Increasing entrance fee VS. Losing more casuals

[joe.]

Currently, most of the State tourneys in NC have a $5 entrance fee to register for a tournament, and a possible $3 door/venue fee. I have seen some discussion about raising the entrance fee to $10, or even $15, which doubles current pot size (or more), and increases attraction of high skill level players, due to the larger potential money they can make.

There are A LOT of locals around my area (we have run a 38 person tourney, no prizes, all free), with a lot of them being semi-competitive, or just looking to have a good time. Is something like a $10 fee worth it in order to bring in the potential 5-10 higher level players, and lose the potential 15-25 casuals?

What is everyone's experience with this?

 

[GwJ]

The best advice I can give is to ask the people who go to the locals. Nobody here can tell you whether they'll stay better than the actual people. Ask them if they'd keep going if you introduced a pot while telling them they'll get some new people as well.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Every causal you lose is a potential pro you lose.
Every dollar you add to the fee is just there to cater to a moneygreedy *******.

 

[Kal]

In my opinion, you would be better off keeping a low entrance fee. In my experience, most players will attend as long as the entrance fee is low enough. Of the rest, most will enter as long as there is any entrance fee at all (to these people, it is somehow "more legitimate" because there is $1 on the line, as opposed to $0). I think the players who won't enter because the entry fee is not high enough form a very small minority.

But you should check with your scene first. Consult them via some forum (creating a Facebook group is actually very helpful for this) to get feedback on what people want. Personally, I think keeping those casuals is more important, but I think catering to the better players by charging a very small entry fee is the best way to go. That would, hopefully, keep everybody happy.

 

[joe.]

Well the issue is, we are more or less the farthest possible venue in our scene. Roughly 4 and 2 hours away from the 2 major areas in our state.

The casual scene here is very finicky. The casual turnouts that we have at a local are not people that are part of the smash scene here. They are just people that had seen fliers, and stopped by. So there isn't much of a guarantee of their attendance, whether we have a high fee or not.

For the competitive players; our event is most likely going to be twice a year or so. (Once a semester) Due to the way that the organization that runs the events is set up, this allows for the highest quality of event, while maximizing turnouts. (The event also happens to be a PC LAN, as well as FGC Tournaments) Because of it being more infrequent, and the distance being a decent amount away, my thoughts were that something like a $10 fee, with maybe top 5-8 getting payouts, would draw a lot more diverse scenes from different states. (We had FL show up to our event on saturday, and we are extremely close to the VA border, so we think VA/MD would be a possibility if there was more money involved)

 

[Fregadero]

Altnorth, where the locals are $20 anyway.

 

[joe.]

Altnorth, where the locals are $20 anyway.

I'm in AltSouth At least in NC, most locals are free, and then state-wides are $5

 

[KevinM]

NE Tournaments mainly run

5 dollar venue
10 Dollar Teams (5 Per Person)
10 Dollar Singles

everyone's happy with it. 20 dollars isn't that much to spend on an entire day.

 

[Fregadero]

Depends on your definition of 'Locals' honestly. When I was up in MA Mass Madness hit like 60 people, and was more of a regional than a local.

When I go to a 3hr tourney on LI and I play 3 tourney matches and 3 friendlies, $20 probably isn't worth it.

 

[TheDekuNut]

when it come to locals, unless you get 1st, moneymatches are more worth it than tournament

 

[MattDotZeb]

Depends on your definition of 'Locals' honestly. When I was up in MA Mass Madness hit like 60 people, and was more of a regional than a local.

When I go to a 3hr tourney on LI and I play 3 tourney matches and 3 friendlies, $20 probably isn't worth it.

Considering that MM brings in primarily NE players and only rarely do Tri-State or other OOR players attend I've always considered it a local in my mind. It's just the largest local, though I can absolutely see why people would consider it to be a regional.

Even so, I really can't think of any NE tournament that costs people more than $20 to enter for everything including venue independent of the number of entrants. Unless a side event is added such as draft crews or whatnot for $2.


That said, I understand why you would want to keep your fees low. I think it would be healthy for your players to do something to attract higher skilled players.
I would recommend talk to your attendees and finding out what they think of raising the entry fee. And regardless of that, I think you should try to introduce a round of pools that act as seeding. People who make it out advance to a pro bracket, people who do not make it out advance to an ama bracket. That way your attendees can play people of all skills and then play people of similar skills afterward.