Is this prize support fair?

[Yare]

after reading through each of these replies, my opinion is that tourney prizes have literally nothing to do with attendance at vintage tournaments.  if there are players who stay away from a tourney due to lack of prizes (in my area) then those are players I couldn't care less about retaining if I was a TO.  they are the player who bitches and moans, never buys anything, and tries to rip off the 12 year old who opens a goyf.  Don't need em, don't want em.

Ok, all Vintage events will now have $20 entry fees and first place will be a mint Fourth Edition Merfolk of the Pearl Trident. Clearly attendance won't be affected and the players clearly shouldn't care about the prize.

Prizes matter. Like I said, though, they're just one factor. And like I said above, it's a matter of degree.

Like I said the first time, people who stay away because of prizes in my area are simply whining about nothing.  Prizes are not affecting attendance in any way. 

Your first sentence is a generalization about all Vintage tournaments while the subsequent statements concern only your local events. Consequently, I (perhaps mistakenly) read the whole statement as being about all Vintage tournaments. If prize support is "good" (however that is defined) in your area, then I can't argue on that point.

[RitNecroWin]

I figured I would chime in as a TO...
Why don't people do prize levels?! I'm sure many of you have seen the prize support for my event in August... This is coming out of my pocket... My personal power nine (part of me silently prays people take the cash, but they have the choice!), I'm paying for the venue (They aren't cheap people!), judges,the plaque for Dan fliers, door prizes..more important ABSURD amounts of my time..stress ABSURD again...
Unless we have 120+ players, I'm not into profit... In fact, at many points I'm losing money! -The levels guarantee I don't take a huge bath on prizes, but at the same time leave it completly up to the community to decide how insane they want the prizes to get.
BUT.. I don't mind because I'm not in this for money...(which some are and we need to respect that, it's often there livelyhood)
I LOVE vintage... I LOVE the players (in a straight way... sans Twaun  ).. This is just as much for me as for the players... I WANT you guys to be excited to come out.... Part of me wanted to make this the same weekend as GP Boston, because I want WOTC to see that there is a vintage scene still and it can effect other formats....
This may not make much sense and I apologize (Also the grammar and spelling is probably a mess) because while I'm working on writing this, I'm working on finalizing my home loan as I'm buying a house in less than a month-so my mind is in like 3 places: posting, mortgage and Pens game. I could have tried to completly profit on my event, especially with a motive like buying a house (if you ever have you KNOW what I mean!) but I planned this to give back to everyone and to have a good time... In summation, TOs should really consider prize levels and leae it to the community to decide what they will be playing for.. in the end we'll only have ourselves to blame and not the TO who has tried to give you the best they can!

[RichardD]

I figured I would chime in as a TO...
Why don't people do prize levels?! I'm sure many of you have seen the prize support for my event in August... This is coming out of my pocket... My personal power nine (part of me silently prays people take the cash, but they have the choice!), I'm paying for the venue (They aren't cheap people!), judges,the plaque for Dan fliers, door prizes..more important ABSURD amounts of my time..stress ABSURD again...
Unless we have 120+ players, I'm not into profit... In fact, at many points I'm losing money! -The levels guarantee I don't take a huge bath on prizes, but at the same time leave it completly up to the community to decide how insane they want the prizes to get.
BUT.. I don't mind because I'm not in this for money...(which some are and we need to respect that, it's often there livelyhood)
I LOVE vintage... I LOVE the players (in a straight way... sans Twaun  ).. This is just as much for me as for the players... I WANT you guys to be excited to come out.... Part of me wanted to make this the same weekend as GP Boston, because I want WOTC to see that there is a vintage scene still and it can effect other formats....
This may not make much sense and I apologize (Also the grammar and spelling is probably a mess) because while I'm working on writing this, I'm working on finalizing my home loan as I'm buying a house in less than a month-so my mind is in like 3 places: posting, mortgage and Pens game. I could have tried to completly profit on my event, especially with a motive like buying a house (if you ever have you KNOW what I mean!) but I planned this to give back to everyone and to have a good time... In summation, TOs should really consider prize levels and leae it to the community to decide what they will be playing for.. in the end we'll only have ourselves to blame and not the TO who has tried to give you the best they can!

I agree and disagree.
I've done both and both have let me down.

When I garanteed a piece of power for first place only 10-14 people showed up...
When I gave the structured prizes with no power piece for when only 20 people showed up, but with one when 35 people showed up, still only 12 people showed up.
And this while other tournaments were drawing 50-80 people.
Therefore I stopped organizing, because I lost money either way.

I'm not saying you're ideas are bad, I'm only saying they won't work for everybody.

[MISTERTREK]

Prize structure now updated.