Question: When is it okay to purposely try and profit from running a tournament?

Laijin said:

Lets get some intelligent discussion flowing. What do you guys think should be done to avoid something like this from happening in the future?

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honestly, cheaper hotel is a big factor i think. i keep hearing about contracts and deals and such...might have been better, at the end of the day, to just not spend so much on the hotel and/or venue.

pound 5's venue was amazing, but apparently it still didn't balance out =/

also i didn't like how just as grand finals ended there were already well-dressed people bringing in tables and such.

i mean, i did like pound 5's venue, but i think i prefer something more like ROM's venue (i only went to ROM 1). a toy store, with action figures, and one bathroom off to the side. i felt way more at home there.

or the apex venue, which was just plain nice but apparently didn't cost anyone too much =P

event 52 was a nice inbetween, it was a big room, carpeted, in a university. actually i think this is my overall favourite venue so far. the carpet had a cool pattern too <_<



i guess what i'm saying is, well, just at the moment anyway since my class is packing up, is that reducing the cost of the stuff outside the playing of video games makes things much easier for the TO to deal with.

We live in Broke times. Seriously though, Smashers try to live on the cheap WAY too much.

i mean yea to avoid this, a cheap venue is where its at. tbh i liked the pound 4 venue better than pound 5. although the location for the pound 5 was too good for me.

This is true.
Just look at our average money matches. $5 is A LOT for a money match in smash terms. We typically settle for $1 or $2.

In other communities such as marvel, a typical mm is no less than $20-$50. No one will even be surprised if there were a couple of hundreds laying on the table.

So yea. We are cheap. haha

well laijin i really think doing it like rom and genesis is the way to go ... pay at the door the pot doesn't get touched and people know that venue goes to everything it costs to run the event and so on ... but seriously the pot should NEVER get touched at all ... sucks it had to happen to plank but seriously i wasn't surprised =\

The TO's job is to make sure that the venue fee is accurate. End of the day, charge more if you have to, and roll any excess into the pots after all debts are paid.

i just read all this. as the head organizer for good s*** german and don't go down there jeff, i gotta say genesis/rom method is the way to go. from what i've read of alukard's post, i agree.

other thoughts i have about the situation will be discussed with tourney host, unless i feel it necessary to post here. alukard, boback, sheridan, plank, expect a message from me by the end of the week.

Alukard said:

well laijin i really think doing it like rom and genesis is the way to go ... pay at the door the pot doesn't get touched and people know that venue goes to everything it costs to run the event and so on ... but seriously the pot should NEVER get touched at all ... sucks it had to happen to plank but seriously i wasn't surprised =\

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I do agree. TOs should keep it safe and go with cheaper venues unless their getting sponsored or something

well I think pay at the door is fine, but if pre-reg is done, just make sure that there is NO REFUNDS. Seriously, we could pay when we leave the room. That was dumb. Anyways, copy pasta coming, tell me your thoughts:

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I agree. People have to cancel sometimes, real life johns. The contract was to have the cheaper rooms correct? Cheaper rooms would = Hopefully more people coming. Expesive rooms = Less hype. Less hype, less people, less payout. (Yet, now there probably isn't any)

I think the cost of all this was due to how big the event was. If there was no deal, the rooms would have been even more expensive. ****, I HATED how expensive it was. (Plus, our room wasn't ready when we came, I salty)
If the rooms were at full price, I'd probably have to bail.

So it was either better experience (since it was his last one) or just a big tournament with less people due to super expensive rooms. Also, I don't like not being near food markets. I don't want to eat at restaurants all the time. TO's, take note of this. It would help. : D

I just think he wanted more people here. This doesn't look like a situation where he hoarded the money to himself, yet he relied on people coming, that was a mistake. We all should learn from this as a community.

I also feel bad for the winners. I would say to try to act a little more mature, but you have a right to act the way you are acting because this was a mistake on his part.

You all must find a way to pay the people/organizations back who have lent you money to get to va or stay there for now. I don't know about suing. But if Plank has a job, then I think it would be better for your relationships with him (and his with the community) to check with him regularly and set up a payment plan. It seems that suing would have us lose too. But why is he unfriending people on facebook? Hopefully this is temporary. I think he should face the whole community instead of unfriend people. He took the risk, now he must be there for the people who lost out due to his mistake.

Everyone who didn't win: Don't forget, that the winners also may have to find ways to somehow pay people back, like Armada. So don't call them whiners or *****es, they are having a stressful time now. Both Plank and winners are probaly feeling like ****. Even if the winners didn't NEED the money, I'm sure they'd feel partial stress because they worked hard to get it. It would be like working a whole week at a place and noticing the place was phoney, and your check bounced. How would you feel about that? Oh, you'd be fine with that, eh?

Also, we should try to learn from HIS mistake as a community. For example, I am starting out to be a TO myself (I already hosted one tourny) and I just realized how scary that is. Damn. Although I'm a cheap ***, so I'd try to get a good and cheap venue, and make sure that the venue fee covers the cost. Like, I'd want a flat line fee for the venue, that's it. OH HEY ITS LIKE... $200. So I'm like "K, so that's $10 per person in hopefully a 40 man tourny" If like 37 came, I'd pay the rest myself. Also, this reminds me that we should also be very careful with the money, and make sure no one is near it. Trust me, I'll tell my staff to stay at the damn ****ing table, ****. lol. (They gotta work on that) Although I had instances where they weren't there and I had to get up (I'd double back tho)

@Plank: Please make a thread of how you are thinking to solve this issue. That might help people ease their minds and at least see you are putting an effort to end this money issue. Also I guess you realize the risk of bigger experience or just bland experience but usual pay is now too big. Also, let's be realistic and not choose an expensive hotel the next time you host. Also, why was this your last tournament again? (I think players wouldn't mind a cheaper venue) You seem like a great guy, so I hope you come on the boards and post more. Don't try to evade the smasher's wrath. Instead post a thread, asking about thoughts for you to help patch things up.

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Yeah I'm cheap. I hated paying all that for Pound. FUUUUU. I wanted housing instead.


Now that I think of it, I think this should be stickied. It'll give us examples to look at, so that us as new TO's can learn from old TO's.

When the total pot is over 9k. I think you should then take the pot money and run hella fast, it works, it has been tested recently!