Talking to a venue owner about hosting tournaments. Advice?

[DarkLouis331]

So aside from a weekly Smashfest (which has been going very well) and a few charity tournaments throughout the year, my area is dead as far as "professional" Brawl/Melee tournaments go.

I recently discovered that a local game store has been hosting Xbox360 tournaments. (in addition to Magic: The Gathering and various RPG games) Since it can host tournaments for the XBox360, why not Smash? If the owner lets me co-host tournaments along with him, almost ALL of Ohio can be pretty active with the right amount of hype.

I might be going there this Saturday for an overnight LAN party, so it may be a good opportunity to make a good impression about our community. (Don't know if the owner will be there or not.)

I would plan on bringing a copy of a ruleset for Brawl/Melee, and explaining that the standard fees are $5 venue and $10 entry. And a possible first tournament date.

If anyone has experience talking to gamestores about hosting tournaments, I would appreciate a little advice/some of your experiences. (Like what to wear, what to say if I need to make a phone call, follow-up phone calls, etc.)

Thanks. :D

 

[clowsui]

e-mails are probably the best, i corresponded with my venue owner largely through e-mail and it worked out :3

as for venue fees...do not give your standard first, always start with theirs. convincing the community is WAY easier than convincing a store owner who needs to profit

don't dress uber nice but dress something that isn't trashy to show you have some class, lol

 

[DarkLouis331]

e-mails are probably the best, i corresponded with my venue owner largely through e-mail and it worked out :3

as for venue fees...do not give your standard first, always start with theirs. convincing the community is WAY easier than convincing a store owner who needs to profit

don't dress uber nice but dress something that isn't trashy to show you have some class, lol

Gotcha. You have a point. They are already doing a crapload by hosting us, so it'd be fair to hear their price first.

I figure that it's always better to introduce yourself in-person at first. During that time, I'll ask if they want me to send out an e-mail.

Thanks man.

 

[crismas]

I usually go for in-person meetings. It's easier for them to know you're real about your commitment, as having a in-person conversation is more personal than through an email. If it's a place you've found online, you could always initially email them but then set up a meeting later.

When I first talked to the owner of one our local venues, I walked right in and just spoke to the person at the front desk about how I was interested in holding smash bros events. Soon after I went in to speak with the owner and told him my experience in the community and what we were trying to accomplish, as well as what we'd provide as far as TV's and game systems.

I would say just be as honest as possible, but maintain as professional attitude as you can about your knowledge and what you can do to help them out and how your event will be run. When you give them that type of impression (usually) things go smoothly and over time if events go well they will be much more willing to provide and work with you and your event more personally.

As far as venue fee goes, I initially asked the owner what they did previously for entrance fees for their events. Since they had never done smash before and hadn't really had a solid door fee, I familiarized them with what our typical rates are for charging door fee (I went for the lowest possible which was $5) and they agreed to it.

That doesn't really happen in every case though, most already have a standard fee so it's good to just ask (like Clowsui said) on what theirs is before trying to lower it, every store is different.

Other suggestions would be, to be open minded if they cannot accommodate everything and helpful if they don't know the smash scene. In the end when it's all said and done and they allow you to run the event, what happens during your event will really leave the biggest impression, so make sure you keep a solid (store) rule list so everyone is respectful toward the venue and it's owners.

 

[TheTantalus]

I usually go for in-person meetings. It's easier for them to know you're real about your commitment, as having a in-person conversation is more personal than through an email. If it's a place you've found online, you could always initially email them but then set up a meeting later.

When I first talked to the owner of one our local venues, I walked right in and just spoke to the person at the front desk about how I was interested in holding smash bros events. Soon after I went in to speak with the owner and told him my experience in the community and what we were trying to accomplish, as well as what we'd provide as far as TV's and game systems.

I would say just be as honest as possible, but maintain as professional attitude as you can about your knowledge and what you can do to help them out. When you give them that type of impression (usually) things go smoothly and over time if events go well they will be much more willing to provide and work with you and your event more personally.

As far as venue goes, I initially asked the owner what they did previously for entrance fees for their events. Since they had never done smash before and hadn't really had a solid door fee, I familiarized them with what our typical rates are for charging door fee (I went for the lowest possible which was $5) and they agreed to it.

That doesn't really happen in every case though, most already have a standard fee so it's good to just ask (like Clowsui said) on what theirs is before trying to lower it, every store is different.

Other suggestions would be, to be open minded if they cannot accommodate everything and helpful if they don't know the smash scene. In the end when it's all said and done and they allow you to run the event, what happens during your event will really leave the biggest impression, so make sure you keep a solid (store) rule list so everyone is respectful toward the venue and it's owners.

I did this very thing for a melee tournament I hosted (yes, I hosted a melee tournament once).

Hova suggested the place, so I setup an in person meeting via email. We got the venue at no charge so long as everyone played a game of laser tag (it was a laser tag place).

I charged a $3 venue fee for anyone that didn't bring a setup, which was my profit. It was small but it worked out great. Cristin couldn't be more spot on the money though.

 

[AlphaZealot]

I usually go for in-person meetings. It's easier for them to know you're real about your commitment, as having a in-person conversation is more personal than through an email. If it's a place you've found online, you could always initially email them but then set up a meeting later.

100% this. See them in person. It makes working details out much faster as well. Make sure though anything agreed on is in writing.

One of my venues in Ohio is a restaurant called Wings and Brew. The owners are nice and I essentially approached one of them about running a tournament. He said come in the next day early before they opened and I could pitch him the idea. Which was:
-I can get 20-30 young adults in your venue for an entire Saturday. Eating and ordering food all day long
-I can also sell them T-shirts, which you can eventually profit from
-You do not have to do anything but make food like it is a normal business day, you would still even be able to handle your deliveries and we could leave 1 table open for in-store customers. Since the store doesn't open typically until 3-4PM anyways you would not be losing any business in the early morning/afternoon

We worked some stuff out and basically I got this
-A $5 venue fee (Mandatory) for every head. However, in exchange for this everyone in the venue will have a couple slices of pizza provided for them.
-A $1 soda fee (Optional), in exchange the people in the venue got fountain drinks with infinite refills all day
-He paid a $300 deposit to have 30 shirts made. So far I've made him back his $300, but we have only sold 21 shirts, so the profit for him has not come back yet. (We sell the shirts for $16, $15 of the shirt goes to WaB, $1 per shirt goes to the designer-Pound 4 was $20 a shirt, Genesis was $25 a shirt, so $16 is not very unreasonable).
-Let the venue be open from 11AM (for me to get there for setup) until at the very least the tournament is finished (typically 10PM).


I've held 5 events there. I think he had just slightly above average business totals from 2 or 3 of them, average for 1 of them, and slightly below average for another. He did like that the tournament got him into work early (11AM) and allowed him to get a lot of work done that he normally wouldn't (house cleaning). He also liked the atmosphere of the event. He also liked that he did not have to do a single thing to set it up (from the tvs/papers/getting people there/etc). He liked that the 21+ crowd stayed post tournament for food and drinks.

 

[Metal Reeper]

Great topic and posts I wanna see if I could host a local melee tourney at Play N Trade, but it is pretty small.