over to more general issues, such as the ones we've discussed earlier.

 

[Askeflink]

Just to make a simple "demanding" post. I want a Ros5 in late summer, and the best would be a 4day-event. Hopefully Brawl has arrived(**** that Reggie-statement..), and many people have played a lot of brawl for sure. Not speaking about all the newcomers problary coming to brawl-tournaments. Since it's early, melee will problary be in focus(right?), but IMO the Brawl-tournament shuld be more than a "for fun" tournament. Since it's the future. I know Melee had many years of development, but Brawl will develop a lot quicker.

Sorry for the untidy post. Props for Helios for making an useful thread.

 

[Ryuker]

K I was wondering today how we could improve running the pouls. Maybe we should adopt a different system for using tv's per pool or something. I thought maybe get a few pouls going then when they are halfway through start another batch and let the first pouls use 1 tv instead of 3 for example and when they finish a new batch joins again. Any suggestions?

 

[Smasher89]

Hyrule and New pork city banned, maybe the wario ware stage too, but I think all the other stages is useable in tournaments (if theres noone I forget), just banning hyrule bridge or Onett because of Dededes chainthrow is just lol. Just counter it with Diddys bananas XD

 

[Faab]

# Venues (My main interest here being sleeping arrangements - separate halls, or hotels?)

It would be cool if tournament hosts could talk to hotels near the venue to get a discount for people. Or Take a small bit of the price pot to make it cheaper for top players to get a good sleep in a hotel.

# Housing (Pre- and post-tourney. A major deal considering rox4 and esa2)

Pretty much nothing to do here i guess, just gotta get more people to step up for housing. And to avoid stuff with alcohol etc just make sure the person who is housing won't mind.

# Tourney events (What should be emphasized, what extra events should always occur?)

Replace low tier by brawl and keep things the way they are. For big tournaments give a decent price for brawl to encourage people to come, but make sure they pay the full package.


# Set ups and equipment (CRT vs LCD TV, # of setups, recording equipment, projector screens etc)

I loved the big screen at ros 3 and rox 4 for the final matches of the tournaments. Recording is a must so maybe sponsor some money for ajp to go to all the big tournaments? Every tv should be good aslong it is a decent size and no lag.

# Information for participants (Making sure rules, pools, bracket info etc comes across clearly)

Just need to print everything out clearly and maybe give it to people when they register?

# Event dates (2-4 day events, weekdays or weekends, general holiday dates, etc)

3 day events during general holidays, just gotta make sure there are showers if you do that.

# Costs (What's acceptable for different kinds of events, )

40 euro's for everything is acceptable, abit more shouldn't be that bad.

# Prizes (Cash only, or cash + stuff, pot distribution, singles/teams ratio)

Person who will win melee singles should be given the most, something extra like a trophy (RoX 4) was **** sweet aswell.

# Sponsorship (Brawl = many opportunities for sponsors to invest in tourneys)

Screw brawl imo >_>.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=f53aeimv8I0 Good example of how brawl is going to be! (just slower)

 

[Helios]

How do people feel about staying in hotels/hostels, or finding housing on their own, even for the duration of the tourney?

This is a solution often seen in American tourneys, and I have a feeling it could work well for us aswell. Any input on this?

 

[Marc]

The only foreign tournaments I've been to are RoS3 (Sweden) and ESA2 (France). At RoS3 I rented a house with some other Dutchies, at ESA2 we booked a hotel with 5 Dutchies. I felt doing this made my stay much more pleasant in both cases. As I mentioned earlier, I find it really important to be able to take a shower and rest well. If I ever go abroad again for a tournament, I will probably try to do something like that again, thus taking care of my own housing.

Doing something like that does add to the costs by quite a bit though. I don't know if forcing people to take care of their own housing is the way to go. Some people don't mind roughing it up and will at least expect help with finding a place to stay, which should be provided IMO. I've never considered offering actual housing by hosts obligatory, but I can imagine some people do. My conclusion would be to try to offer at least some form of housing at the venue or the houses of smashers who live near the venue, but don't let it take priority.

 

[Yomi-no-Kuni]

as far as i know motels/hotels in the USA are alot cheaper (not sure though, but i think so...)
I there should always be sleeping places at the venue, because a lot of people like to smash very long or something, and then looking for your hotel at 5 o-clock in the morning would not be so pleasant... (guess its a diffrent attitude towards smash )

also: subscribed xD

 

[$hYne]

People willing to sleep in a hotel should do that.
Would be good if the host gives a few information about hotels nearby (and costs).

But on a 2 or more day event housing should be provided (free), in the best case direct at the venue or at a smashers place near.
(Housing at a smashers place could be a problem if some people wanna go to bed early but the one who provides housing still wants to play, so housing at the venue is the best solution)

Some people spend much money to go to tournaments and im sure many of them are not willing to pay like 30€ per day to stay at a hotel.

Just my 2 cents

 

[Johnnyboy]

Efficiency
Having a big staff is important for big events. Having a big staff that doesn’t participate in the actual tournament is even better. Often things slow down because the hosts are playing matches, the event needs to keep going all the time. Many people need to be available for questions and complaints or the hosts will have gone nuts by the end of the tournament. There also should be a strict policy for starting on time and for people to be ready for matches. It sounds simple, but this is what usually goes wrong.

I have to agree with this. The biggst problem has always been that the host or hosts themselves are too busy playing the game. People underestimate the time it takes to organise and run a tournament. It's not just renting a venue, getting some tv's and then hope the rest will work itself out.

Most of the time, running a tournament is not fun because you don't get to do that which you organised for in the first place. (bad sentence, I know, but I couldn't think of the right syntax.) That is to play Smash brothers.
People only seem to realise this about five minutes before the actual tournament had to start, when the crew has been too busy playing smash brothers and registration or similiar activities have not even been started yet. The crew will reluctantly stop their games to start these activities (* Sigh*, fine I'll do it). Hell, at times the crew doesn't even care about this stuff, and registration, amongst others, have to be started up by other participants who jump in to help.

Now, not all problems are the host's fault. the participants themselves are at times way to easy going on registration and stuff. How many times haven't we heard phrases like, "yeah, in a minute","After this match" or "No, shut up, go away ", when registrations are open?Yes I know, I'm guilty of this myself.

Like Marc said, it would be best if the crew of the tournament didn't participate in the tournament itself. For one, rules could (and should) be enforced much stricter. You just don't have the time to wait for players. Screw people if they are late because of their own choice. The host doesn't need to put the tournament on hold because you felt like sleeping in.
Same thing for matches, be at your designated tv or you give up the match.
I know you want to cheer on your friends/crewmates/lovers/whatever but in doing so you're holding up the tournament.
If registrations are open, people should come to you, you shouldn't have to chase down every last participant to sign up for the tournament. Notify people registrations are open and if they don't show up, too bad.
Finally, Results for (pools/pouls/poels) and/or brackets could be processed more efficiently.
Currently, people don't really care about immediately writing down their results, leading to time wasted hunting them down to ask what their results were and once again this doens't happen until the hosts gets pressured into continuing the tournament by the participants.

Basically, participants need to start listening to the hosts and the hosts need to start giving a crap about running their tournament properly.

Summary: PPL cant run turnamentes, staff r teh suk, smashers shud stfu, BAAAAAAAW!

 

[$hYne]

Allright I just post something more considering my own experiences about hosting a tournament.

# Venues (My main interest here being sleeping arrangements - separate halls, or hotels?)

About sleeping arrangements: a separate room for those who wanna sleep earlier is a minimum requirement. It's definitly not cool to let people sleep in the same room where others still play (at least at bigger tournaments, not that important at small ones (20 or less ppl)).

Actually what is really important for me[!] (dunno how others feel bout this) is a supermarket, where you can buy food and drinks and some sort of fast food restaurant where you can eat something fast and cheap (this is even more necessary if food is not provided at the tournament). Those shouldn't be too far away from the venue, i would say like 20-30 min. by foot maximum.

The host should have a plan where and how he places the TV's, especially the good ones where finals will be played. At ESA2 the finals were played near the door and you couldn't really go into the room without pushing away like 10 people, this sucks. A projector would probably kinda solve this problem (Projector is a must for bigger tournaments).

# Housing (Pre- and post-tourney. A major deal considering rox4 and esa2)

During the tournament:

People willing to sleep in a hotel should do that.
Would be good if the host gives a few information about hotels nearby (and costs).

But on a 2 or more day event housing during the tournament should be provided (free), in the best case direct at the venue or at a smashers place near.
(Housing at a smashers place could be a problem if some people wanna go to bed early but the one who provides housing still wants to play, so housing at the venue is the best solution)

Some people spend much money to go to tournaments and im sure many of them are not willing to pay like 30€ per day to stay at a hotel.

Pre- and post tourney:
On a big tournament housing the day before and the day after the tournament is really important for people who have to travel longer distances. You can't ask somebody who has to travel 6+ hours to be at the venue at like 8am. Telling them they should find a hotel or something would probably discourage many people and would stop them from coming.
If somebody wants to stay more days (or wants to come a few days earlier to watch the city or something) it's not the hosts duty to find housing for them, this however would be a nice thing and surely would be cheerfully appreciated by the attendants. (If someone advertises his tournament like "hey this is paris come and visit the city" I wouldnt apply the sentence i wrote before)
Also another important thing: If people are housed at a smashers place the host should give information about how to get there and how much money they need for subway, train or something like that (And they should get adress and telephon number, just in case).

Edit: Oh and considering the incident at JD's place at ESA2: Make sure there are houserules and everyone knows them.

# Tournament formats (RR - one or two rounds, DE, Swiss, bo3, bo5, bo7?)

Singles, Doubles, (Lowtier)
1 Round RR (Pools) starting at like 25 people - Bo3
2 Rounds starting at *idk, never hosted such a big tournament* - Bo3

Bracket starting with Bo3 first/seccond round (and not Bo1 like Teams ESA2 WTF) then Bo5.
Finals Bo7 (not entirely sure about wb final/lb final probably also Bo7 at important events).

Regionals:
Round Robin
10 chars (wait i allready got 10)

# Tourney events (What should be emphasized, what extra events should always occur?)

Main Events: Singles, Teams, Regionals[!] (no cash money for regionals)
Side Events: Lowtier, Brawl (<- yes, melee 4 life), SSB64 (Brawl tournament is probably more important then the other two)

# Rulesets (perhaps a general euro ruleset, which allows for minimal tweaking from host to host)

General euro rule set would be great, but i see that there are allready some problems creating a general *instert country here* ruleset (at least in germany, not sure bout the other countries).
Maybe take like 3 people from every the countries with an active smash scene (the netherlands, sweden, france, italy, england, germany, finnland, scotland, spain, ok i'll stop cuz i probably would forget at least few) and put them into a room to create a euro ruleset (yay for europe back room)

more to come (tomorrow probably)

 

[Linkje]

I don't think a host should be responsible for housing. When you come to a tournament you should know what is going to happen the next days. not getting kicked out and die a painfull death outside.

Ofcourse you can ask for housing but the point is they are already putting effort in hosting a tournament, they shouldn't have the burden to house people. It is there own choice. It is clear to me, I'll have to see your faces all day let ,me relax at my own " House/hotel", and leave me the hell alone.

Housing should be ARANGED by the persons whom are being housed. not by de hosts.
Some housing trouble can **** up the tournament. we don't want that.

 

[Marc]

I think creating a Euro ruleset would come down to a vote between the panel members that no one fully agrees with. I don't see how the big differences in attitude could be solved otherwise. Are we sure we want that?