Greetings all, glad to see you back. Or, if you're a new reader, welcome to my blog. Typically, this space has been used for me to speak about Under Night directly, be it my own thoughts about the game version, my character or something else.
Today however, I will be speaking loosely about Tournament Organizing --- or TOing for short. For an additional bit of a background, in addition to being a player of Under Night, I have a relatively long history of organizing events for fighting games in my local area of Columbus, Ohio. I've detailed this more in my personal review blog posts, but I have also assisted with organizing parts of events at larger tournament events. I've also done my fair share of spin-off events such as exhibitions and team tournaments at these events as well.
There is a necessity for me to state that a large majority of my comfort zone with organizing events is at the local and smaller regional volunteering levels. I've paid out of my pocket to obtain spaces to hold events, but I have not particularly been familiar with hiring streaming talent for really large events. So... if you're looking for advice for purchasing contracts for venue internet (most relevant for streaming), how to handle negotiating with hotels for ballroom arrangements or what is or isn't a reasonable price for streaming services, this is not quite the blog post for that. Please talk to your local streamer/venue for more details there!
Oh, I'll also mention that this operates under the assumption that you have a venue in mind or you've secured a venue. This isn't quite a "start from scratch" discussion, but more of a "here's stuff to think about" kind of deal. As far as how to obtain a venue, there are many ways you can approach them, so I won't give detailed advice on that. However, churches, community centers, various spaces on college campuses, bars, LAN centers and restaurants are some such locations that I have seen work. Do research to see what works best for you!
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There are generally six areas that I think that warrant important attention when it comes to improving the tournament experience for both the organizer and attendees. I gave some of them funny names and phrases, but there's certainly more formal ways you can describe them. In order, they are:
1. Spatial Awareness
2. Staffing
3. Venue Fee/Payment
4. Equipment
5. Gaming!! (w/ some bracketeering)
6. Time Mastery Tips
Keep in mind that most of the early parts apply primarily to offline, but some of them apply to online as well!
-o-
To lead off, let's talk about Spatial Awareness. More literally, I'm talking about the layout of your space and theoretical floor plans for your venue space. I actually think that Organizers are really good at this step, so I won't really need to talk about this deeply.
One of the things that I do in any sort of space that I plan to use is to do a walkthrough of the area. On the surface, this can mean looking at the physical layout of your space, looking for electrical outlets and mentally (or physically) placing tables where you need players to sit.
If you want to think about it more critically, I think it's important to keep in mind how you orient your tables in order not to block walk paths to important sections of your space (like bathrooms, exits and the TO area). This means keeping in mind standing space behind your setups (as people like to stand and watch games which are not being streamed), allowing a room for chairs to be scooted up forward or back, as well as the physical distance between two players sitting at a setup.
A general rule of thumb is that the corner of a typical rectangular folding table is the best at arranging people to sit around and not bump others and also that two setups will rest there. If you have space to use the other side, a good optimizing point could mean that a 3rd setup could be rested in the middle, oriented oppositely from the other two. This allows that third group of two people to sit comfortably.
It's also very important to designate a space for yourself (or your staff) that is relatively isolated from setups for you to conduct your activities in peace.
-o-
Speaking of Staffing, we should have a brief discussion about this as well.
Honestly, much like anything else... this is going to be context dependent. I generally am the only primary organizer in anything I'm directly running, but because I often collaborate with other local TO's (like TheKiest or compy905), the roles end up blending more than anything. I'll go loose and fast about my opinion on staffing though.
I believe that as a TO, you should have a strong understanding there should a primary organizer for any sort of individual game that is being run. You personally might be the primary organizer for multiple events, but I think that there should be an understanding that someone needs to run point on any given game. I think it's also important to understand that you should know who is expected to perform a given sub-role in your event.
Roles in this sense include common things like Streamer and Bracket Runner. For some of you, all of the roles and sub-roles are going to be your responsibility. But even with that being the case, I believe that you can and should get assistance with this as necessary. In regards to bracket running, I pretty firmly believe that two to three active people should have access to being able to enter results into a bracket. Obviously, it should be people that you trust though. It should go without saying that your streamer should be one of them, if you have one lol.
If you can solicit dedicated volunteers to help you on a consistent basis, absolutely do that! Though, if you are being paid or are paying fellow staff, then I think you should also pay them, too. Or, if there are other incentives like reducing or refunding venue fees where applicable, that should apply to them.
For online tournaments, I think it's basically a requirement that you have more than one person able to report scores for your events to speed up the experience for your events. There's even less overhead to deal with online compared to offline.
-o-
Speaking of money, I'll touch on this with a lot more hard opinion lines than anything else. This section will mostly apply to Venue Fees, Entry Costs and Incentives.
The first thing I would like to mention about this is that it is up to your own interpretation what the Venue Fees are going to apply to. There is a conversation to be had about whether Organizers should pocket money pertaining to Venue Fees or not. There's a lot of nuance and context involved in this and as such, I will not be taking a stance on this. That's something that you will have to negotiate with yourself and your community.
Some venues will expect you to pay them directly, every time, for using their space. This will likely mean that there is little negotiation around how much you are required to charge patrons for occupying that space. You can choose to charge more to recoup costs, there are options like Matcherino incentives that could allow you to take a cut back as well. You could put in a tip jar or something similar.
Some organizers have arrangements with venues where they are not charged for spaces that are used and organizing money is used towards improving or purchasing new equipment. In Columbus, for both the Smash and General FGC space (I've separated them here because our smash scenes are large enough to be autonomous rather than any statement that they are or are not FGC members--- I think they absolutely are.), we pooled together resources to buy pads, tables and extension cables that we transport from our various venues to assist with organization.
As far as Game Entry cost, I personally tend to err on the side of lower entry as it encourages newer or less experienced players to enter events more frequently. $5 is the typical cutoff for entry, but I think that you can go as low as $2-3 dollars if you want more player retention. This is less enticing for top players who want more money, but honestly speaking I don't care much about them here. I think broader player retention and engagement is more important in most circumstances! For the record, I also think that a wider pot distribution for top placings (1st through T-5th or more) is more preferred than the typical one (1st-3rd) for the same reason.
Along those lines, I think that incentives also go a long way towards player retention as well. I didn't mention this outright in this blog, though I've done it in social media, but my background is influenced by the Eastern Midwest Smash (mainly Brawl and PM) communities, so this influences my thinking here.
With that said, we've given incentives in the past for players who do things like:
- bring a carpool of players from other areas (discounted/removed venue fee for drivers)
- bring setups that are used for the tournament
- volunteer or staff the events
- travel from far distances (gas reimbursement)
Again, I think these things may or may not be feasible depending on your arrangements... but I think as a TO, it enhances the experience for attendees if you are able to do something like this. There is room for events like raffles and more that you can think of if you don't want to do these. If you can do it, you should!
-o-
With that out the way, we're going to talk about Equipment! Well, I'm going to specifically talk about gaming equipment here. A lot of these topics are going to refer to topics that I've talked about already and will be referenced in topics I talk about afterwards so this individual section will be short.
The most important thing that you'll have to consider is how you're going to get the equipment in question to run. Often times, organizers will use their own equipment towards running events. There is also high incentive for organizers to use community supply. Some venues (LAN centers) may have components that can be used to lessen the burden and some don't. Keep in mind the solution that is best for you.
The main thing that I think you will need to think about in regards to equipment after acquisition is: "How many setups do I expect to be able to use for [game] at any given time?" Understanding how to answer this question depends on a few different things, but I'll lay out some sample sub-questions to answer for yourself.
- How long do I have the venue for?
- How many people have or are expected to enter the bracket for [game]?
- How many games am I running at the event?
- What is the tournament format for [game]? Swiss? Single Elimination? Double Elimination? Round Robin?
- How long, on average, does a set of [game] take to complete?
- With the expectation of {x} entrants for [game], how long should a round (Winner's Round 1, etc) take to conclude in <tournament format>?
Now, it's perfectly feasible to run events without thinking deeply about all of these things. Many events do this already, even. Many events also could serve to be run more efficiently. I've been in plenty of events, both online and offline that have loads more dead time than they have any business having. I think consideration of these ideas will only help your tournament thrive, though.
-o-
Finally, it's time to talk about Gaming!!! Yaaaaaay! Well, kind of.
Let's start by talking about intention. Please, don't boo me yet... I have a good reason to mention this first. When I say that we need to think about intention, I think this informs a lot of the previous sections too. I think you have to ask yourself what kind of event for your game(s) you want to run in the first place. If you just want to run a bracket for your friends and see who is the best, ignore the next paragraph.
Do you want to just run one game? When you run the game(s) that you're running, what kind of environment do you want to encourage? Do you want a event to help teach new players? Do you want individual players to play as many games as possible? These questions inform the format that you're going to choose to use for your event.
Alright, if you skipped ahead... welcome back! It may be obvious when I say this, but single elimination takes much less time than double elimination. Round Robin and Swiss can take more time than double elimination, as well. I feel like I need to restate this because, again, I've noticed some organizers aren't as cognizant of the time they are asking of their attendees when running events. Your individual game also informs how long your events are going to take.
It is also important in that sense to be aware of what your community wants. It's perfectly good and should be encouraged to ask your players what they want and get feedback about different ways that they can stay engaged. I've played in many double elimination brackets in my life and honestly, they get kinda boring.
Speaking of double elimination though, let's have a short lecture about bracketeering and time mastery!
- The largest collection of players is going to be in R1 Winners. Most, if not all of your players are going to be playing at this phase. Half of them will be sent to Loser's R1.
- Half of those players in Losers will be finished at this point. I know I'm sounding obvious when I'm speaking here, but stay with me.
- Your objective is to remove as many players from your workload as possible in regards to Winners progression.
- Ideally, you will want the winner of a Losers set to be waiting to play the loser of a Winners set as quickly as possible. This removes more players from your workload.
-o-
Finally, here are some of my tips for Time Mastery in regard to TOing in action.
[Before the event]
- If possible, set up your venue space either the night before or hours before attendees are expected to get to your event.
- Pre-seed your brackets as much as possible. Yes, you may not get all of your attendees until the day of, but this helps shorten a step at the venue. It's much easier to add someone and slightly adjust your brackets from there.
- Organize areas of your venue where your individual games are kept together. If possible, don't have players walking from one area to the next to play the same game.
- Stagger large events with pools waves so you are not running everything concurrently. Make sure to also stagger start times between different games in case you need to use the same setups for them.
- Multi-Game Masters (1): These are players who are expected to do well in multiple games. These are players like HARD BREAD, Justin Wong or VickiViper. These players require an extra amount of attention and you will be managing them. Make sure fellow TOs know them and their rough schedules. Hold their matches off as long as you can relative to their other brackets.
- Multi-Game Masters (2): Implement some sort of system specifically for them. Keister and I designated a spot in the venue for Fizzle, who was talented in Melee, PM and Brawl. We literally set up 3 setups in one area and had opponents go to him so we could track him at all times. Figure out a solution that works for you. Actively communicate expectations w/ your fellow TOs. Stagger event start times to avoid as much bottlenecking as possible.
[At the start of the event]
- Stop ALL action and get the attention of your attendees. Take this time to re-explain expectations, staff/ bracket reporting channels and open for questions right there. This will save you a lot of time in the midst of an event. People will ask you about restrooms, food options nearby and more.
[During the event]
- Utilize your attendees as much as possible. Tell player A and player B to look at each other and communicate to them where you expect them to play. Point it out to them. Allow them to keep track of each other.
- Set up the baseball system for players: At Bat (Active), In the Bullpen (Up Next), Warm Up (On Standby). Set expectations for players where they know who they're playing, where they're playing and when they're playing. This is especially salient when you have limited setups.
- Remind them about where to confirm the results of the set.
[Miscellaneous]
- Generally... for the love of god do not stream every game in a round. Pick two or maybe 3 games per round (if applicable) to stream ahead of time and keep your bracket moving.
- Allow your streamer to report the bracket matches they're streaming, or to be told the results of a match to report.
- Try to enter your own events to get a feel of how things run and understand how to optimize. Utilize other staff members or volunteers to help you with some parts where you're playing. Reporting results and updating scoreboards on streams can absolutely be taught to people if you're comfortable letting off the reigns.
-- If you enter your own events, play your own matches among the last of any given round, at least up until you are potentially holding up round progression by not playing.
