2017 seems to be the Year of the Large Event Schedule Conflict.
First, we had the Banning Expo opposite Pinmasters. Then, Super Clash June with the Northwest Show vs. Rocky Mountain Showdown vs. Atlanta Pinvasion. Next we have Pinburgh / Replay vs. California Extreme, Now, it looks like we have Free Play Florida vs. Outer Banks circuit. I’m sure there are others, but each of these four involves large events where I’ve previously been to ALL of them, most several times, and now must choose and skip a bunch. Seems to me that event organizers need to coordinate their dates better. I know there are always constraints, having been involved before, but really.
In one of my previous hobbies, science fiction conventions, hosting cities made a concerted effort to keep out of each other’s way on the annual schedule. We could use that here.
Heck, even points leader Trentaur had to skip a Circuit event last weekend.
I think if pinball gets to where most of us want it, it’s only going to become harder. How many big tournaments were on the docket to possibly get circuit status? I’m sure it was at least 25-30.
I do think that it’s only fair that the circuit elected tournaments be made on different weekends to allow someone at least the opportunity to make all of them. Having multiple circuit events the same weekend could hurt the prestige of the tour imo.
I guess I didn’t realize until I read this that circuit events could be on the same date.
There are only so many available weekends in a year and when scheduling a venue you never have a pick of all of them. Just be happy that we have this problem!
Any event that’s in a convention-like space has far greater scheduling concerns (the venue availability, organizer core team availability, etc) than avoiding other Circuit tourney weekends.
I had phone conversations with several event organizers over the past year to avoid conflicts with the final battle this year including OBX. It’s hard and for most big event/tournament organizers its purely for the love over the hobby. No personal or monetary benefit so it’s hard to cancel life plans just to avoid overlapping another event on another coast.
As an organizer for Pintastic/tournament TD scheduling convention centers is a very hard task(luckily I don’t have to do that )
I think this is one of the unintended consequences of major tournaments attaching themselves to arcade shows - the tournament isn’t the driver for the event, its a side show that isn’t central to the event’s existence. This is what you’re seeing with the CAX / ReplayFX situation. The tournament at CAX isn’t all that important to the show’s existence, the only reason it is major is because of its history and its reputation, but ultimately CAX is a massive gaming show and the tournament is just a small event that happens there. So when they run into a conflict with Pinburgh, they properly don’t prioritize it. It sucks but it makes sense. At the same time, as @KCB and @hisokajp will testify, running a major event separate from anything else has its won challenges in terms of finding space and attracting people to come out for “just a tournament”. Its pretty interesting seeing these different models develop, and everyone says its a good problem to have, but at the same time I am pretty bummed CAX won’t have a tourney this year.
In this case the weekend selected by CAX was the only non-holiday weekend offered by the convention center throughout all of July and August. So, there wasn’t really much anyone could do. I think if there is anyone to blame it is the 49ers for building their stadium directly across from the convention center
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