A Perspective on the Health of Vintage: Why do You Attend Tournaments?

[Yare]

I've certainly noticed over the last year or so, but I never connected it with this particular issue: attendance at European tournaments.  I haven't crunched the numbers, but it looks like tournaments (especially in Italy and Spain) routinely get very high turn outs.  I imagine that TO's from across the pond could tell us a lot about managing events and maintaining communities/metagames.

2c

I always chalked it up to denser populations than here in the states.  I wonder if there might be more behind it than that.

So let's ask them about it?

[Marske]

As a European TO (I organize events in The netherlands together with Zieby also on TMD) I've been to some events in France and have been building a Vintage community in my own country for about a year now.

After we had a total lack of tournaments we started our own (the dutch vintage tournaments) and had a fairly decent turn up for the first 3 events (30+ people) with number 4 and 5 we got about 50+ people so a rise in attendance in only a year. We're even seeing other people create events and help create a stable tournament scene.

Now how did we get this success ? I guess a few things which are crucial to a good tournament:

- Good prices guaranteed (sure people care about the chance of winning a mox or winning some crappy boosters the mox will get more people period)
- tournament announcement up well before the event (2-3 months in advance)
- PR, PR, PR post on every forum you can find about your event.. This could be less relevant for you guys in the US but we get a lot of people from other country's a lot easyer this way.
- Location !! Remember that awesome tournament smack in the middle of friggin nowhere ? I don't either because nobody came... Be within walking distance or at least within a reasonable cab drive of a Train / Bus station and if your real big an Airport

I see loads of events fail because they don't acknowledge the needs of the players (Decent venue with food within a reasonable amount of time from public transport with good prices)

Just my 2 cents as a Euro TO.

[Yare]

marske,

Thank you for your input. Have your events been sanctioned and if so, how has that impacted the quality of the decks? (both those that T8 and those that do not)

[Godder]

[quote auithor=marske]This could be less relevant for you guys in the US but we get a lot of people from other country's a lot easyer this way.[/quote]

I always chalked it up to denser populations than here in the states.  I wonder if there might be more behind it than that.

I think you'll find that has a lot to do with it. Also, professional chess is much bigger in Europe than elsewhere, as are difficult boardgames (Puerto Rico, Risk or Settlers, as opposed to Monopoly or Scrabble, say), which suggests that other professional-ish games like Magic are much more likely to thrive there than in the USA.

[Marske]

Thank you for your input. Have your events been sanctioned and if so, how has that impacted the quality of the decks? (both those that T8 and those that do not)

All of our events are non-sanctioned vintage (10 proxy) and I think this plays a big roll in us getting the numbers we get. I've been to sanctioned vintage events in the Netherlands and they tend to get about  20-ish people. With sanctioned events we do tend to have more non-powered / Fish / Aggro decks because of the lack of power.

I think you'll find that has a lot to do with it. Also, professional chess is much bigger in Europe than elsewhere, as are difficult boardgames (Puerto Rico, Risk or Settlers, as opposed to Monopoly or Scrabble, say), which suggests that other professional-ish games like Magic are much more likely to thrive there than in the USA.

Sure this accounts for some part of the whole story..But I do think some of the points I mentioned earlier do account for the success of an event.