How to deal with events that are too successful

I’ve heard the “we have shorter tourney hours, or limited entries, so people can enjoy the show” rationale before.

Unless the tournament is a group match format where the player must be in attendance, players can choose how much time they dedicate to qualifying versus attending the show, eating, sleeping, sight seeing, etc.

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I think the balance Jim talked about is perfect. Too many hours and it could hurt the other tournaments that are also happening. Besides, most high level players made it to the Finals so it seems to be working as a Circuit event that wants to attract top players.

Finally, NEPL is the largest league in the country and the Sanctum is one of the largest clubs in the US. No doubt a part of that has come from Expo attendees being exposed to Tournament pinball. At some point this event may have to expand or cap the size but this is not Jim’s first rodeo (he also runs a league/location and the 24hr Sanctum) and I trust that he knows when the time is right for change.

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Bowen lives in Salem, MA, about an hour away. He was at the show last year even though he couldn’t compete in the rumble.

I was happy to see people travel for the event. But the tourney format was well published in advance. Also 12 hours is a lot for those games. Jim is running the tournament format he knows he will be successful at. Very little game downtime. If a game goes down in ticket format it’s extra painful.

Also any way you slice it 12 hours is a lot of pinball.

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I guess what I’m asking is WHY smaller events seem to reflexively want to become circuit events? Is it simply because the opportunity presents itself?

Or do they want to become bigger, and in turn, attract a different, more competitive and focused audience that changes the dynamics of your lil’ ole pinball tournament?

The circuit designation creates different dynamics and expectations that come along with the $5 extra paid by each player. And for some events, those changes might not be in line with the original goals of the organizers, and might necessitate consideration of changes that the organizers might not necessarily think is in the best interests of their event.

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I don’t know how to test this exactly, but i don’t think the scenario you’ve laid out makes sense. I don’t think more machines makes it harder to qualify.

If there’s a tournament with one machine, top 16 scores qualify. Is it harder to qualify in a tournament with two machines where they both count?

No, it is not. But if only one of those two machines count, then it is definitely harder to qualify.

Here is a thread that dives deep into that subject.

Let’s try looking at it another way.

Assume 100 players. 10 games, best 5 count. Top 16 advance to finals.

Assume players 1-50 play ONLY on games labeled 1-5 and players 51-100 play ONLY on games labeled 6-10.

It is reasonable to assume the composite score distributions would be relatively the same for both groups of 50 players. In fact they could theoretically be identical, with a case where there are 2 players with a 500, (one on the 1-5 bank, the other on the 6-10 bank) and similarly 2 players with 450 etc.

So to be in the top 16, a player needs to be in the top 8 in one of these 2 groups.

Basically there are 2 subtourneys running in parallel and then merging.

If our tournament gets to that point, I’ll have to make some sort of poll to see what the majority of past participants want.

For Pintastic New England, it is essential that the vendors believe that nearly all tournament entrants also have other interests at the show. I like to think that the entrants might also want to see some of our seminars. We have a comprehensive show. I sometimes hear remarks like “tournament players don’t buy anything from the vendors” and I get some push-back when I try to recruit a top player to be a presenter or panelist in our seminar program. Keeping players on a short leash while they await their next turn reinforces these stereotypes. What can be done to bring “the two worlds of pinball” closer together?
…David Marston

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I like having different tournaments each day and none that span multiple days. If you have a 4 day show, you could even do tournaments on only three of the days that will give a full day that you can experience the rest of the show even if you did only tournaments the other three days.

This will give the option to the players to play in some tournaments and also see other parts of the show without actively being involved in a tournament.

Tournament players like Bowen and Eric Stone seem to do seminars every year. Tim and Bowden have done industry seminars. I would be interested in doing a seminar - “How to work the booth during a pinball streaming” program, featuring live calls of a match being played, bring in audience members to try their hand etc.

Tournament players have TONS of free time on their hands, especially ones who tend to qualify on these ticket formats without much trouble. All you have to do is reach out.

And these players have plenty of time while in line, or already qualified, to case the vendor hall, check out free play, etc. Most of the people I hang out with did this, they didn’t just sit in the tournament area for all 12 hours of qualifying. I spent hours in the free play hall, and I visited every single vendor booth, and bought another cool magnet from Charles Acosta’s cool pinball photos booth. What else are you gonna do while in a 45 minute line for Black Knight?

But there’s a certain point where I don’t get trying to “force” tournament players to “enjoy the show.” You can’t make people enjoy something. I don’t really have much interest in seminars, so I don’t go to them. Whether or not I’m tethered to a tournament is completely irrelevant in this decision.

You don’t “force” other showgoers to limit their time in the free play or vendor area so they go check out the tournament - what’s up with that? It would be great if everybody who came to the Pintastic show was forced to watch some of the tournament, set up a big screen, broadcast the finals commentary etc. Would really make the tournament area more exciting, and help show people how awesome competitive pinball can be. I’m joking about literally forcing them to do this, but it would be nice if shows put a few bucks into making the tournament area interesting, enticing, and entertaining, rather than just a weird corner of the show with pinball machines you aren’t allowed to play. It should be another attraction, not just an “off limits weirdo area.”

Until the other 400 people at the show are forced to “enjoy” tournament pinball, I don’t see why the 100 people who are specifically for the tournament should be forced to “enjoy” the rest of the show. The tournament players pay their admission just like everybody else and should be able to enjoy the show as they see fit.

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You were the only participant in this discussion to use the word “force” (re: requiring tourney players to go see the rest of the show, and show attendees required to view the tourney)… so I don’t think your focus on a requirement is relevant, nor the intent of anyone organizing shows or tourneys.

Better to focus on other great topic/suggestions you raised: how do we make (and how have we made) tourneys more entertaining and attractive for more non-tourney show attendees to want to check out the tourney outside of cursing under their breath that they can’t play the sweet Flip Flop in the tourney bank.

And how do we design (and have designed) tournament schedules to allow players the degrees of freedom to enjoy other aspects of the show besides solely the tourney.

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“force” is of course hyperbole, but I’m not sure how else to interpret “we keep qualifying hours shorts so people can enjoy the entire show!”

I agree with you of course. The show is kickass, so there’s plenty of incentive for tournament players to do other things if they want. And yes, I think it would be great if the shows do a little here and there to make the tournament area more attractive to showgoing civilians, and that’s more worthwhile than complaining about short qualifying hours.

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What is the pushback you are describing?

If a tournament requires you to purchase show tickets, it would be beneficial to have a drop down option so the attendee can be asked what their primary reason for attending is. If show tickets can be purchased months in advance, knowing you have a spike in the reason being the tournament could allow the TD to make adjustments. I understand logistically/fire code may cause participant caps (100 for the Sanctum/1000 for Pinburgh) but to just come up with an arbitrary number based off of no data is what we should want to avoid. Supply should meet demand when possible and I think that is how you can run a successful event.

I schedule the seminars for Pintastic, and I have to put Eric and Bowen in non-tournament hours. I’ve invited Steve Bowden to be a speaker, but so far he hasn’t taken me up on that. For 2019, Tim Sexton was unable to be at a seminar advertised as the “Steve Ritchie with Tim Sexton” seminar because he qualified for elimination rounds in the Rumble. He was around for his own seminar on Friday afternoon. I would be interested in having your seminar about “working the booth” - can we PM about it? To summarize, I see a mixed bag on speaker availability. I like the constructive tone in this thread so far. Anyone else want to pitch a seminar idea to me?
…David Marston

Let’s talk!!!

Just don’t schedule the seminar during the elimination rounds for the Rumble Mr. 54 :grinning:

We were trying to get access to the massive projector screen in the vendor hall to broadcast the finals on. We couldn’t even get reliable internet from them for the stream so we had to gorilla our own internet infrastructure in the hotel this year, so we didn’t end up pursuing the projector. Hopefully we can move forward with a more interactive crowd and broadcast for finals at our new location.

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@LOTR_breath thanks for the link, but i don’t think it satisfactorily answers my question.

I guess my issue is with how harder is being defined. Which part is harder? Getting top 8 scores are harder than top 16 scores, sure. But as pointed out, there’s a decreased pool of competitors for top scores. Once a player has “locked in” qualifying on 5 machines, their scores on the rest of the machines aren’t relevant.