East Coast Elites (ECE)- What would you like to see at future ECE events?

Hey guys,
Just finished up the ECE CenVA tourney and it went pretty well. I've hosted a few events now and I'd like to get some feedback from attendees on what they think I should do to improve the future experience.
I'd also like to increase the turnout for future events, so if you saw the ECE post and decided not to attend, what changes could I make to increase your likelihood of coming to the next one?
Would you guys prefer biweekly tournies or Monthlies?
The venue fee for this one was $5, but is likely to go up to $10 based on turnout and since The End Game Center doesn't charge a flat amount.
With this change in mind, would people prefer individual entry fees to be kicked down to $5 or stay at the current $10?

Me and Eon thought the tournament went really well, That being said it was our first tournament so We dont have much experience with the whole situation.

I think this should be a monthly thing. And the Entry fee should stay 10$ because it makes the pot more valuable.

We had a Great time and I thank Amkhokar for hosting the Tournament, Iota and his mom for giving me a ride there and helping me improve my Skills, and to also to Caffa For giving me advise and helping me out as well. =P

Cafe* =D His smash name is Korn.

Thanks dude, I appreciate the feedback ^_^

Good matches, everyone. A good second tourney for me, even if I was out in two. Don't worry about the mess-up in Losers, it let me play more exciting matches. Thanks for the money match, Boss.

I was ~20%, the Fox/Falcon/Marth/Pikachu.

I thought the venue was perfect. The only thing that was annoying was having more brawl setups than melee ones. There'd be an empty brawl set up most of the time while people were taking turns to get their melee games in. Ideally i'd love to be constantly playing against people even outside of bracket matches. I guess its partially my fault though, I should've brought my copy of melee.

Biweekly as in twice a month? I would love that if you could pull it off. I need all the practice I can get.

Twice a month, yeah.
About the Melee set ups- originally we had planned for equal brawl and melee setups but as the date approached a few people weren't able to make it and it tolled way heavier on Melee than Brawl. Still, we should have had 3 of each at least because we certainly had the space, we were just missing the discs. It was unfortunate, but it can be avoided in the future and will become less of a problem as more of the regular events happen.
Ideally, I'd like to run a tourney where there are matches going on the entire time with separate free-play stations while still finishing at a reasonable time.

Small turnouts can actually be turned into a good thing. They give you time for random fun stuff like draft crews, which gets everyone involved and having a good time. You can also have round robin or swiss tournaments more easily which gets everyone more matches. In the future if you get a small turnout you should consider some of these ideas.

Entry fees should remain at $10. Hard to convince the region's top players to drive out there otherwise. I would always pay out at least top-3 though unless the turnout is like 8 or less people. Nothing wrong with sharing the pot among more players. I think people are more motivated to improve if the money is more within reach.

I'd also try getting a PM side event going in the future. Local events with small turnouts can feature a ton of events and still finish ahead of schedule. I bet more people would show up if there was going to be PM.

When school is back in session I recommend getting in touch with students at UVA and VT. College students love Smash and from my experience, most schools have some sort of Smash or gaming club that would be interested in attending.

Draft crews sounds like a great idea as post tourney events, but may be more appropriate for a smash fest setting, as I'm not sure how many players would stick around for them and I doubt it could be worked in while matches are going on.

I'll definitely consider swiss tournament formats for future small turn outs.

I'm working on getting a PM side event going, but I need to gain a sense of how many setups I'll have on average before committing a few to PM.

I'll be getting in contact with VT and UVa students and inquiring about smash clubs. I know UVa has a decent Melee scene, so I should be able to get some hype from there and VT has a sizeable smash community.

I appreciate the feedback, Nintendude!

The draft crews idea comes from some tristate tourneys I've been to over the years where they have it after the entire tournament is finished. It's fun because it gives ppl time to chat and get to know each other and players enjoy being in the hot seat and having everyone cheer and trash talk, no matter the skill level. I wouldn't try running draft crews concurrently with the tournament. It has to be a post-tourney thing.

I'm not really seeing this "decent UVA melee scene" you keep talking about Ammad. There's like 4 of us here as far as I know >.<

You'd probably be better off getting in touch with the vcu smash club or the guys at V-tech

While I was at WAHS I heard of a few tournaments and an informal club at UVa for Melee; but this was after I had switched to Brawl =p Naridax would probably know more about it than myself.

What would you think about adding SF4 and MVC3? There are a few Smashers who also play those games too

I'd consider it if there was enough interest in the idea, but not until the Feb tourney. I wanna see how well I can manage 3 games before I add any more, but i'll throw the idea out during the tourney and in the thread ^_^. The venue actually carries a few setups for the 360, so it'd be easier to host than others.