Smash Tourney - PA/NY/NJ

[CubeQuest]

Hi all,

Long-time smasher, but new to the competitive community.

I'm trying to determine how much interest there would be for a large regional tournament, located central to the greater New York City/Philadelphia metropolitan area (less than a 2hr drive from each major city). It would be an open tournament, anyone able to enter and compete to win. Ideally I was thinking of having a double-elimination style event, and a portion of the entry fee would go to supplement the prize pool. Depending on how many people sign up, I was also hoping that anyone could come in and spectate the event for free. We would probably restrict the actual entry into the competition to players 13 and up, however.

The facility I'm looking to host in has cinema screens and stadium-style comfy seating, as well as food and drink available. We would also like to have an open area for anyone to bring their systems and play for fun in between official matches on the big screens. I understand many tournaments offer reduced entry fees for people who bring a console/TV to contribute to the free-play room.

To keep things simple we were hoping to have the competition centered in Smash Wii U/3DS, but depending on how things are organized & how much interest we get we may also be able to have some of the other Smashes officially showcased as well, since I understand how much everyone loves Melee and Project M in the competitive scene.

I'm also looking for more information on how best to run the event and any other details that might be useful. Should it be an all-day event or spread out over a couple days? How much prize money would be appropriate to bring people out? Would casters and color commentators be needed? Would an online stream for the event be necessary or just icing on the cake? Will we need any clearances or special permissions from Nintendo to host a spectator event?

I was hoping that the event could fall sometime within the next 6 months or so. I am just hashing out details at this point so nothing is set in stone. The more information and interest I receive, the better I can plan out the tournament.

Any information or suggestions you guys have will be very welcome. I'm also going to be checking out details from other tournaments past to get a rough idea of what is expected.

Hope to hear everyone's two-bits. Thanks in advance!

 

[Troyfullbuster]

im always down

 

[Nexus| Taka]

always down to help make this happen, sounds like a fun idea

 

[Garde Noir]

This sounds great, but I'd love to see some publicity. People would love to join and you'd be shocked how many people can pitch in and help out.

What I'd suggest is setting up a venue first, make it quite some time. Most big tourneys tend to be 2 or 3 days long, giving many hours to each event so that events only slightly overlap. Usually its in groups that wouldn't have a ton of overlap in terms of players. Don't make Melee Doubles and Sm4sh prelims at the same times.
Also as you'll have pools, don't make a ton of overlap time. The beginnings of pools and brackets can begin at about the same time as top 4 or 8 are beginning of the last event, at the very earliest.
The trick I've seen in my stream watching is making it so that you're watching top 16, or top 8 of 1 game, and then when GF is over, you're onto top 16 or top 8 of the next one, so your viewers aren't bored.
This can be stream, but I'd also make it on the big projection. Not every game has to necessarily be on the big board. MAke some room for maybe 2 or 3 places with larger TVs so that there can be some crowd watching, but not a ton of waiting time for players.

At least, that's what I think. I've never hosted a large tourney, and only ever entered one or two, and lost pretty terribly.

As per what games you want, the Melee scene is going to get the most people, followed by Sm4sh, and then PM. However, if you're going to have PM, having Brawl is pretty easy as well. You don't have to expect quite as large a group for it either.

From what else I've seen at tourneys, there's two ways to do the money. One is to have everyone who enters pitch in let's say $10 for convenience sake. $2 of each of those go to you. This is to help reimburse you for the entire venue, and if you have some extra money, to pay back staff and such. That's you. Let's say there's still $8 left. Take all of that into a pool, and divide it up. 1st place gets say 50% or 60% of the total money, second gets 30%, third gets 10%. That requires more people to join, in hopes you'll make your budget, but it also entices more people to join, as the more people there are, the more money there is for grabs. The other way is to have a set fund. Let's say you just say first place is 200 bucks, second is 100, third is 50. Then everyone enters just the same, paying maybe 10 or 5 bucks to battle for it. Anything made after you got back that first 350 is strictly profit then, so it's on you to get more people to play.

Entrance fees are necessary evil if you want to try and break even, but make it reasonable. $5 is fine and then it doesn't matter how much that person plays. They can play friendlies all day long, and you're happy because they didn't take resources without paying, and they're happy because they're making new friends and playing a more competitive way. This also means you can lower your entrance fees into tourney, which may entice people more. You can attempt to make the entrance free, but that places a lot of trust in people wanting to buy into tourney so that you can break even.

Stream if you can, publicity is key! Commentators are wonderful, and players love to commentate, though if you know one that will do it for fun and exclusively, that's even better.

Make your tourney as public as possible. Post here, post on twitter, advertise on Facebook, post to groups. Spread around and market like you're a ad on TV -- relentlessly and without care. The goal is for you to break even so that you can host another one, and we can all play more often with more people.


But before you do anything, GO to a tourney. See what one is like. See what you like and what you don't like. Was it too casual? Was it intimidating? If it was either, was that the tourney director's fault or not? How was the order and time of the events? What did the smashers like? How was the entertainment? Did you feel involved? Did you get bored at all?

 

[itscoolguy05]

Wow, this definitely needs happen. I've never been to a tourney before and this sounds like an amazing way to start going to them. If could pitch in in anyway I would asap. Best time to do this would be during a school break in my opinion because we could get a teen crowd with more competitive people which ultimately makes spectating and playing even better. Again, this is an awesome idea and i woul dlove to be apart of this project. I recommend having melee, pm, and smash 4 as games that would be played. Other than that, i hope you really try to make this happen. Thanks!!