Pinball Event: Roller Rumble

Events
1

Hey guys,

I am looking to put together an event near the end of the year as part of my 10th annual charity livestream for the Children’s Miracle Network.

I have some basics figured out but having begun a discussion on the topic, I want to make sure I have created an event welcoming to new players, has some level of randomness, as well as skill.

Here is what I would like to do for the “Rumble” portion of the event.

Maximum 30 players, which will draw a random number. That is the order to which they will start playing. Games will be 2 player matches, with up to as many matches going at once as there are machines.
When a match ends, a new player will enter, playing the winner of the previous match until there are 4 players remaining.

Those four players will play three games where the last place person will be eliminated until there is only one player remaining, and that player will we name the Roller Rumble Champion.

Now, since this specific event would likely be frustrating for a lot of players who would only get to play 1 match, I want to also have a main tournament that is where the WPPRs will be.

So, do I thinking of having qualifying run for 8 hours so that players can play up to 2 games on each machine, and the players with the best scores on each machine would qualify for finals. Assuming for now there is only 4 games, playoffs would be a round of 4 to round of 3, to 2, to the winner.

Would the main tournament be valuable enough to interest those looking for WPPRs and is the side event interesting enough to have everyone participate?

If not, I might be trying to pack too much into one day, so I could potentially have playoffs and the side event occur on day 2, but would that make the event too difficult/expensive for out of towners to take part in?

Help me tournament players and pinball players alike. Is what I’m describing heading in the right direction? I have until the Fall/Winter of this year, so I have time to hash out the details.

New to this so all feedback is helpful.

Should mention that since the event is for charity, there would be no cash prizes, but since the Rumble is wrestling themed, there would be title belts.

1 Like
2

A few of my thoughts.

First the Rumble side tournament. I see you are trying to emulate the Royal Rumble, and it’s a neat format. I’ve done the Rumble format before, just slightly different. Everyone gets assigned a random number between 1-30, or whatever the total number of participants you have. Whoever drew 1-4, they start a 4-player game, preferably on WWF Royal Rumble pinball with moderate settings, no ball saves, wide outlanes, and pull post rubbers. When the game ends last place is eliminated and participant #5 now joins the fray. Rinse and repeat until you have 2 final contestants, at which point they can play a head to head best of 3 format.

As for the main event, if 4 machines is the most you will have, I think that is your weakness. If you could get that number up to like 8, you have more viable options in my opinion. My opinion is that newer people like playing pinball together, not solo, so that means the best game format wouldn’t be idea. If you can get to 8 machines I would then run a flip frenzy tournament for the main qualifying and have it run 3-4 hours, with a break in the middle.