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Quoted from pinballrebel:I take full responsibility for this disaster though I don't like the phrase. I was in charge of them. No other show organizer is responsible for tourneys at TPF
I was under the impression that Marcus was the tournament director?
Quoted from pinballrebel:We actually ran multiples at once.
The bottleneck on this was you had to wait for players who qualified in multiple tournaments to finish their bracket in one before they could play in the other.
Quoted from mhs:What were the payouts / costs to enter at tpf? 250 people should generate a healthy pool.
For the full tourney (Texas State Championship):
Prizes
Division A (1-16)
1st Place
Trophy + $750 cash
2nd Place
Trophy + $200 cash
3rd Place
Trophy + $150 cash
Division B (17-32)
1st Place
Trophy + $200 cash
2nd Place
Trophy + $100 cash
3rd Place
Trophy + $50 cash
Cost to enter: at least 9 tournament tickets ($5 each, total minimum $45) as each individual title had separate qualifying. (This is not adequately understood by most of the people working registration and selling tickets, nor on the signage, you had to ask specifically the tournament volunteers how it worked.)
Qualifying was unlimited "pump and dump" even though the payouts were flat rate, not based on number of entries?
There were also separate tourney finals based on type of game (EM, Modern, etc). Your qualifying on a title counted for both the main tournament and the sub-tournaments. 2 of the sub tournaments were 3 games each (Classic and EM, minimum entry $15), 1 was 2 (Modern, minimum entry $10), 1 was a single game (Avengers) (Texas Shootout, minimum entry $5)
All sub tournies had this payout structure:
A Division (top 8 qualifiers): $150/$75/$50 + trophies
B Division (next 8): $75/$50/$25 + trophies
C Division (next 8): trophies only
Quoted from TigerLaw:I wish I would have entered the tournament and got to hang around till 5am. Us blue wrist band people had to leave at 1am and we were ready for more pinball. Seriously awesome show! Great hotel too. I hope y'all have it at the same place next year.
Blue wrist band people in the tournament werent exactly playing pinball till 5 am, more a lot of sitting around waiting for their bracket to start until finally playing at 4 am or so.
Quoted from pinballrebel:Top qualifier was also paid in each em, classic, shoot out, and modern.
Forgot about that $75 each on those.
My question is this: shouldn't the payouts have been variable based on the number of entries as opposed to fixed, isn't that the point of running the "open qualify" "pump and dump" system? Because it seems like with fixed payouts, and the number of people playing, it would have been better (and more fair to those with limited budgets) to do a single entry qualify system?
Quoted from pinballrebel:TPF tourneys actually must help support other show costs. Venue, etc. that hasn't always been popular with everyone. That topic has been beat to death in other venues that cater more to players. No venue, no hall, no tourneys. We have to balance that.
I wasn't aware of that, I thought that was all covered by the admissions fees to attend the show.
Quoted from phishrace:What percent of the entry fees were paid out at PPE last year?
I didn't attend specifically because too much was taken off the top in past years. IMO, competition should be celebrated at a pinball show. Not profited from. Competition is the heart of the hobby.
I don't think any of these shows are "profiting", I could be wrong.
Quoted from bkerins:The software continues to advance, and hopefully by next TPF it will be standardized and in great, usable condition. No one should have to reinvent the wheel, because when it breaks down...
Stern has that software option currently in Avengers, the default ball save is 45 seconds. That can be turned down or even off. We'll be using Avengers at Pinburgh in a few weeks with those ball savers turned way, way down. Were you using the version with the fixed Nick Fury award, or the older software with heavy bonus multipliers?
The Avengers software that was being used left extra ball enabled even when set to OFF.
Quoted from pinballrebel:We are also trying to support the people who still make pinball to grow pinball. What good does it do to use a WMS pin? They could care less they want you to play slots. But if new folks to the hobby get to play Avengers and then they want one that is good for all of us who love pinball. I know for a fact a guy bought an Avengers at the show because he played it and loved it.
I'm trying to grow pinball as a hobby/industry not just as a professional sport.
I know people got to see Woz and Avengers and ACDC and several were sold due to the fact people got to see new games.
I think a possible solution might be to run completely separate "amateur" and "pro" tournaments that don't use the same machines at all. Use the new machines for the amateur tournaments, but use "tried and true" machines that are at least a year old for the pro one, instead of having everyone qualify on the same machines and using how they did to place them in "A B C", have a seperate bank for each.
Quoted from SSpinball:Doing a show of this size requires, unbelieable acts of faith,work, dedication and money.
We do not run this show to get rich, and its a good thing.
Moving to a new location, requires massive work, planning and $, to resolve every issue.
We Produce the show, because we like to share, and spread the hobby of pinball, allowing everyone a common place to gather with friends , and show off thier skills, and make freinds.
It is very easy to make assumputions without knowing facts,
or the real problems that must be over come, to produce a show
of this size and still hold everything together.
for instance; the Hotel coordinator ordered all Electrical work stopped until Friday at 5:00.
We could do nothing with projectors and computers setups with no power.
(We usually have these setup Thursday night.)
We could not control when the loading doors were open or closed, or which doors.
We had multipule issues with the new Facility, and fought tooth and nail with Hilton Anatole.
It is easy to sit back after the fact, and pickout the issues, not so easy before hand.
The newest avalaible pins (just like we always do) we used did not help.
Running the tournaments is no picnic, were mistakes made yes,
will we improve, and learn from them yes.
Forums are good open information, we read and try and improve from suggestions.
If you wish to help, either phisyically @ the TPF show,
or just offer suggestions, or your view point,
please feel free to drop us an email: Info AT texaspinball.com
we answer every request, or suggestion submitted.
thanks, Texas Pinball Team / Shannon Smith
It seems like the new hotel was a lot more difficult, and did a lot more price gouging than the old one (parking etc) even though they were both Hiltons, am I correct?
Quoted from Whysnow:I have had major complaints that people DO NOT want to stand/sit in line to que for a game. They want to be able to socialize and talk/drink with buddies rather than wait patiently in line behind the next game they want to play.
How about getting those vibrating coasters they use at TGI Friday's?
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