by MIOM|Tafokints
Local Tournaments need to have higher venue fees
For the longest time, I have been a firm advocate of making tournaments as “bare-bones” as possible. When I ran the “Campbell” series, I charged a $3 venue fee and even waived the venue fee if a person brought a setup. At the time, the idea of “e-sports”, growth, and Smash-4 were not on our minds; We just wanted to be inclusive of the local community for the love of the game. Now in 2014, I have realized the growing need to increase venue fees for the growth and sustainability of the smash community.
As I reflect on behalf of the growth of the community in the next 6 months, it’s very clear that the community will have to change its own infrastructure to accommodate Smash 4. Even though people have been picking up Wii U’s for great games such as Mario Kart 8, the number of Wii U owners in the community is still relatively small.
It’s an unspoken virtue that people bring setups to tournaments. For Melee, Project M, and Brawl, this is relatively easy. Gamecubes and Wiis cost less than $50 and CRTs, although heavy, are also inexpensive, often free at garage sales and on craigslist. From a financial perspective, saving the standard $5 venue fee is more than enough to encourage people to bring setups for everyone to play on.
The Growing Scene
Smash 4 will bring in a new wave of players. Hopefully, they will catch on and contribute to the local tournaments by bringing setups to the tournament. However, we never know what the Smash 4 culture will be like in 4 months. Things may look grim with the number of setups that the community can provide at local tournaments. Being the new game, Smash 4 will draw not only an influx of new players but also players from all of the current existing smash games. I imagine even the largest Smash-4 naysayers won’t mind spending an extra $5 to participate in a Smash 4 tournament, considering that they don’t have to bring anything extra to participate. Needless to say, tournaments with 40-150 participants and only 5 Wii U setups seem highly probable.
So how does the venue fee come into play? Here are my five reasons for raising venue fees:
1. Long Term Growth
Tournament organizers need to think longer term with their local tournaments. I’m not saying that profit should be the main motive of running a tournament, but I strongly believe in growing local funds on behalf of expanding the community. This money can be used towards important items whether it be for equipment (see below), good-player funds, or other great ideas.
2. Venue Back-Up Money
As tournaments become larger, the need for spacious venues becomes apparent and this puts a larger financial risk on the tournament organizer. If the tournament unexpectedly has poor attendance, the tournament organizer has to cover the differences (e. g. Plank at Pound 5). Having back-up money for these situations is nice and ensures that the TO isn’t at financial risk for running a tournament.
3. Equipment
In Socal, we are very fortunate to have the “Smash Vault”, which gives us access to up to 30 TVs for tournaments and alleviates the need for people to bring CRTs. In addition, we are never at risk of not having enough setups. Extra money taken from venue/tournament fees can be used towards having communal Wii Us, Wii’s, and TVs for flexibility, especially in cases in which people can’t bring their own setups to a tournament.
4. Venue Fee Discounts
As mentioned before, a standard setup for Melee, PM, or Brawl is fairly inexpensive (<$100 for everything). For Smash 4, the total setup cost is about $500 (WiiU + Game + Gamecube Controller Adapter + LCD Monitor). Rightfully so, no one really wants to risk this amount of money for a small $5 discount. Increasing the costs of venue fee to give greater discounts to people who bring Smash 4 setups will create a greater incentive for people to bring them.
5. Security
20 Smash 4 setups = $10,000. As much as I would like for people to trust each other in the community, it only takes 1 person to screw things up and steal thousands of dollars of equipment. Venue fees need to be raised in order to cover security costs. As we’ve seen from previous nationals, “volunteer” security is insufficient in ensuring that setups don’t get stolen.
What do you think about raising venue fees? Is Tafokints crazy? Share your thoughts on Twitter with #SmashVenueFees
That’s the whole point of a for profit business.
You make investments and take risks to bring in profit.
I whole heartedly disagree that customers need to pay more to cover the risks associated with doing new business. It’s well within their right to charge more when they expand but don’t complain if people stop showing up.
If you cant afford it, leave it to a business that can. Why should others carry your business’s burden?
Smash leaders like to guilt trip the community into action.
They’re paying for the venue and tourney but somehow owe the venue more and should be doing more.
Actually, I’ve heard countless stories of TOs who had to constantly put in money out of their own pockets to pay off the venue. It’s a thankless job really and people like you affirm that much of the community doesn’t know the amount of work it takes to run a tournament. This isn’t really as much as “profiting” as much as it is trying to run a tourney not at a negative margin.
I agree 100%, people think that TOing is just showing up and making a thread on smashboards i swear, people act like Plank is Hitler for being an idiot for one of his probably 100s (maybe just one of those 100s lol) of hosted events when he put in countless amount of work for the community. The thing that annoys me most is that he fucked up big time we all know the story, but the players who he fucked over by not getting them their money were so angry while he probably put that money in threefold in labor allowing them to even win the money they usually do in the first place! It just annoyed me how ignorant some players are, even many top players, cough cough, ally, are to how much work TOs put in and how hard it is to manage large events and how they receive nothing for hosting these events.
IMO T.O.s should run and charge what they need to, to cover costs and ensure the event series grows. Spend $ to make $.
It’s def a unique challenge for Smash with the new one coming out, which requires new hardware :p
When Street Fighter 4 came out we had those challenges, but the FGC was and is so much smaller compared to Smash.
Actually Mike that is the point. Smash tournaments are not a business, the vast majority are run by volunteers who are not out to make a profit and will actually make a loss on their events. They are doing it for the love of the community, and if the community can do anything to reduce the risks for these individuals, they should. In the UK, virtually all TOs make a loss, and there is no sense that this is part of a longer term strategy to eventually turn this into profit.
If it turns out that running tournaments is too risky or costly for volunteers, guess what will happen? No, another business will not come and provide that service, competitive Smash is nowhere near lucrative enough for that. There will simply be no more tournaments. Smash will die out.
This is a classic example of the scene outgrowing itself. We shall remain fractured among our own cities and apartments, only coming together as one when the giant tournaments are put on by professionals.
Great article, covering a very soon-to-come issue.
The point of security made the most sense to me, as it should to anyone. 500$ is a big deal for any average person. I confess that point had escaped my mind before this.
A follow up article in a month or two would be great, as to how decisions will be made and what’s behind them. Get some words from more TO’s, have a good talk with many people, as this might become a big issue.
Unless some wierd magic happens and Nintendo does some work for us (Which is really, really unlikely), more issues might rise.