Event - EVO 2016 Understanding the EVO Salty Suite

[AlphaZealot]

Saw much of the posts, comments, tweets, etc. about the Salty Suite. Most of the negative stuff is due to a misunderstanding of how things work. Let's cover it:

• Why was doubles shown?
  • Doubles was an unofficial side event and the entire doubles bracket wasn't being streamed from the setups in the tournament area of EVO. It appeared the doubles finals would line up with the rough start time of the stream and people would enjoy seeing top players compete. This felt like content the stream would want to see that would otherwise not have been witnessed and been a topic of complaint.

• Why did they move to a smaller venue?
  • They didn't. The original plan, explained to Smashers months ago, was to rent out a suite in Bally's. A suite would only be able to hold 20 or so people. They switched to a larger room.
  • Due to the issue of cramped space and noise in a suite, at the last moment the sponsors stepped up and were able to find a small ballroom at Bally's to hold the suite. It was larger than the previous plan, but still small and a shared space with Street Fighter IV.

• Did the sponsors force the Salty Suite to be invite only?
  
  • No. Proper planning and people being responsible adults made the Salty Suite invite only. We just came off Apex 2015 where an entire venue was shut down due to fire code violations - seeing the community so eager to break the law shows frustratingly short memory.
  • Realize, this is unfixable logistical problem. Tomorrow, EVO staff will close off the main ballroom to non-pass holders specifically for the same reason - there are more people interested in watching than there is space to hold them.

• Are the sponsors killing Smash?
  • Not in this case. Without sponsors, the following would have happened:
    1. VGBC sets up a stream in a Suite and tries to make it invite only
    2. But there isn't a doorman, so the room becomes filled to the brim as everyone wants to get in
    3. Hotel security is called and everyone is kicked, out, stream ends, possible legal issues for many involved, etc..
  • To be clear: The sponsors (Redbull, Twitch, HTC) actually prevented a dangerous situation from developing that would have ended badly for players, VGBC, and the community. How the action of helping here has been twisted by some as disingenuous is a disgrace and the community needs to step up to avoid knee-jerk, no-knowledge, no-understanding-of-live-event reactions. The vanity, the 'first to print', the endless thirst for drama isn't what built the foundation of the Smash community.

• Why couldn't the Salty Suite be in the main event space?
  • EVO isn't a Smash event. EVO is a FGC event, with Smash. Apex, where the other Salty Suite events took place, are Smash events, with some FGC. Holding the entire EVO space, venue, and staff hostage in order for there to be a Smash Salty Suite that is open to all spectators isn't feasible or agreeable to EVO (who are also looking at an overnight hall-change over for the next day).

The mistake was holding the Salty Suite when the community lacked the content to provide good matches. That is basically the issue in a nutshell - and since the decision to do a Salty Suite requires planning and prep in advance, to some degree you have to make a judgement call on whether to execute and hope the storylines materialize. The opportunity, where most of the top players are together, only presents rarely, and had there been no Salty Suite plans, spectators would likewise complain and view it as a missed opportunity.

 

[Morbi]

Honestly, the inherent issue with this Salty Suite was the lack of transparency. I am glad that you clarified some common misconceptions and whatnot, but proper advertisement for precisely what event spectators had to look forward to was necessary to avoid potential backlash. It might have been nice to have been given an updated schedule, as the event started quite late. Other than that, there was an over lack of what people had come to expect based on the precedent set by Apex. For instance, the doubles event. No one cares about the reason that doubles were shown, that does not alter the notion that no one was interested. Hence, it was a misstep regardless of the intention. Secondly, an invite only event was still not justified. You can do what most other events do... Sell tickets. I just solved this so called insolvable logistical problem. No fire-code violations and an audience that is beneficial to the theme of the event. Albeit, the small venue is unavoidable without proper planning. Or with it, according to this post. No doubt this Salty Suite already fed into our negatively construed preconceived notions after the YP controversy. All in all, GimR and community figure-heads will have deemed this event a success as the invitees had a blast. However, the thousands that did not enjoy the event have a right to their opinion. It is not wrong of the community to feel a certain way. I am not insinuating that that was your overall message, just making a vague assertion.

I apologize in advance for spelling or grammatical errors. It is five a.m. and I am on mobile. No Johns (even though those are Johns).

 

[g-regulate]

Omg AZ you're alive what's up man

 

[DMG]

Smashers need to also step up their mic skills. Mikehaze and similar men of greatness should collaborate together and create the "Art of Trash Talk" series or something. I've seen Middle School Halo players with better trash talk than Smashers, it's pathetic!

 

[Sacrosanct]

Does anyone have a video of it? I missed it.

 

[trash?]

why listen to reasonable explanation when we can just yell at people we've never met over situations we barely understand because our free streams weren't high quality enough

rabble rabble moan moan I am stream monstericus x and you must bend over backwards for me or pay the price

 

[Prez08]

GIMR made a video about how the event will be different literally 3 days before EVO. Really disappointing to see the tweets and threads that made baseless assumptions.

 

[KoRoBeNiKi]

I think this post by SaxSalute summarizes my opinions: Bolded section are added for well the general community

I don't understand this subreddit/community anymore. It's like you can't be happy about anything. It sucks that the suite didn't roll out like you hoped with respect to invites, but GIMR said in the announcement video in May that it would be in a small room with space for 30ish people. This was not even close to some secret sellout conspiracy. This was the plan since before Redbull ever got involved with the suite.
Also, have you entirely forgotten what Redbull has done for Smash as a sponsor? They saved KoC4, a tourney that was almost cancelled entirely because of the venue. They helped get Apex 2015 back on track after the fire marshall condemned the convention center. To act like they are some kind of toxic, evil corporate entity out to milk Smash for money is either completely dishonest or the result of hilarious tunnel vision. HTC is a sponsor for C9 and TSM, so why not throw in a prize for Mango v Leffen in the suite? No harm whatsoever.

Apex 2015 was an anomaly of many great events lining up to make a slew of special matches. Chillin calling out Leffen and the return of PC Chris were circumstantial. Eikelmann and Bizzarro Flame was an accident. The main stage was PG rated and the hype was forced. You know why Axe and Silent Wolf were so nice to each other even after Axe completely dismantled Silent Wolf in game 3 of bracket? Because there was no salt, and what was there was completely forced for show. They respect each other. People aren't just salty all the time, they don't toss money around like printer paper, and tonight is just a stream of top players having a good time. There is no forced salt. What we have tonight is genuine. There are people having fun and TK being drunk and hilariously imitating Scar from the Apex suite. We have great players on commentary of all different styles.

If what makes the suite for you is the huge crowd, the pointless yelling, the fake feuds... Then I guess this isn't your cup of tea. There are things that are legitimately wrong like the horrible punctuality and questionable audio balancing, but this is the second time in as many days that this sub has absolutely flipped its **** over nothing. Complaining about sponsors that don't interfere with the content? Please. This is the real world. Everything is fine, please unflip your tables.

From Here

 

[yohobojz]

I enjoyed a lot of the matches and commentary, but I think it definitely could've used some more planning, as far as I am aware Bizz vs. Kage was the only thing planned out before July.

And I know GimR is busy so it's hard to blame him for that, but still try to see where people are coming from that they may have been dissatisfied with the event for non-corporate reasons.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Regarding the delay in starting - don't actually have any info on this other than it might have taken awhile to setup. @GimR would need to give the details.

 

[KiLLcOuRsE]

The fact that it was late and there wasnt really any updates about the situation is really aggravating. There was one update and is was completely inaccurate. Im on east coast and waiting til just about 1 in the morning for something that shouldve started at midnight is really frustrating, espescially when have no idea why its so late or around when it will start...

 

[berserkergatsu]

(Wow, this post was saltier than I intended. Still tired from last night I guess.)

Okay, that's fine and all, but that still doesn't justify the worst problems that happened this salty suite.

Who thought the idea of having doubles DURING the salty suite was at all a good idea? The event was already late due to poor organization, so who thought stalling the event longer would be something that people wanted? Not saying GIMR is entirely at fault for this one, but airing doubles right after Mango v Leffen instead of before was a huge failure of the night.

Speaking of organization, an event like this should always be tightly organized. The amount of downtime between each match was painful. GIMR is flat out wrong if he thinks a salty suite where anyone can come up and play is something to get hyped over. Something that CAN and SHOULD be replicated from the Apex SS is the structure. Instead of 10 matches between people with no real beef, it should be a few genuinely salty matches. That way the hype won't die down and people won't be wondering why two of these guys are even on stream.

And you might say that the Evo salty suite was never supposed to be like the Apex one, but seeing how much TK was trying to hype up the crowd, the constant footage of the Apex salty suite beforehand, and the fact that there was a "main event", all seem to say otherwise. It doesn't take a bachelors in marketing to see that the Evo suite was trying to ride the hype wave set by the Apex one. Even if GIMR did try to stop this misconception from happening, he only really followed through in word but not in action since all the advertising was clearly screaming "Apex Salty Suite 2.0".

Finally to end my little rant, I think we need to consider what we as a community actually want from the Salty Suite. The Apex SS was easily the most hype SS I personally had ever seen, and given the overwhelming disappointment last night, I think the same can be said for many if not most people.

So my biggest problem here is, why not try to make the Apex salty suite the new standard? As we all saw last night, having friendlies on stream and calling them salty is obviously the wrong way to do things. It's boring, and if GIMR thinks that last night was how things should be, then he deserves all of the people calling him out on it.

And I'm not talking about hosting it in a the main room, because 30 people can easily be loud and hype enough to emulate that bigger environment. If the crowd is into it, unlike last night, then the stream really won't be able to tell the difference between 30 and 300 people.

As I mentioned before, quality matches over quantity is a must. A few, well advertised matches between salty people is better than pulling a bunch of people from the crowd and expecting everyone to get hyped for it. Doing it this way will also help keep the event more organized. The context of the match is important and just having them do an "anime" call out beforehand isn't enough for the crowd.

Because at the end of the day, it's the matches, and not the suite itself, that are the heart of the Salty Suite. Once you start advertising individual matches beforehand, people will get hyped for watching those matches and not assume the whole Suite will be like Leffen v Chillin.

Easily the two best matches of the night were between Mango/Leffen and Kage/Bizz (although the latter was hurt by being pushed back so late), and, like I'm saying, both of those matches were heavily advertised in advance. In opposition to what GIMR said last night, the salty suite SHOULD be just a series of a few main events. Sure, maybe have some fake salty friendlies in between, but the pacing of last night was terrible with Mango/Leffen at the beginning, then Kage/Bizz 2 whole hours later, and then finally nothing for the rest of the night.

All in all this Salty Suite WAS a disappointment and SHOULD be seen as a failure. It was misadvertised, and held onto an obsolete formula which, in addition to the lack of salt that night, ended up being a bore fest. GIMR definitely has the skill and talent to pull off successful salty suites, but he needs to realize it's not up to him what the community wants to see.

 

[TuukkaTime]

This doesn't really address any of the problems with the Salty Suite. The Salty Suite went poorly for three reasons:

1) A lack of clarity
2) No one at the venue really cared about the matches
3) The matches themselves weren't salty at all

If as soon as the stream started, GimR or someone had told us that they'd be finishing the doubles tournament first I wouldn't have cared. However, it was still being advertised that Bizz vs. Kage would be at 10 PM, and doubles just started without anyone knowing what it was. The stream thought it was just another salty suite match. If they had been clear that doubles would be coming first, I wouldn't have cared, but there was no clarity.

The second and third are kind of related, but I don't think anyone honestly cares about the size of the venue. However, people do care about audience participation. In the Salty Suite this year no one really gave a **** and wasn't really watching the matches or making things hype. I've seen much smaller venues where the audience was excited and into it and because of that I was too.

Finally, sort of unrelated to the way it was run, none of the matches felt salty. It didn't feel super serious like it could have been.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Salty Suites are traditionally small, after-hours money match affairs in any random hotel room, sometimes streamed, sometimes not. That's what the suite in the name means. It just floors me that people are actually upset that this was a small, invite-only affair. Just what on earth were you expecting?

I joked with GimR earlier this year that "you Smash guys never use the terminology correctly" when he called the exhibition on the main stage of Apex a "Salty Suite." I guess that might be partly to blame for some really weird and outlandish expectations, but even then, he was pretty clear on what to expect out of this one beforehand.

 

[Xandercosm]

- Travels thousands of miles to Salty Suite.
- Gets turned away at the door.
- Tries to bust in through the vents.
- Breaks in but falls on Red Bull stand.
- Wave of cans rolls into players, breaking HD TVs and destroying match.
- Swinging vent door hits chandelier, knocking it to the ground.
- Whole place lights on fire.
- Doors only open in.
- by happenstance there are explosives stored in the back room.
- Family walking by has a nice time at the fireworks show...