Official Announcement from Ray
Hello all,
We really appreciate all of the interest that has been shown on this thread for our event- we would love to see all of you out on Saturday at our event.
In case you do not know me, I am Ray Tan, the president of The Ohio Smash Initiative here at the Ohio State University. Up until this point, I have left the advertising of our event on smashboards up to my advertising team.
But now that we are just 2 days from our event, I will try to clear up as much as possible for the event.
First of all, to address Big R's comment about teams, the primary focus of our event is going to be the 1v1 singles melee tournament, as advertised on our flyers and thread main post. However, I have run the math for how long it would take to host the pools and the double elim and given some more lenient calculations, we hold the venue for long enough to accomodate doubles. So I will ask for a group opinion on interest level for a doubles tournament at the conclusion of our melee singles event and will host a doubles tourney for those interested- Pricing structure will be worked out before the event but it's been hectic these last few days getting all the details and equipment worked out.
To answer Great Jona, the registration period begins at 11am and will end at 12pm. I will be fairly strict on this because I will want to get lunch for my team (it's a long day for my team since we'll be setting up since morning) as well as generating the pool plays and briefing my pool captains. My pool captains for this event are not players in this tournament and will be the sole arbitrators of disputes and will be trained to handle them appropriately- this is to ensure professionalism and finishing pools in a timely manner. Therefore, I recommend you get here at 11am, because the rest of the time from 11am to noon and then a little later would be warmup/social time for you guys.
I have been heavily involved with the logistics planning for this event so I suggest you take heed what I tell you:
The spring football game is happening at the same day as our event, April 23. For those of you who don't know much about Ohio State culture, this is a triple header event- with a stephanie spielman walk for cancer at 9:30, a big lacrosse game, and then the scrimmage game. And if you know about what happened to Terrelle Pryor, OSU is looking for his replacement for the first few games next year and this scrimmage game is Braxton Miller's (this year's highly anticipated like 2nd best quarterback in last year's class i think) chance to prove his mettle. So I guarantee you all that this game will be crowded.
However, my event manager told me that this will not be a problem. Just be mindful that the game's kickoff is at 1:30pm so to avoid the throngs of avid football fans, 1:00pm to like 3:00pm should be safe bets to leave.
Of course, why would you leave our beautiful Union? We have three food places to eat at and there's a 50% chance of rain during the day and 60% rain at night. So it goes without saying that you should bring an umbrella- people driving in perhaps the night before should be safe as there is an 80% chance of rain on Friday.
With regards to parking, I was informed by our event planner that parking on weekends is a flat rate of $5 and should not change for this football game. But if you are driving in, try to get here early-ish to beat the crowds and maybe get a contact on campus if you don't want to park in the garage? But the parking garage is connected right next to the Ohio Union building so look that up on a map (the Ohio Union) and the parking garage is right next door.
I will be personally be briefing all of you on rules beforehand and the pool captains should be able to clarify any misunderstandings.
Again, thank you for your interest in our tournament and smashfest this Saturday and we hope to see you all there, ready for the most professional (and hopefully, one of the most reputable) tournament series in the Midwest.
If anyone has any more questions or concerns between now and the event, speak up here and I will personally be taking over the smashboards correspondence and will answer each inquiry to the best of my knowledge.
-Ray T
P.S.
Please spread the word of this event to as many people that will be interested! We also will have 2 livestreams on our website for the entire day's events, complete with video interviews of the winners, and we have an online donation system in place too- remember, this event is being held for charity and any publicity, support or viewership we get is greatly appreciated. If your friends can't come in person, encourage them to view the event via livestream on our website (on the main post on page 1) and perhaps donate if they are willing.
P.S.S.
Drillbit, make sure that MX comes. And you said that Husband might come? Because we have the capabilities to have commentary as well. I know Big R has commentated before so we could perhaps see a joint effort there?
