I don't stand a chance if I were to enter, but I'd be glad to help logistics and whatnot of the tournament itself.

omg this idea is so qute

id love to help or even participate, problem being a drive over to the west side of the state wouldnt be worth it considering my skill level... i mean maybe if we were going by amount of time playing brackets or something i might stand more of a chance

but as it is now im no real threat in a tounment type situation, so it wouldnt be worth the drive

You see, that's the thing about this tournament. I have a feeling that, when everything is settled and announced, everybody is going to want to go. The real purpose of the event is basically to get everyone who plays DDR to a decent extent to congregate in one place, with a competitive setting. Due to the nature of not having the time constraints usually placed at local arcades, it would be possible to change up the tournament structure a bit. Also, CS Bemani and Guitar Hero would likely be available for play, potentially in side tournaments (to help justify the entry fee). It's really more of a community event, and not just a tournament.

We're looking at hosting this event outside of an arcade. Renting places is not so cheap. As you guys have probably figured out, we need money, lots of it. Entry fees are probably going to be a bit steep compared to recent tournaments.

thats understandable, and i do like community meet ups, but there is a small percentage of bemani i like, itg, IIDX (which is suck horrendisly at [just started[) and thats really about it, pump i would definatly try out if there was a cab near, so i dunno. it all depends, i might just make a trip up to see my dad, it also depends on if i start working by then or not

when are you planning on doing this?

i'm planning a big event myself, i don't want us to conflict when it comes to a time frame.

I'm not really sure. I don't think it's going to happen this year, it'll probably be at least January before everything is organized.

You guys don't know the half of it. We are trying to make this the largest-scale event in PNW bemani history, basically. We all need to put in our support for it to work. You can AIM me about it too, I'm on pretty often and I have some of the logistics down. I guess I'm covering marketing mostly, especially for the Oregon area, so help me out. My personal goal is to have ads in basically every arcade in OR and WA, hopefully in Montana and Idaho also. Hit me upppp, especially if you have some experience in the field of graphic design.

25 people?  There were 38 signed up for the tourney this year at K-con, and I expect a lot more next year, since I'll be in on the organisation and marketing.

I'd be aiming in the neighborhood of 100+ people.

Location is key.  We'd need a central location and we'd need carpools and other tranportation and lodging worked out well before the event.

Try talking to Freq/Travis.  He's put together Let's Groove, a tournament series that was somewhat successful.  LG6 never quite happened, even though I made a sexy-like banner pixel-by-pixel for it.  I think it would be good to see about holding it under that name, since that might get more people, and there's already a Lets Groove website and forum set up. (letsgroove.org)

It would be really cool if we could have some way of transporting ourselves to the location (which I'm guessing would be in Seattle or Tacoma) en masse.

hmmm something like this would be pretty cool, 50+ people would be AMAZING, but as for what the tourny would be played on is a big part, i for one dispise ddr, and would be alot less likely if no decent itg was going to be there. locatoin is key, for us oregon is far south seattle area is far west and spokane is far easy, nothing around moses lake

i'll keep this in mind in my own planning and it would be good if you did for yours as well.  Given how popular our first event was, i'm estimating that the pull for this one will be definitely above 50 people.  Given the number of people from out of state and even far away in the same state that may be interested in both events, it would be a bad idea for us to hold our events within a couple of months of each other.

The tentative plan for the tournament that i'm planning is summer 2008.  Do you think this would clash?  if need be we could push our event to winter 2008, but that's less than ideal for a bunch of logistical reasons, and i don't want to push it to summer 2009 because i might not be in oregon that summer.

I voted "less than $25" because I don't actually play DDR...? but I would certainly be down to attend this sort of thing.

uhm i have to go to sea in december so i prly won't be there.

but it does sound fun.

Yeah, I don't think this will clash with Mendel's event. We'll probably be having this in either early 2008 or late 2008, depending on how well things go with finding sponsors and amenable locations.

Also as DT was saying, it'll be essential that it's easy for everyone to get to the location of the tournament. This will probably mean that we'll need designated carpool drivers from each region. Let either Disco or I know if that's something you're interested in.

Also keep in mind that this event will be well worth your time even if you do not play DDR. We are planning on having Guitar Hero and IIDX set up as well. Also a ton of cool people will be there, hopefully, and sometimes chilling is worth a fat entrance fee.

Again, contact Kevin or me if you want to help in any way. We definitely need all the support we can get.

wel is there any way we could get some sort of itg going? i would be aot more motivated to go, and im sure im not the only one...

There are a few potential sources of cheap ITG machines for rent. However, I'm not too sure if they are really viable without jacking up the entry fee by another $15 or so. The only option that would viably allow for ITG is getting it from Foy or someone else who owns a machine.

That reminds me, I was looking at the responses to the poll so far. It's going to be impossible to proceed with our rough plan with a budget of $750. The cheapest theoretical entry fee (with the current plan, this will probably be modified) is something like $40, which is assuming that 50 people come. The Seattle area has at least 25 potential players, and I'm sure we could get a combined total of 50 including Oregon, Eastern WA, and possibly even BC players.  Keep in mind that this is a fee covering all events, so it's probably about $10 per tournament if you look at it like that. If you really want to see this tournament come to fruition and are willing to spend a bit more money to make it happen, please let us know. Donations of prizes or cash would be incredibly awesome, and would result in the event being...uh...more incredibly awesome!

I've always wanted to give something back to the Bemani community, especially locally. That being said, I have little talent as a simfile creator, not enough knowledge to contribute to a site, and no motivation to work on anything. I'm hoping that I could at least help add some spirit to the community by hosting a large social and competitive event. It really depresses me, thinking about the end of this community. This tournament should give the community an Injection of Love (hurhur getit).

a few ideas for revenue:

you should definitely hit up some corporate sponsors to donate prizes and other assorted things.

The other thing you can try to do is to offset cost is to create some sort of mass ad flyer booklet or something that you hit up corporations to "buy ad space" that you'll hand out during the tournament.  Obviously music video game stuff is a good hit, but you can also try to hit up local restaurants around the area of where the tourney will be as a means of promoting their services.

set up a website and use googleads.

if you end up getting some random prizes from corporate sponsors, plan to hold a raffle at the event.  $1 per ticket or something.  since the prize was a donated one, all of the raffle money will go towards cost.  (and you might get someone who buys $30 in tickets or something like the ITG nationals and thus won about $600 worth in prizes.  it was crazy.)

etcetera.  the point is, proper marketing for an event like this can help make it so that the cost of those that are going to actually participate less than what you project, and i think that's important considering the audience base you're trying to get from a region perspective and an age perspective.   By making the cost something like $40, the idea of "it'll pay for all events!  it'll be a cool hangout!" will go to deaf ears for those that already are paying $100 in gas, will have to pay for food, etc, and are maybe still in high school or are paying their own way through college, esp. if most people are used to the idea of ddr tourneys being $15 at the most.

i'll think a little more when i have more time (october), and maybe PM you asking about some of the more Hard $$ details and maybe help try to figure out some of the budget details.

Maybe I missed it somewhere in there, but you're looking at the cost being $2000 because you need to rent a location, right? For some reason every number in this thread has been sort of arbitrarily high because "it's going to be big?"
Please educate me. :)

We've held day-long (hell, weekend long) tournaments with several brackets, etc etc and that required a location like IZ and a dedicated staff of volunteers. Where are you guys planning on holding this thing? I think the reason why people do these at arcades is because it saves on the cost and the convenience is unbeatable. Let me know how you feel about getting Foy's ITG machine after you've trucked it from an hour or two away and have dismantled the thing twice and reassembled- trust me, it sucks.

Go big or go home and all that, but I'm not entirely sold on "here's a rented dance machine, and some XBOX/PS2 games to play" for $40.

I think the ideas of "huge tournament" and "huge entry fee" contradict each other.

With entry fees in the area of $40 like you're aiming for, that's pretty much going to naturally exclude anyone but the serious players, of which there aren't that many.  No person who has recently picked up the game (or has been made obsolete by newer players) isn't going to be willing to put down $40 for a tournament in which they are going to get knocked out early on.  40+ games of non-tournament DDR, or a guaranteed early grave in a tournament.  Hmm, which would you choose?

OMg tada you're back! Glad to see you haven't left. you going to come to the tourney? We should hang out afterwards.

We're aiming to get more people to pre-register and therefore more funding (though pre-regs won't be the only form of income obviously) so the entry fee doesn't have to be as high. They only contradict each other if there's no support.



Believe me when I say there's going to be more of a draw than just DDR. I also am not adverse to the idea of a beginner's tournament. And on top of that, that $40 dollars pays for a SERIES of events, all of which will include more than just DDR. So instead of being a negative nancy all the time why don't you try reading about what we have in store for the event? You might even find something worth your time.

And everyone, just believe me when I say the locations we have in mind are pretty stellar. There's one in particular that could well be the biggest draw to the event.

Sorry, this is much easier to do quote by quote, not trying to nitpick.



Help me understand this: You are hoping for some outside funding (local restraunts, arcade ops, etc) to give you money upfront to help with the cost of running? Sounds good in theory, but I imagine this is going to be much more difficult than anticipated. You might get funding the way of raffles or whatnot, but just straight cash upfront is going to be interesting. Even Bill, the greatest guy ever, doesn't do that sort of thing. Especially not at the size you're anticipating.



I have to agree with Tada here. $40 to a lot of people is a physical game. To keep. It's yours. I've gone to tournaments to "chill" as you put it, but that was $5 or $10 and I didn't care. Good luck convincing people to pay that amount for home version tournaments with some DDR/ITG thrown in. (Unfortunately, I'm the exactly the type with lots of disposable income, but even I would hesitate throwing in $40 to something unless I had a pretty good idea I'd get a return.)



$40 gets me into Magic Mountain, is it better than that? :) What is this amazing venue you have planned?

A long time ago in a land, far, far away, there was a large tournament at even Gameworks in Seattle. Showing that you can have a good, game-centric atmosphere with corporate support and a kickin' time. This might save the gigantic entrance fee and have all the cool bemani nearby?

Sakura-Con costs less than $40 if you pre-reg early enough.  Significantly less if you register at the end of each con like I do.  It has a series of Bemani tournaments, and so much else to do.

I'm even unwilling to put up $10 for a tournament.  This would probably be just that, multiplied by four.  Also, if you're looking to hit 50-100 people, you're probably going to get quite a few who have never played or even heard of the non-DDR Bemani games.  I don't think it would be very worth it to them.