Interest check for Vintage in New York City

[boggyb]

Seems very odd to me that there are a number of regular tournaments held at stores within 60-90 minutes of New York, but never any inside the city itself. Is there some intrinsic reason the city is barren of Vintage? Meaning, are the suburban locations actually more convenient, and there aren't any interested people in the city? If not, just wondering who and how many would be down for a tournament or just a casual get together inside the city.

Prospero's mentioned King's Games in Brooklyn and Jim Hanley's Universe in Manhattan as possible locations -- any others that people know about?

[Prospero]

Vintage in New York City hasn’t been really successful for a whole host of reasons.

To list a few:

1.  The cost of running a tournament at a NYC venue is prohibitive for independent T/O’s.  A few months after I started running N.Y.S.E. events, I was told that I should run a P9 tournament in NYC.  The cost of the suggested venue was more than the cost of the prize support.  T/O’s generally pay between 10%-20% of entry fees for a venue.  The most that I have ever paid for venue rights for a day is $270.  It’s difficult for a store paying the kind of rent that a NYC store pays to have the space for that many players (90) and be able to survive on that little.  There’s a church in Manhattan that’s close to Penn Station.  Gray Matter Conventions ran their NYC events there for a while; they paid $1,000 for the venue for the day.  Even if I found a good date that didn’t conflict with any other events in the area, and I was able to get the church, I’d still be spending about four times as much as I’ve ever spent on a venue.  

Now, you could respond and say ‘but they have dealers on site!’  And you’d be right.  But dealers come because there are so many people in the room that day.  You’d need three or four dealers on hand, and you’d need to have a significant (at least 150 people) attendance that day in order to make the dealers feel like it was worth the money and effort on their part.

2. Prize support has become much more expensive in the last few years.  I ran my first N.Y.S.E. event in July of 2010, and the prize support of an Unlimited Mox Ruby (in pretty nice shape), an English Mana Drain, two Revised Underground Sea’s, a playset of Force of Wills and an English Mana Crypt ran me $595.  That same prize support would probably run me about $865 today.  The prices on these cards have been affected by Legacy, EDH, and collectors – these prices aren’t likely to come back down.  If the prices don’t come down, then the tournaments will reflect that.  

3.  The profit motive is a powerful thing, and I believe that it’s a good thing, but it puts stark choices in front of prospective Vintage T/O’s.  Should a prospective T/O use that weekend to run a Vintage event that will (likely) be sparsely attended, or should they commit that Saturday/Sunday to a more popular format?  If Vintage were to dramatically gain in popularity, I think it would begin its rise in the outposts, eventually working its way in to the major locations in the U.S.

4.  While the prices on the cards that people want to play for have changed, people aren’t necessarily that much more willing to pay extra on an entry fee.  My entry fees were $25 per person back in 2010.  If I kicked them up to correspond with the increase in costs, I’d charge a little over $36 per person in entry fees to run N.Y.S.E. I all over again.  People won’t pay that, or, at least, I don’t think that they will.  The majority of my prize support is now dealer credit, as opposed to set singles.

I do think it’s possible to have something along the lines of a Bazaar of Moxen level event in the United States, but it would take a tremendous amount of work on the part of the T/O’s, along with a tremendous amount of risk.  I would absolutely love to be a part of putting something like that together, and I’ve seriously considered it in the past, but the details of it hold me back as things stand now.  

Neutral Ground had the occasional Vintage event, but they were never truly dedicated to the format, as some stores were/are.  There really hasn't ever been a truly active, thriving Vintage scene in New York City.  Many players who enjoy the format call New York City home, but the inherent restrictions of NYC hold back the potential scene.  

There's a new store in Brooklyn; 20 Sided Store.  I'm pretty sure they've never run Vintage before, but there's a first time for everything.

Even still, the most important question, in my mind, is this; why is Vintage in NYC necessary?  With transportation being what it is, and Vintage being the tightly knit community that it is, do we really need a store in NYC that's willing to run events when we have stores in Jersey and on Long Island that are willing to do so?  Maybe it's less convenient for the players who live in NYC, but that is, unfortunately, the nature of the beast.  

[boggyb]

Great, thank you for your thoughtful response. I should say though that I wasn't really thinking, except maybe in a hopeful sense, of anything more than like ≤ 12 dudes on a thursday night meeting at a store in brooklyn somewhere for a low stakes affair -- nothing even approaching the level of the NYSE tournaments, much less BOM. Just regular, face to face Vintage, presumably amongst people in the city or close to it. I guess I should've asked, how many people are there in the city who'd like to meet up and play sometime? Seems likely that there's a store with 4 free tables in the back of it on a weeknight somewheres.

[Prospero]

Great, thank you for your thoughtful response. I should say though that I wasn't really thinking, except maybe in a hopeful sense, of anything more than like ≤ 12 dudes on a thursday night meeting at a store in brooklyn somewhere for a low stakes affair -- nothing even approaching the level of the NYSE tournaments, much less BOM. Just regular, face to face Vintage, presumably amongst people in the city or close to it. I guess I should've asked, how many people are there in the city who'd like to meet up and play sometime? Seems likely that there's a store with 4 free tables in the back of it on a weeknight somewheres.

The crowd is smaller than it used to be.  Off the top of my head I can only think of one guy who really is into it (and lives in Manhattan), but he's a lawyer putting in 100+ hour weeks.  About a year and a half ago there were four or five guys in the Wall St. area who played, but they've moved on to Legacy.  I know of a few guys in Queens - you should reach out to Samoht about playtesting Vintage in NYC.

Shoot me a PM with some details as to where you're located, what you're looking for, etc. and I'll see if I can get you in touch with people directly.  If you can make it out on the LIRR from Penn, I can probably pick you up and drop you back off at a train station for the day of an event.  There's a small event this Sunday in Bellmore, and there will be an event out in Selden at some point in July.

[Protoaddict]

So as someone who lives in Queens, works in Manhattan, plays Magic in those 2 areas plus at 20sided store in Brooklyn, and who does not drive, I would love to see more vintage in NYC. I tend to carry a deck with me wherever I go to play, and I know in NYC there are a fair number of players who carry proxy lists with them and a few who have non proxy lists if they know others are coming to play. Most want to get into vintage more but just won't take the dive to buy non proxy cards because they don't think enough people will do it.

I have talked to the owner of 20sided store in the past and he said that if there was enough interest to get at least 8 people in the door he could run a 15 proxy event on one of his off days to see how it goes. The issue with that is of course that not a whole lot of people are running in to play vintage on a Wednesday.

Proxy or not, I do think with enough coordination we could easily get an event going on a Saturday/Sunday to test the waters. 20sided store would be the ideal location for it but there is also Montasy Comics in midtown now (opened a month or 2 ago) that actually has some power in the showcase.

[Prospero]

So as someone who lives in Queens, works in Manhattan, plays Magic in those 2 areas plus at 20sided store in Brooklyn, and who does not drive, I would love to see more vintage in NYC. I tend to carry a deck with me wherever I go to play, and I know in NYC there are a fair number of players who carry proxy lists with them and a few who have non proxy lists if they know others are coming to play. Most want to get into vintage more but just won't take the dive to buy non proxy cards because they don't think enough people will do it.

I have talked to the owner of 20sided store in the past and he said that if there was enough interest to get at least 8 people in the door he could run a 15 proxy event on one of his off days to see how it goes. The issue with that is of course that not a whole lot of people are running in to play vintage on a Wednesday.

Proxy or not, I do think with enough coordination we could easily get an event going on a Saturday/Sunday to test the waters. 20sided store would be the ideal location for it but there is also Montasy Comics in midtown now (opened a month or 2 ago) that actually has some power in the showcase.

Changster has a playtest group of NYC guys, and I know that he has reached out to a few stores in NYC about running small events.  After you have 10 posts you'll be able to PM him.  Reach out to him, when you can, and he may have more information for you.

Other than that, there are still the events on Long Island.  There was the NYSE Lite this past weekend, there is the NY NEV event on 12/1, and I will probably have Alan schedule another NYSE Lite before the year is out.