Right, that’s what I saw, too. The link to the discount rooms was on a Facebook page that I didn’t even know existed.
I think it would be really great, for next year, to have all that on the actual ReplayFX site, together with tournament start/end dates and times. The cognoscenti know that qualifying starts on Thursday, but first timers don’t. Having the info available helps with hotel and flight bookings.
Not the link to the discounted room block, only a link to the generic hotel site.
It wasn’t a Circuit Event last year. It didn’t get enough votes to get in.
My Pinburgh registration sob story is that I remembered registration minutes before while on vacation (I knew it was coming, but my many alerts yesterday morning did not alert). So I was on my phone. I initially did have a ticket (or so I thought) in my cart, but when I proceeded to enter my info it had somehow put two pinburgh and two Replayfx tix in my cart. There was no way I could find to edit the number before checkout. I ended up abandoning it (idiotic, perhaps, but hey, one of you got those, so please thank me in beer) and of course having them sell out. Refreshing got me a brief taste of an available ticket, but then it vanished.
Still, I’m not worried. I signed right up for the waitlist, which got me in last year at the nearly last minute at the show even though I’d waited so long to put myself on it that i was like 241st in line. Coming from Portland that was a leap of faith, but this year I’ll know to sign up for flights and lodging much further ahead of time.
I think it’s clear what complicated logistics all of this is, so I think some of the anger is misplaced. Disappointment? Sure. And I love that creative ideas like satellite tournaments or having a live waitlist are being discussed here. Fortunately, there’s lots of pinball to play in a lot of places, and clearly lots of people who want to play it.
TL;DR There were some mobile user interface issues but they were minor, the waitlist process was easy and promising, and this isn’t worth getting angry about especially given the logistics involved in a mostly straightforward process.
If we’re talking about raising fee’s I wonder how something like this would look:
IFPA Rank
1-499 - $240
501-999 - $180
1000+ - $120
This could help bump the prize pool for B/C/D as they’d still incur the same traveling expenses as an A player.
Why penalize the good players?
The reward for “good” players is that they’ll have the opportunity at the prize pools for A & B which are substantially higher.
All players have that opportunity.
If anything, higher ranked players are excluded from lower divisions and therefore don’t have as much overall opportunity for cashing in.
With 840 slots , $120 admission for all, year after year is the determining factor of who participates going to be who can click on buying tickets fast enough? If there are restrictions on the back-end via qualifying it might be better to put some restrictions on the front-end.
Example:
1-499 - 210 Slots
500-999 - 210 Slots
1000+ - 420 Slots
So if there isn’t enough interest at 1000+ to fully sell out, but 210 have already bought registrations in my ranking block, I’m locked out of a not-sold-out tournament that I’m ready and waiting to give my money to?
Pass.
I’m offering a abstract alternative to the current process so I wouldn’t take it as literal. To answer your question there could be dates in place where the line in the sand would get moved. I personally haven’t had an issue with getting registered for Pinburgh the last 3 years but if there are folks who always seem to miss it for some reason or another it may or may not be worth investigating other options to make up the 840 participants.
Oh, I totally agree. Just vetting the idea. I myself sent 4 ideas of shall we say… varying viability to Doug directly. I think it’s great that lots of people are trying to come up with ideas so soon, usually emotions are still kinda raw at this point.
As I said to Doug… it’s a good problem to have being too popular 
I think its time to raise the ticket prices to around $300-$400. Allow 1 ticket purchase per transaction. The biggest competitive tournament of the year should not sell out in 10 seconds.
Wouldn’t sell out in Ten hours.
agree the actual entry cost is tiny. its £2K for flights for me.
I wonder if it would sell out so quickly if the entry fee was non-refundable. I mean, many of us take chances on non-refundable flights and hotel deals to get the best prices. I think MANY people just jump on the Pinburgh bandwagon because they know they can get refunds if they cancel by a certain date.
It would cause a new problem though. If there was no refund for canceling, there’s no incentive to let them know you aren’t coming, so they would get a ton of no shows on day 1 and there would be a mad scramble to fill spots.
But maybe the cancelation period should be much shorter. Last year I found out that I was going to get in so late in the process I couldn’t make arrangements. Flights and hotels were insanely expensive only a few weeks out.
Perhaps a bit of both: entry fee $200, minimum 50% cancellation penalty. $100 is probably enough to entice people to claim it if they need to cancel.
I’d be priced out with that entry fee. Pinburgh is our main summer travel event, and the only way we make it work is by driving 9 hours to save on flights and crashing on friend’s couches. It would be a bummer to miss out on this experience just because demand allows for a higher entry fee - and I have to wonder how it would impact age and income demographics at the event.
“You gotta pay to play…”
These kind of tiered cases can be picked apart if one focuses on corner or boundary cases but they do work over the longer haul and in average.
Tournament we were in this weekend had a similar model and i didnt hear a peep about it. Top tier had to pay 2x the middle tier and bottom tier was effectivily free ($1). Top 1000 paid $21
I see it as ensuring tournaments continue to draw in more people. No qualms from me.