Blue Bell Game Day #1 - Sat. 1/2/2010 Vintage, Extended, EDH, DOUBLE MOX EVENT!

[personalbackfire]

Yes the prizes were adjusted up. Additional deal credit was given out to everyone who top 8ed I believe.

[MirariKnight]

Prize support was scaled way up, table credit was added to all the top 8 prizes. Attendance was really impressive.
Awesome tournament, one of the best in a while.

[Yare]

Congrats, Max, on taking this one down! Really impressive!

[RitNecroWin]

Prize support was scaled way up, table credit was added to all the top 8 prizes. Attendance was really impressive.
Awesome tournament, one of the best in a while.

Thank you for such a quick response  

I assumed that Nick would make the move to scale up and I'm happy to hear that this occurred. (Mark of a GREAT TO imho.)

I look forward to the Philly tourny scene growing even more and hopefully getting to attend some of these events.

[voltron00x]

Congrats on a great turnout; 64 players is incredible.

I'm wondering if prize support was adjusted to reflect attendance?

I ask because Mike took a LOT of grief for this in the past with these events... I noticed immediatly that:
64 players at $25 a player is $1600
Mox Emerald Unl. $300 (Assuming Ex - NM)
Mox Pearl Unl. $300
Grim Tutor $125
Grim Tutor $125
5-8th $40 table credit  $160 total (NOT taking into account that the table credit still warrents the profit portion of moving your own cards at small profit)
=$20 table credit for highest finishing non-proxy deck.

This totals $1030.... a difference of $570 (again, my values are very kind and I'm not counting team fees or additonal proxies.)


So unless you are spending $570 for the venue, I'm curious if this went back into the event or will go toward future events?

Shouldn't you just ask Nick this over PM before posting it?  The way you posted this leaves a lot to be desired IMO.

Yes, the entire top 8 was increased.  I believe it was something like +$10 table credit for 5th-8th, plus $25 table credit 3rd/4th, plus $50 table credit 2nd, plus $100 table credit for first, so +$240 was added to the prize pool.  Eric is also playing attendance-free b/c he won the 2009 Champs season.  There is obviously a venue cost and judge cost.  I don't think anyone would complain about the support at this event, or at any of Nick's events that I can recall.

[Ravager Sam]

The prizes got scaled so Max won 100$ in addition to his mox and I won 50$ in addition to my mox.  I was also the highest finishing player without proxies so I had another 25$ (up from 20) tacked on (thanks Nick!)

3rd/4th had 25$ tacked on, and 5-8 was bumped up to 50$

It was really ironic because one of my friends bailed at 10pm the night before the tournament, and if he showed up, it would have been 7 rounds.

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

Plus for all the prizes for the past player of the year (A whole year of comp'd entry fee's) and team events, other prizes and trophies have to be calculated so I'd say the payout was awesome!

[dark burn]

@ Ritnecrowin. 
 
Wow, does your post piss me off.  Yes, the way you calculated it, he brought in $570 more than what he paid out in prizes.  That barely seems worth it to me.  The event started at 11 am and registration started at 10.  The TO had to arrive at at least 9 am to set up and solve any potential problems.  What about travel time to the site?  Lets say a half hour.  The event ended about 7pm, another hour to give out all prizes and pack everything up, and another half hour to get home.  8:30 am to 8:30 pm. is 12 hours at work.  He also had to organize the event, advertise, and provide reinbursment for his assistant and the judge, both of who were also there for about 8 hours each.  Lets say minimum wage($7.50/hr) for the for the judge and assistant.  $7.5*16 hours=$120 compensation.  Now he only has $450 over what he brought in.  Divide that by the 12 hours he spends at the tournament and he makes $37.50 an hour.

Seems a bit much right?  Dont forget that he spent time on organizing the event and advertizing.  He is also working on a Saturday, which usually commands at least time and a half.  $37.50/hr seems reasonable to me.  Now, he did add $240 to the prize support, so his profit is actually only $17.50/hr.  Would you spend that much time and effort for $17.50/hr on your Saturday?

Why do you even care about this?  You werent at the event, so it didnt even affect you anyway.  Your group says you are a tournament organizer, so the only reason I can think that you would care is to show that Nick is making too much money, and at your next event you can advertize a payout that is better than his, hopefully taking players from Nick's events

[RitNecroWin]

@ Ritnecrowin. 
 
Wow, does your post piss me off.  Yes, the way you calculated it, he brought in $570 more than what he paid out in prizes.  That barely seems worth it to me.  The event started at 11 am and registration started at 10.  The TO had to arrive at at least 9 am to set up and solve any potential problems.  What about travel time to the site?  Lets say a half hour.  The event ended about 7pm, another hour to give out all prizes and pack everything up, and another half hour to get home.  8:30 am to 8:30 pm. is 12 hours at work.  He also had to organize the event, advertise, and provide reinbursment for his assistant and the judge, both of who were also there for about 8 hours each.  Lets say minimum wage($7.50/hr) for the for the judge and assistant.  $7.5*16 hours=$120 compensation.  Now he only has $450 over what he brought in.  Divide that by the 12 hours he spends at the tournament and he makes $37.50 an hour.

Seems a bit much right?  Dont forget that he spent time on organizing the event and advertizing.  He is also working on a Saturday, which usually commands at least time and a half.  $37.50/hr seems reasonable to me.  Now, he did add $240 to the prize support, so his profit is actually only $17.50/hr.  Would you spend that much time and effort for $17.50/hr on your Saturday?

Why do you even care about this?  You werent at the event, so it didnt even affect you anyway.  Your group says you are a tournament organizer, so the only reason I can think that you would care is to show that Nick is making too much money, and at your next event you can advertize a payout that is better than his, hopefully taking players from Nick's events

@Darkburn
I understand you are friends with Nick and so you would make the above post.
I find it VERY hypocritical that no one would question payout at these numbers after Mike was chasticed for the same issue. Having met Nick and spoken to him in regards to event issues, I assumed that he did scale prizes and my post would prove one of two things: 1) Nick is a stand up TO and should be publicly praised for his commitment to well run; fair events. 2) He didn't make the prize bump and that deserves to be brought to light.
Also, if you knew a thing about any of the events run in the Pittsburgh area, we have taken loss after loss in terms of prize support. In fact, Philly players cited our Time Walk event as example to Mike in terms of adequate and fair prize support.
Also, if you gave a thought to  the health of Vintage as a format, you'd realize that the goal of ANY TO is not to "take" players from anyone.. it's to bring players in.

I asked if the prizes were scaled; I was given an answer. The community SHOULD see that. I know that information like that makes myself , and others, more willing to travel to these events.

[voltron00x]

The problem is that you could have posted without the tone that was in your post, or w/out trying to break out dollar figures.

What you don't seem to grasp is that the local community had an issue with "prize scaling" meaning that draft sets were provided to 5th-8th place at past Blue Bells, adding somewhere in the neighborhood of $36 to the prize pool.

The real difference is that Nick operates as a dealer so that as TOs, Nick and Mike have fundamentally different priorities when it comes to operating a tournament as well as different buying power when it comes to acquiring prize support.  Mike made certain moves to make sure his economic model as a TO was profitable and certain members of the community had issues with that, some valid and some not.  Just because that happened to Mike in the past, would that make it right for you to try and incite the same thing for Nick's first Blue Bell?  If the extra money was going into the rest of the events for the year, what would your response be, and would it even matter to the people actually attending these things?

If you know Nick and you know he's a stand-up TO, then why even ask the question?  It just reeks of you trying to torpedo the guy.  I'm not saying you intentionally did, but that's how it read, which is why some of us kind of pissed off at your post.  Like I said, you should've either PM'd Nick or else waited to see what was posted in the TO Report, since I'm sure the prize bump would've been mentioned there.

[dark burn]

If you look at my previous posts about the prize support of Mikes events, I was one of the few that either had no problem with the support, or defended his prize support.  The reason I keep posting about the prize support is because I want ALL TO's to MAKE MONEY on these local and regional events.  If the TO's keep making money, they will continue to hold events, and more events means more reason for people to play competative vintage, which means vintage will hopefully grow.  That will help the HEALTH of vintage more than anything else I can think of.  Standard is so popular because there is an event every Friday or Saturday night.  I want vintage to be that way as well.

There is no reason you should be taking a loss on the prize support of the vintage events you run.  If you continue to take loss after loss at your events, I am positive that you will stop running the events.  I want you to make money, so that you have more incentive to make your next tourny even better than your last.

Your comment that philly players cited your prize support as a counterpoint to Mikes prize support actually makes the last paragraph of my first post true.  You were willing to take a loss in prize support to get players to come to your event while Mike nor Nick have that option.  


Also your prize support isnt actually fair because you are losing out on the deal.  Prize support should be fair to the players and the TO.

[RitNecroWin]

Your comment that philly players cited your prize support as a counterpoint to Mikes prize support actually makes the last paragraph of my first post true.  You were willing to take a loss in prize support to get players to come to your event while Mike nor Nick have that option.  Neither of them have a store front where people can stop in on a tuesday and pick up singles or other products.  You do.

Also your prize support isnt actually fair because you are losing out on the deal.  Prize support should be fair to the players and the TO.

I DO NOT own a store. When I have held events, everything has come from my pocket. I am an advocate of the prize pool (for vintage) going back to the players to grow the format.
I apologize if my post was construed as an attempt to 'torpedo' Nick. That was not my intention.

[dark burn]

My fault, I was told you were owner or part owner of mr. nice guys games.  Previous post is edited.

In other news, my work and school schedule is going through a major overhaul which will hopefully actually allow me to make your event on 2/20.  Currently I work every weekend and can't make trips anywhere.  Hopefully I will be there.

[Valorale]

Did anyone else from DC/Baltimore get hosed by the tanker truck fire on 95n that morning? 3 guys coming up from the DC area were forced to turn around and abandon hopes of making it there. We hit the wall of traffic at about 9am, didnt get clear of it till 10:40am. The worst part though? No one got hurt!

[rikimaru75]

To my knowledge, 4 people from the Baltimore area managed to make it up there (My brother and me as 2 of the 4 while the other two lived north of the accident.).