Lux, what are you doing to attract new folk? I want people to play with in Columbia.
The Master Plan to (re)building the Regional Scene:
1. Recruit - Smashboards was the status quo for our recruitment. In the time that I've been playing (a year and 3 months), we've probably seen 2 new comers from smashboards and have lost just as many if not more while not retaining recruits, so our scene has shrunk in comparison to when I first played. After discussing with a few prospective newcomers, they mentioned how joining a foreign site was a concern and they'd rather just play brawl.
a. Recruit them while they're young - Collin and I did some volunteer work at the Lawrence Public Library where we did a seminar on how to play Brawl at a higher level. From that we drew about 20 kids as prospects. 2 of them (GIMB and Eggman) didn't really need additional recruitment efforts and are now regulars. Since that time, I've been running monthly Brawl tournaments at the library for high schoolers as well as giving lessons on how to play once a week for an hour as part of my library job. Those endeavors originally started as volunteer work though, so would be easy to replicate.
b. Recruit them while they're in college - I ran a flier campaign around KU's campus literally 4 days before my last biweekly that drew in 5 people. Additionally, I plan to start a Super Smash Bros. Student organization with the help of Jace from KC Melee at some point in the next coming weeks so we can use the Student Union facilities for free in order to get more college level. Returns on this method have been promising with limited investment on our end, and I plan to maximize efforts in this area while I go forth with this endeavor.
c. Recruit them from Google- I literally googled and facebooked every combonation of KU / Braw / Super Smash Bros / Lawrence / Kansas City / KC / Topeka that I could. I sent out messages to every person that I could find that popped up. This brought in a couple more that were interested. I actually found a hub of people connected together in Topeka, and will be making a recruitment visit their next weekend.
2. Retention - This directly correlates with step 1 because an influx of new people means nothing if we can't keep them coming back.
a. Make a Facebook Page- As mentioned with the hesitance to join SWF, I decided to make a Facebook Page (
www.facebook.com/kcbrawl )in order to communicate and connect our local area. For the purposes of KC, it should be noted I intend to expand us to connect Topeka, Lawrence, and KC. Fortunately for where I reside, Lawrence is the center point. If I get enough interest between those 3 cities (ideally I want to hit 50 followers), I'll consider expanding the sphere of influence of that page to include Manhattan and other areas past KC.
b. Host Cheap Biweeklies- I went on Craiglist and purchased a bunch of TVs for like $15 each so that people would no longer need to bring TV's for tournies at my Apt. I instituted an Amateur Bracket system with lower payouts and buyins that would allow new players to play against other new players so that the new guy wasn't immediately 0-2'd by the best players and would never want to come back.
[collapse="Amateur Bracket Explanation"] Amateur Bracket: Newer players are allowed to participate in the amateur bracket. This bracket is set up to be a sort of play-in seeding for the pro bracket. If you win the amateur bracket, the prize is divided from a portion of the entrance fees based on entrants (1$ on $2 days, and 2$ on $5 days) as well as entry into the pro bracket. The portion not payed out to the winners of the amateur bracket gets put into the pot for pro bracket. If you place first once, second twice, third four times in the amateur bracket, you will automatically be ineligible to participate in the amateur bracket at future tournaments. However, if you come in last twice in a row in the pro bracket at previous tournaments, you will again be allowed to enter the amateur bracket.[/collapse]
c. Not Overwhelm the new people and help them improve - This became a collaborative effort on the part of the top players in our local scene to not destroy the new people and embarrass them. This meant heavy sandbagging in friendlies on the part of Fino and MJG, and it means me not playing ICs at tournament locally for a little while. At the same time, we use our indepth knowledge of aspects of the game to spoon feed the new people what we learned through losing repeatedly. They won't have to repeatedly lose in order to get better until we feel they are ready to start learning on their own.
3. Revolution - This is where you come in
a. Build Regionally - I've already asked Brandon in Iowa to do the same system although I haven't heard back if his returns are quite as good as mine since I have advantages on him in terms of vision and facilities. But ideally I'd like for scenes in Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri (especially Columbia since it's closer than St Louis) to pop up with similar efforts. Once we've undergone revamps locally, we can start getting player exchanges on the regional level.
b. Return focus to SmashBoards - In order to build regionally/nationally, we can then refocus our efforts on becoming a strong SWF community. This step is probably 3-4 months down the line in my opinion on KCs end, but every scene will develop at different rates.
c. Attract Nationally - If we get to the point where our regional tournament start pulling in 50-100 people, (which ideally would be 1/4th of the people from each scene assuming that 50 count for KC, IA, MO, NE respectively that I mentioned was my goal), we can start pulling national interest. Good players will want to come to us instead of us individually having to go to them.