I figure its about time I chime on on this darn thing.
At the Endicott tourney, "only" 90 people showed up. 90 people is a lot, but when you are giving away an entire set of Power 9, you need about 120 people @ $30 each and about 150 people @ $25. And if you want to be like iamfishman and charge $15, you need to have well over 200 people, which I do not believe any Type 1 tourney stateside has done yet.
Actually, I started charging $20 once I moved to power/Loa for top 8.
One thing that I'm noticing more and more is that giving away pieces of power for prizes is becoming increasingly difficult. Like Mykeatog pointed out in his thread, at $25 each, he would need about 30 people to show up just to break even with the Lennox tourney, and he's only giving away one power card, one Drain, and some pricey but not obscene rares in Mana Crypt and Nether Void. Furthermore, when people were like "You're only giving away one power card!", prices have gone up so much that a Mana Drain is still a $100 card.
This is an excellent part. People may still be largely in the mindset of 15 heads at $10 a piece for a piece of power like it was 2-3 years ago. I don't feel that those people who go to a tournament really stop and calculate everything that goes into the cost.
TOs need to know what their player base is, then make the prize structure around it. If you only expect a mid-level tournament, don't try to be the next Waterbury and then have to jack the price way up.
Again, good point. TO's too often want to jump on the huge tourney/get rich train. How can you complain about a surprising attendance if you have never held an event before. It is my opinion that with the exception of SCG, any organizer who wants to start running tourneys should start with anything above a mox tournament and try to grow from there.
I agree that having huge prizes for third-eigth place is not usually needed. While larger events can support these nicer prizes, smaller tournaments need not.
Still, I do think that for an event of decent size, the prizes from third through eight ought at least to be worth the entrance fee of the event. Recently, a friend of mine made top eight in a large Lotus tournament, but the TO saw fit to give him a prize worth less than the $15 entry fee. I can see his frustration with this, since he had spent all day playing.
Let's consider if smaller events can give prizes to top 8.
I think you should look at it as a percentage system. Let's say you have x players at an entry fee of y dollars. You have just pulled in xy dollars.
1st Place gets a prize valued at about 30% of xy
2nd Place gets a prize valued at about 15% of xy
3rd-4th Place each get a prize valued at about 10% of xy
5th-8th Place each get a prize valued at about 5% of xy
The way this works out...in order for everyone in the top 8 to win a prize valued at what they payed 0.05xy > or = y
which will be true provided that 0.05x > or = 1
and thus x > or = 20.
Can any decently advertised tourney get 20 people. Absolutely, if the first place is a mox. Now...to have the first prize be a mox.
0.3xy > or = 250
So xy > or = 833.33...
This shows then that either the number of people or entry fee would have to be quite large to support the previous prize structure. Neither of these would be true at this smaller tournament. Those 20 people are certainly not going to pay $42 to play in a mox tournament.
The logistics of it are just not feesible. Any tournament that has a large percent of its population enter the top 8, cannot feed them all prizes.
Oh, and stores have the added benefit of selling stuff that players need. Tournaments such as the one that kl0wn put on are much tougher to break even at due to him not selling stuff and making money the retail way.
WOOT...speak on brotha JazzyKat. This is so true. Just for starters, vendors who run tournaments have a huge advantage on people like me and Klown. Often times, the vending is more profitable then the tournament.
{VENT}
Additionally, I really want to address these people who I hear whispering about how "Ray" or "SCG" are making a killing at these events. $$$ appear in their eyes as the wonder about how we ended up on this supposed mountain of money. If it is soooooo easy to score tons of loot...you go do it. Hmmm...the stacks of 20s they see look good, but take one second and add up ebay costs(remember, I am not a vendor) for all the prizes I gave. Factor in the cost to rent a three bay ballroom in a city for 24 hours. Next, throw in $100 in copy costs and postage. Add in about 15 million other little prizes and consider the hours upon hours of preperation for the event, divide by your remaining money. You should find yourself with the equivalent of a nice minimum wage job!
Sooo...there it is...take my TO job, because unless you just flat out enjoy doing it as much as I do...I can't think why you would want to.
{END VENT}
you have to remember as well, the whole point of running tournaments, from a TO perspective, is to get a piece of the pie. I think a lot of players miss that when looking at what it costs a TO to host a venue.
The prizes are the most glaringly obvious. What you don't see is the cost for the venue, the cost for people working the venue, the cost for advertising, the cost for food that is brought, and other costs that just happen (IE: car breaks down while getting to said venue; hotel room for the night at said venue, etc..).
15 people at $15 does NOT justify a $300 first place prize. It justifies a $100 first prize. And that's if you're in a decent location, with staff.
Although we as a "Vintage" community want to keep things free, open, and hippy-esque, we must remember that the proverbial man needs his cream too, and unless we look at it from that perspective, I don't believe we can really understand just what it takes to hold a tournament.
Bottom line: We need to STFU and focus more on getting people to simply
host tournaments, rather than worry about a NM beta set of power as the prize for T8.
I just typed alot when I could have quoted this...DOH...anyway...the one thing I disagree with that was said here is the very first line. NOT EVERY TO needs to get a "piece of the pie". While it is true we need something to make our time and energy worth it(we can't lose money), people like Klown and myself GENUINELY enjoy running tournaments. SCG may have a different agenda, but that is fine. Their goals are not better or worse...just different.
To me it seems that power tournys started to get rediculious when a cearting TO started to compete with Ray's Waterbury tournys giving out multiple pieces of power. Till then it was sort of a common fact that 1 mox was a big tourny and if a lotus was put up that's a really big tourny. Top 8 prizes were determined by attendance often. This was all cool. Also most other power events were held is stores where the owner had the space for the players and didn't need to rent.
That's a very good point. I hadn't thought of that. It was a big deal the first time I got enough people to up the prizes to a Lotus for first. Also, it used to be a real original idea, that I gave a trophy away for the Tournament of Champions. Next thing I know, there are ads for DOuble Lotuses and Trophies from every direction under the sun. If this thread determines that prizes have gotten out of control. Would that be consider the moment when it all started?
It's unfortunate that the endicott tournament wasn't more successful and that money was lost by the TO's. However this is what the second tournament that's been run in that area. Compared to Waterbury the Endicott/Syracuse tournys are babies. Ray has built his player base for years to a point where he can be pretty sure of the attendance and plan his prizes accordingly.
Rome was not built in a day. Very few people know that I was doing Bi-monthly tournaments for almost a year before Waterbury broke an attendance of 60. It may further blow people's minds to know that I have had Waterburys of 27, 31, and even an abysmal 16 people. The most important thing for any first time tournament is simply to do the best job you can do. Make sure you are comfortable with how to run a tournament, you have food/drink covered. Proper space is important. Basically, don't give anyone any reason not to come back and they won't.
I think the TO's to need to rethink their prize structure based on what kind of effort they put into promoting it - you only get really big tournaments (which you need to break even/make money on multiple power prizes) if you have promoted your venue/event. How long did it take Ray to make money on Waterbury and get the kind of turnout he does? probably 2-3 of them.
Realistically, unless you've had successful tournaments in the past and can HYPE up your tournament (i.e. the SCG tournaments, Waterbury, etc), you're probably going to lose money giving away massive prizes like that....
I really gotta keep reading before I respond by saying something that was already said.
I think TO's really need to start milking that entertainment angle. Ray does a great job, and anyone who stayed the 2nd day at endicott knows how completely amazing it was, but most tournaments are just show up, play, award prizes. Making it more fun for the players can be even better than an increased prize structure.
So true. One of the things I like about Waterbury are the fun elements. The ability to meet other people, random eating contests(bacon bits, pancake syrup), Trivia, Lesbo action, Random Rafflees, Play Mats. If huge tournaments are gonna be the norm...those that stay afloat will be those that provide what I think, and this thread reiterated, that ultimately type one players just want a good time, but yet might still go to a big tournament, if they think they can get it there.
However, a system like that would require cooperation between TOs and also basic guidelines about the system.
For example, I win a 4 person tournament that feeds Waterbury. Does that mean that I'm as deserving of a first-round bye as Rich Shay, who, through no fault of his own, ends up having to win a 60 person tournament?
It also hurts to see grudges among TOs. For example, Lenox might be a decent feed for Waterbury, but Kowal and Bryce have had words to say about Lenox, so if both of them had Ray's ear, they might not allow Lenox to feed Waterbury, but My Porch in the middle of nowhere with 10 people showing up for some BBQ and a draft set would be allowed to feed Waterbury.
It also would require an administration. Would Ray have the last say as to who would get to feed Waterbury? The problem is that the TOs have a personal connection to a lot more people in Vintage, due to its community, as compared to the much more withdrawn Pro Tour/GPs, where a TO might know only a few dozen people.
To be quite honest, it sounds like a great system, but it would take effort beyond what some TOs would be willing to do. I would like to see something like this happen, as it would indicate that TOs would realize that they aren't trying to compete with Waterbury, that they should instead try their best to make it better.
I have also though of this, but it would never in a million years work. One of the other reasons that Apollo left out is the ratio of cost and effort/reward. A round one (or even two round) bye to Waterbury can never be compared to a 3 round by to a grand prix. For starters, grand prixs offer a much higher payout scale(in cash no less) than Waterbury. Even if this was not the case, how much could one really expect a type 1 player to pay for a tournament in which the prize is something that he might not likely use, or if he did, would only increase his chances slightly to do well in an only $20 tournament in which the prize was at most a $600 card. Couple this with the possibility of fraudulent bye awarding, grudges between feeders, people who just flat out don't want byes(Jason Zheng...a previous winner of Waterbury....opted not to take his bye in the 1st round of the following event. He played and smashed his opponent with coveteous dragon btw.
In a nutshell, I can't say I know all the answers. I think from what was said in this thread so far(and this has been alot of intelligent stuff said we can conclude the following.
1.) New TO's must realize that type one is not an instant get rich scam.
2.) Know your crowd and expected attendance, and thus, know and be truthful about your limits. As Ice Cube once said, "and if you got enough game...you'll get her name and her number...without going under...". If your small tournaments are well run and people leave saying they are "the shiznit" then you will have that huge turnout like you wanted before you know it.
3.) TOs still need to coordiante date planning of events. Lack of cooperation hurts everyone.
4.) Type 1 Players...listen up....support SMALL tournaments. My friend Dave has a saying which explains why he will pay full price for a CD instead of downloading it free off the net. "If you don't support things you like, they will go away before you know it." Lose the ego, go to the small events too...play some wack deck...try a new format...and have some freakin fun.
That's it...i'm done for now
<3 u all
Ray
