Just attaching the papa circuit label on them has improved the tournament attendance on these events. For this reason I like what the circuit is doing for competitive pinball in general. I’d even be in support of a regional rotation of tournaments that are selected to be a part of the circuit. I have no suggestions on criteria or process, I just like seeing a variety of tournaments being involved.
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Totally agree Evan . . . I was more pointing out REMOVE THAT RULE FROM THE CRITERIA LIST 
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Not to say there is an easy solution, as anything popular across many people always get good and bad feedback anyway, a bit more control from the organizing committee wouldn’t be a bad thing. To avoid the complete randomness of the masses 
As @BMU mentioned, the regional unbalance was not enjoyable last year. Some kind of regional conference/division to try and balance the opportunity for regional players to attend more events would be a good way to try and motivate more people to join the circuit race?
I am sure @pinwizj could use some Marathon system example that I do not have as I am not a sports person to come up with something more specific? 
Mmmmm complaints and animosity . . . welcome to WPPR version ‘every one of them’.
Embrace being the asshole. After a decade I’ve gotten to enjoy that part quite a bit
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Has anyone taken a look at the system that’s used to rank the 50 best restaurants in the world?
• Assemble a group of voters (Top-ranked IFPA players).
• Divide them into regions.
• Each has X votes, Y of which must be from outside the region (the established system is X=7, Y=3).
Another system commonly used by restaurant guides is:
• Assemble voters.
• Define regions.
• Have all voters rank each of their tournament experiences from the previous year on a scale of 1-X, possibly within different categories (game condition, location, punctuality, etc.)
• Average the results. Top X events in each region are chosen, followed by the highest scores of the remaining events.
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I would think that as a minimum balancing act, there should be two events from each of 5 “zones” in the US - - NW, SW, NE, SE and Central. People, ideally previous circuit players, from each zone would have primary input into their own zone’s events. Circuit attendees from all zones would provide input for any events they went to regardless of location. Also have a limit of 1 Circuit event per city. The PAPA Circuit people would then do their best to balance overall feedback, regional feedback and PAPA oversight to make the final calls.
For 2018, this might look like this:
Overseas: # to take tbd, but let the Europeans choose among those nominated; maybe have up to 6 eventually?
NE sample candidates (choose at least 2): Sanctum / Buffalo / Ohio / Pittsburgh / etc.
SE: Atlanta / Orlando / OBX / Magfest / etc.
NW: NW Show / NW Champ / Vancouver / Portland / Lyons / Rocky Mtn
SW: INDISC / CalEx / PPE / Pin-A-Go-Go / Zapcon / PinPin [should NOT be all-CA]
Central: TPF / Austin / OKC / Expo / Michigan
I’d actually consider dropping both PAPA “A” and Pinburgh; these are “majors” and don’t need support from the Circuit to get people to attend. Use those two event spots to get other locations into the game.
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interesting!
That’s assuming the goal of the Circuit is to increase attendance at events that need it. What about the goal of highlighting the biggest/most prestigious events our sport has to offer? Those are two very different goals, and really tough to pick a list of events that meet both of them.
Let’s read the Circuit mission statement:
“The purpose of the PAPA Circuit is to raise the awareness of competitive pinball by showcasing high-level tournaments and associated events. PAPA believes by supporting the highest caliber of events and helping share information between them, we will create a positive working environment wherein all events improve and newcomers will feel safe in spending the time and money necessary to attend. Where one succeeds, others can learn from those successes and improve.”
Sort of a similar situation we have of being stuck between a rock and a hard place that we deal with for the WPPR system. Is it designed to rank players accurately or promote players to play in more events? The answer for us is . . . we’ll do both poorly, thank you very much! 
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ON a side note I always thought getting 100 papa circuit points for winning pinburgh or PAPA didn’t seem proportionated when the same 100 pts come from winning a regional circuit event with 50-60 people
I would say if the Major are in, they could have the same 2x as for the WPPR?
Some regional system would help balance voting and event attendance for sure.
Could the amount of events be increased from 18 to 20-22 for this upcoming year?
The WPPR multiplier for majors is 1.5x
I love you, Josh! 
I know that the format is different at some circuit events and who wants every event to be the same, anyway? But I do think that some aspects should be mandatory to be a circuit event. For instance, the points are distributed down to 24th place at circuit events. What sense does it make then to have a circuit event where only the top 16 go to the finals(SFGE). So eight players are awarded circuit points just on how they qualified in a pump-n-dump?
Another format for a circuit event that puzzles me is 24hours@TheSanctum. Staying up for 24 hours playing pinball is not for everyone. In fact for many it is practically impossible. I’m not knocking that tourney, as many who have played in it seem to like it. I just wonder if that kind of fringe format is what needs to be in the PAPA circuit.
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WPPR v5.4 . . . any tournament that uses Aliens pinball in it is worth 2X.
Love you too Joe
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While I haven’t yet made it up to the 24 hours @ The Sanctum (I’d love to, I’ll get there sometime!), I’ve heard nothing but good things about the event. From what I know, it seems like a terrific example for the Circuit. High quality event, lots of meaningful games played, representing a (relatively) underserved area of the country. What’s not to love? I can certainly understand that 24 hours straight of pinball isn’t for everyone, but I’ve heard people make similar complaints about the ~24 hours over 2 days of qualifying at Pinburgh.
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Hides behind a tree.
OBX has had a Fall and Spring tournament for years and averages around 40 people. Not sure what new for 2016 means.
It would help if the tournaments had any sort of name consistency . . . help a brotha out down there!
I just looked up “OBX Flippers Arcade 2016 Fall Pinball Bash”, and of course found just that one tournament.
I do see:
OBX Flippers Spring Pinball Tournament
OBX Spring Break Flippers Pinball Tournament
Rock and Roll OBX Flippers Pinball Tournament
Flippers Tournament
Looks like most of those dates are 2014 and newer? That would have only been 2 years worth of tournaments going into the 2016 season so TECHNICALLY OBX shouldn’t have even been eligible to apply for the Circuit - “Tournament must have already been held for a minimum of three years prior to applying”.
But I digress . . .
4/13/14 - 30 people
https://www.ifpapinball.com/tournaments/view.php?t=6338
11/8/14 - 43 people
https://www.ifpapinball.com/tournaments/view.php?t=7694
59 unique participants between the two events.
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So you got 2014,2015 and there was already an event in April 2016 with 38 people but the PAPA event in November 2016 has 81 participants. This covers 3 years.
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Flippers runs two tournaments a year, not one, I don’t think they should be penalized for this especially since the unique player count is over 40 between the two events. This covers 40 players or greater.
You mean after the 2016 circuit events were selected?
I’m definitely not saying Flippers should be penalized for running two events per year. I also don’t think that the rules NOT being followed are a bad thing . . . my ONLY point was why have rules listed that aren’t being followed.
If we posted:
“No tournament with less than 40 players will be endorsed for WPPR points” . . . but just went about our business awarding WPPR’s to all events regardless of player count . . . why have the rule?