Choosing a date and time for your tournament is obviously one of the most important decisions in TOing. No matter how well you run your tournaments, choosing a terrible date and time may limit your attendance as a result. This topic is especially important if you’re a new TO looking to make a dent in the community.
Factors to consider:
* Audience - who does my event reach and when is best for them?
* Competition - what other events could pose a threat to my attendance?
* Timeline - how long will it take to plan and organize the tournament?
* Venue - what is the venue availability for the timeframe I’m looking at?
These factors can be treated as soft constraints. Examples below:
Audience
If your audience can be generalized to a demographic, use common sense to accommodate their schedules.
Competition
If there’s another event nearby whose draw power overlaps with your tournament’s potential attendance to an unsatisfactory degree, then don’t challenge it on the calendar.
Timeline
If you require one month to plan out your next tournament, then eliminate the entire next month from contention while deciding on a tournament date.
Venue
If your venue isn’t available for six weeks, then don’t consider hosting on any date in the next six weeks.
After you’ve narrowed down your field of potential dates on the calendar, it’s time to make a few decisions.
Decisions to make:
* Time of year
* Day of week
* Time of day
Time of year
Generally, for a local tourney that has little to no implication on the national Smash scene, almost any weekend will suffice except for holiday weekends. This is something best left to national TOs; holidays are reserved for some of the biggest plans of the year for most people, and if your tournament doesn’t fit into those plans, then you need to avoid hosting those weekends. National TOs can get away with scheduling tourneys on holiday weekends because their events are popular enough to supercede many Smashers’ plans that they otherwise may have had.
Holiday weekends to avoid if you’re a local TO:
St. Patrick’s Day (the weekend preceding or on March 17th)
Mother’s Day (second Sunday in May, and the preceding Saturday)
Memorial Day (the weekend preceding the last Monday in May)
Father’s Day (third Sunday in June, and the preceding Saturday)
Independence Day (the weekend closest to July 4th)
Thanksgiving (the weekend following the fourth Thursday in November)
Christmas (the weekend before and after December 25th)
Hosting the weekend after Christmas can actually be beneficial in some specific circumstances. If you’re on a college campus, forget about it, as most of your audience will have left town. But if you live in a big city and have a weekend open between December 26th and 31st, go for it. Most people take plenty of time off for the Christmas and New Years holiday, whether from school or from work, and are often willing to spend at least one of those days at a Smash tourney.
Easter weekend and Labor Day weekend are fine for tourneys, as the Smasher population doesn’t cherish those holidays to a level anywhere close to the others listed above.
Day of week
Historically, most Smash tourneys have taken place on a Saturday, which makes sense for a lot of reasons:
* Sets itself up as the "main event" of a given week, which Smashers can recognize and plan around
* Provides an ample amount of time overall for TOs to run multiple events with flexibility
* Offers enough of a cushion (Friday night + Sunday afternoon) for drivers from the most remote regions to attend, even if they have to spend a night before or after the tourney
Conventional wisdom says host on a Saturday. However, this is starting to change as the Smasher demographic moves further from high school and college students and closer to young working professionals. Regions across the United States are now hosting regularly on non-Saturdays, often on a weekly basis. Traditional thinking has been replaced, and an expansion of tourneys has taken place to Sundays and weekdays. As a TO, it's your job to recognize the needs of your community and plan events around them. For example, regions like the Midwest tend to stick to Saturdays due to long average geographic distances involved. Regions like Boston can schedule events more frequently and more flexibly due to a very favorable population density. Regions like SoCal often end up hosting on Sundays due to venue availability.
Time of day
A Smash tournament is distinct from most other competitives games in that it’s strictly an in-person activity (at least before Smash 4 is released). This means the average Smash tournament attendee spends a good amount of time and effort traveling to the event, and wants to maximize every minute of in-person playing time while at the event itself. Because of this, it’s most logical for a tournament to represent an all-day commitment, and you’ll find that 99% of local tournaments fit the bill in this regard. That being said, don’t push the extremes when it comes to starting time and ending time. An 8am start and midnight finish is simply not favorable for traveling attendees. Generally, it’s best to aim for a schedule that runs from noon to 10pm in one day for a local tournament unless there are special circumstances that require you to stray from that.
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Juggleguy is a national tournament organizer, Melee It On Me team member, and Smashboards contributor. You can follow him on Twitter: @JuggleRob
Factors to consider:
* Audience - who does my event reach and when is best for them?
* Competition - what other events could pose a threat to my attendance?
* Timeline - how long will it take to plan and organize the tournament?
* Venue - what is the venue availability for the timeframe I’m looking at?
These factors can be treated as soft constraints. Examples below:
Audience
If your audience can be generalized to a demographic, use common sense to accommodate their schedules.
Competition
If there’s another event nearby whose draw power overlaps with your tournament’s potential attendance to an unsatisfactory degree, then don’t challenge it on the calendar.
Timeline
If you require one month to plan out your next tournament, then eliminate the entire next month from contention while deciding on a tournament date.
Venue
If your venue isn’t available for six weeks, then don’t consider hosting on any date in the next six weeks.
After you’ve narrowed down your field of potential dates on the calendar, it’s time to make a few decisions.
Decisions to make:
* Time of year
* Day of week
* Time of day
Time of year
Generally, for a local tourney that has little to no implication on the national Smash scene, almost any weekend will suffice except for holiday weekends. This is something best left to national TOs; holidays are reserved for some of the biggest plans of the year for most people, and if your tournament doesn’t fit into those plans, then you need to avoid hosting those weekends. National TOs can get away with scheduling tourneys on holiday weekends because their events are popular enough to supercede many Smashers’ plans that they otherwise may have had.
Holiday weekends to avoid if you’re a local TO:
St. Patrick’s Day (the weekend preceding or on March 17th)
Mother’s Day (second Sunday in May, and the preceding Saturday)
Memorial Day (the weekend preceding the last Monday in May)
Father’s Day (third Sunday in June, and the preceding Saturday)
Independence Day (the weekend closest to July 4th)
Thanksgiving (the weekend following the fourth Thursday in November)
Christmas (the weekend before and after December 25th)
Hosting the weekend after Christmas can actually be beneficial in some specific circumstances. If you’re on a college campus, forget about it, as most of your audience will have left town. But if you live in a big city and have a weekend open between December 26th and 31st, go for it. Most people take plenty of time off for the Christmas and New Years holiday, whether from school or from work, and are often willing to spend at least one of those days at a Smash tourney.
Easter weekend and Labor Day weekend are fine for tourneys, as the Smasher population doesn’t cherish those holidays to a level anywhere close to the others listed above.
Day of week
Historically, most Smash tourneys have taken place on a Saturday, which makes sense for a lot of reasons:
* Sets itself up as the "main event" of a given week, which Smashers can recognize and plan around
* Provides an ample amount of time overall for TOs to run multiple events with flexibility
* Offers enough of a cushion (Friday night + Sunday afternoon) for drivers from the most remote regions to attend, even if they have to spend a night before or after the tourney
Conventional wisdom says host on a Saturday. However, this is starting to change as the Smasher demographic moves further from high school and college students and closer to young working professionals. Regions across the United States are now hosting regularly on non-Saturdays, often on a weekly basis. Traditional thinking has been replaced, and an expansion of tourneys has taken place to Sundays and weekdays. As a TO, it's your job to recognize the needs of your community and plan events around them. For example, regions like the Midwest tend to stick to Saturdays due to long average geographic distances involved. Regions like Boston can schedule events more frequently and more flexibly due to a very favorable population density. Regions like SoCal often end up hosting on Sundays due to venue availability.
Time of day
A Smash tournament is distinct from most other competitives games in that it’s strictly an in-person activity (at least before Smash 4 is released). This means the average Smash tournament attendee spends a good amount of time and effort traveling to the event, and wants to maximize every minute of in-person playing time while at the event itself. Because of this, it’s most logical for a tournament to represent an all-day commitment, and you’ll find that 99% of local tournaments fit the bill in this regard. That being said, don’t push the extremes when it comes to starting time and ending time. An 8am start and midnight finish is simply not favorable for traveling attendees. Generally, it’s best to aim for a schedule that runs from noon to 10pm in one day for a local tournament unless there are special circumstances that require you to stray from that.
--
Juggleguy is a national tournament organizer, Melee It On Me team member, and Smashboards contributor. You can follow him on Twitter: @JuggleRob
