MONEY TOURNAMENT IN NYC

[l0de]

Within the next couple months, I am going to host a live money tournament at an arcade in New York City.

Right now here's what I'm planning:

Tournament structure:

Double elimination, 2/3 Initial rounds, 3/5 winners \ losers finals, 3/5 Grand Finals, loser must win one 3/5 set to reset the bracket, then another 3/5 set to win.

This is the structure fighting game tournaments in the US largely use, and I think it's a good one.

Here is an example of what the bracket would look like. I am not planning to use any kind of seeding unless a bunch of big names are planning to attend.

http://challonge.com/tournament/bracket ... BMNHYCJKAV

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Money:

Entry fee to the venue I am looking into is $10 for all day, which includes access to the games in the arcade. On top of that, there is a tournament entry fee, which will govern the pot size.

I am looking for feedback on what players would be willing to pay in order to compete in a tournament. $10? $20? $40?

If we want to attract new players, it needs to be lower, however I'd definitely like to have the final pot be high.

I am going to personally kick in a pot bonus, which will vary based on how many entrants we have. I'm not taking a cut of the pot (unless I place in the tournament), so the entire thing will be paid out to first, second, and third place players. Assuming a $360 pot, the payout would be something like $240 first place, $80 second place, $40 third place. There may be additional swag and medals etc.

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Location\Logistics:

The location I'm thinking about is Next Level in Brooklyn, which has a strong community of fighting game players and a good space for tournaments. (you can see next level on the teamsp00ky twitch.tv stream every weds). Next Level is a 5 minute walk from the D train, which is easy to access from all over NYC. I'll have to look into parking.

The tournament will be minimum 8 people, and I'm going to crunch some numbers on the maximum bracket size we'll accept.

With 8 people, the tournament should take approximately 5 hours. With 16, it will probably be more like 8. So it will take place on a Saturday or Sunday.

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Tech Stuff

This is going to be a Bring Your Own Laptop event

There's internet at the venue, and I'm going to bring in a switch so everyone has a hardwired connection. I'm kind of torn on what to do with disconnects, that player will probably have to take the loss, since anyone can just yank ethernet and pull a loss.

I'm going to stream the event to twitch.tv, and have commentators, hopefully. I'm working out a system for streaming now, probably I'll provide the two streaming laptops and use VNC so we can see both screens. I also need to work out the logistics of having the streamed users in a place where they can't hear people shouting about the match, or see the projector.

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That's what I have so far, any thoughts? Anyone interested in travelling to NYC to attend?

[Rhox]

Perhaps, but only if enough people express interest.

[Mammalman]

this sounds like fun to me but i don't live in new york. my family does tho and i'm there now and then. i expect to be there sometime in early summer (may) and/or late summer sometime to stay with my brother and his wife in brooklyn and meet my new niece. i would definitely set aside a day for a live quad tourney if the timing worked out, and i'd happily risk up to $50.


(my only quibble is with the proposed prize structure which is a touch top heavy for my taste, i'd do like $220, $100, $40 instead. whatever)

[cinder]

Cool idea. But I live in San Francisco.

[l0de]

Gonna have to shelve this, I could not get enough interested players, even fronting cash to bring the pot up to $300 min. I'm not deterred, I just need to do a bit more local community building to train up some good players, then I can think about doing a tourney.