@Austin: I may take you up on your offer.
Unfortunately cost is a factor in what we can do to improve things. Everything has to go though the convention center and use their labor, so things get super expensive very quickly.
As we grow we hope to make improvements to the tournament and spectating areas to make them a better experience every year.
I understand your point completely. It was a situation where we didnât know what the games would be like on the stage until 2 days before the event, when they were actually set up on the stage.
The games were adjusted as best we could for the situation and I think the techs and TDs that did the setup did an excellent job.
No options are off of the table for next year yet. There are already lots of options in the planning stages.
I donât envy your position, Doug, in coming up with a solution that balances the trade-offs between competition, spectators, and spectacle. Thanks for all the work and thought you and other have and are putting into this!
I can confirm the convention center is already looking into options that will make the stage sturdier.
It will stay, but it will not be the same construction. This is a learning process for both Replay staff and the union carpenters involved. A âjumbotronâ type improvement is also under consideration, but as with everything, technical details remain.
Without increased interest due to improved presentation, there is no competition.
It probably goes without saying, but thanks for your hard work, Doug.
This was by far the best tournament Iâve ever attended.
That verbiage in the PAPA rules where you changed the tiebreaker game to be chosen by the highest seed instead of being random . . . copy/paste to Pinburgh rules 
Speaking of tiebreakers, but bringing back the âbye-breakersâ after session 10? Surprised to see that change from last year (when I played Super Orbit with 20 other people for a bye) versus this yearâs whoever was seeded highest going in to session 10 simply got those byes (or double byes) without even playing. A free round advancement (or two!) is absolutely HUGE in my opinion and should be played forâŚbut in this case, a random game I guess is fine as long as it isnât High Hand. Or could always put to a vote by the group of players.
I was very surprised that byebreakers werenât played out. Agreed that itâs too significant NOT to be played!
I also like the tiebreaker game being voted on by the players involved. I recall this being the case at IFPA13 where players (maybe 8 playing for 1 spot?) cast blind votes between 3 choices and EBD narrowly beat out Metallica and Star Race. Itâs more fun as a player and a spectator for that battle to occur on a game thatâs well liked and actually chosen, rather than everyone randomly getting put on High Hand, rolling their eyes and hoping for outlane drains.
What? I can do both of these things, you know
With that many finals machines arranged in banks, game choice for tiebreaker is a very significant advantage to the high seed. Weâll talk it over
All tiebreakers need to be supervised by TDs, and there are just too many: potentially four per division! This led to chaos and difficulty at the end of Day 2 in 2015. Also keep in mind there are many hours of work for the Pinburgh crew after the tiebreakers end, in order to move and prepare 48 machines for Day 3âs finals, a task that did not end until well past 2 am even after the shortened tiebreakers this year.
Ending Day 2 on time is a very high priority that was not achieved in 2015 and was achieved in 2016. Weâll discuss it!
So 3 are simply getting in, bye, 2x bye⌠whatâs the 4th? Top seed?
Clearly to avoid a âvery significant advantageâ the only clear solution is NO ADVANTAGE 
Right, top qualifier. I think in 2015 we had 12 or 13 of the 16 possible tiebreaks to play, it was madness.
Feel free to make a suggestion! Is it not true that giving the game choice to the high seed is a significant advantage? We build the finals banks deliberately to mix the types of games one might need to succeed, in order to maximize the chances of having to play High Hand.
Select game number at random- so 1,2,3 or 4.
High seed gets choice of either machine from the two remaining banks of that game number.
So in my case you would have chosen the âEMâ so I could have picked either High Hand OR Doodle Bug (since I had already played Target Pool in my bank).
I would also love to have the random number draws done in front of the players and maybe even the audience. A lot of people have made comments about how it seems like the EM always gets picked, and I think the transparency is important. Random.org makes this super easy,
I physically flipped a coin in front of the audience while telling audience members what the consequences of the heads and tails were.
Josh: came here to post this idea and youâve already got it