EPTHIAT Afterthoughts - Page 2
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BreAKerTV
Taiwan1658 Posts
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Ppjack
Belgium489 Posts
But good job, the atmosphere of the tournament was really great. | ||
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partouf
Netherlands405 Posts
but here's some comments on the costcutting questions; Two day event instead of three. Whether this means an open bracket but no stream, or no open bracket, or what, we’re not 100% sure. Give us your opinions. I'm probably the only one that thinks this, but I personally love the open brackets usually more than the later rounds, because I like fresh blood being showcased in possibly exciting games. But sure, if it doesn't get viewed much, and production costs can be cut by it, I guess economically it's the right choice. Though you could, and perhaps even should, consider letting other channels do the coverage that don't have that kind of overhead. Ticket pricing. Everyone, players and spectators, told us our tickets were too low-priced. We had no problem with that for this, as this was the ‘once in a lifetime blowout event so everyone should be welcome!!’, but if we’re looking toward future, sustainable events...we’re going to increase the prices. Not by so much it’s unfair! Just a little. I'm glad people say so because of their #passion, but I would really stick to supply and demand in this case. There's no need to scare away potential visitors or players by creating a hurdle that will leave tournament seats empty and deprived of new/young/broke players that might produce great games. | ||
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Pontius Pirate
United States1557 Posts
Sorry about the ZG <3 stuff. | ||
Whitewing
United States7483 Posts
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EnderSword
Canada669 Posts
On September 01 2015 07:58 JimmyJRaynor wrote: good points, maybe no where in Canada is viable. we've seen a steady decline over time though. was it "viable" because of the kickstarter campaign? or was it viable because 300 people paid $80 a ticket to watch the event? ticket sales did not bring in much cash. there was talk in the OP about raising ticket prices. if prices go up and the event is held in the greater toronto area i think attendance will go down. and no real increase in ticket revenue will occur. there might be no where in canada that you can bring in 10K or more in ticket sales... I think if you're relying on actual ticket sales to cover the costs, there's not really anywhere on Earth that would be viable, let alone in Canada. You really need the money from sponsorships and developers as well. In the case of this event, there's the fixed costs of a venue and production etc... and the large variable of the prize pool was mostly what increased, the original goal I think was 5k, getting a lot more went mostly into the prize pool. I do think though that tickets to this type of thing aren't very elastic though, Raising ticket prices would obviously deter some people, but for things like WCS and HIAT people came from hours away, got hotels, took flights in, a guy from England flew in to watch... And for many people in the city, it's a big social event, after 4-5 years anyone in Toronto who plays SC2 much basically knows each other as well as a lot of people from out of town. I think you'd find many of those people wouldn't really care about the price within reason. | ||
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ZombieGrub
United States712 Posts
On September 01 2015 02:56 Dickbutt wrote: I got banned for saying "Grom hype!" and I saw a ridiculous amount of people getting timed out for stuff that didn't really make sense. Messaged Partouf and got told to fuck off but a rogue mod unbanned me (won't be named) because he agreed there was no justification to the ban. Other than that though, awesome event, awesome players, awesome casting, and I can't wait for my portrait! I doubt this happened. Hoofit: Thanks so much for the feedback! lost_patrol: The problem with being on camera instead of the wait screen is a couple of things. One, it's a lot more taxing to do a live event, especially as the main hosts. The softbox lights alone made being on camera for more than 10 minutes uncomfortable. We had other stuff to do running around, and barely had enough time as-is to mingle with the crowd. Additionally, much of the downtime was to fix things that would've made the banter awkward - "hey remember that joke- wait a minute, we need to restart the stream" or "hahah real funn- oh what was that production? Be quiet for a while? Okay" etc etc. We obviously appreciate the online crowd and were built from it, but I think for live events we have no choice but to focus on the offline crowd more. And that's okay for once or twice every year. The next event date and time is far in the future and already being considered.  Ppjack: Maybe, but it's feedback we'll consider.  Partouf: The thing is, people that are coming won't be scared away because it's $40 for spectators instead of $27 for the weekend (hypothetically), we're guessing. Most already planned their work around it and bought flights and hotels. The only people who would be on the fence for a slight increase in ticket price would be the people who are local and only going for one or two days (which would still have the day passes available at a lower cost). Pontius Pirate The merch booth is a fair point, but a lot of pitches in SC2 right now feel like 'we're small, but we're older and richer and want to be more supportive of people we like than other e-sports'. While a t-shirt company would probably have better luck with as many people as possible (who can spare $30 on a whim), an expensive watch or chair company might have better luck appealing directly to limited people. We'll think more on this. As far as re-usable stuff, unfortunately not a lot. The carbot backdrops can be re-used, but we're guessing our future tournaments will be in the US and hopefully with more sponsors (so the banners would be out of date). Headsets and webcams (for players) are what I can think of. Thanks for all the comments/feedback everyone! Keep it coming if you have any ideas. | ||
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ninazerg
United States7291 Posts
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16998 Posts
On September 01 2015 10:09 EnderSword wrote: I think if you're relying on actual ticket sales to cover the costs, there's not really anywhere on Earth that would be viable, let alone in Canada. You really need the money from sponsorships and developers as well. In the case of this event, there's the fixed costs of a venue and production etc... and the large variable of the prize pool was mostly what increased, the original goal I think was 5k, getting a lot more went mostly into the prize pool. I do think though that tickets to this type of thing aren't very elastic though, Raising ticket prices would obviously deter some people, but for things like WCS and HIAT people came from hours away, got hotels, took flights in, a guy from England flew in to watch... And for many people in the city, it's a big social event, after 4-5 years anyone in Toronto who plays SC2 much basically knows each other as well as a lot of people from out of town. I think you'd find many of those people wouldn't really care about the price within reason. combine this with the fact that many travelled to be there.. and it shows that toronto is just another possible venue and not some "epicenter" of sc2 esports activity. so little cash was made from ticket sales off of locals and there really isn't much to lose by trying some place other than TO. On September 01 2015 11:28 ninazerg wrote: Fuckin' ticket counter. He can go suck a dick. the poor innocent , but honest , maybe too honest, ticket-counter-guy is taking an awful beating. i think someone made 5 alt reddit accounts in order to trash the poor guy. when Vince Mcmahon Jr. first took over the WWF his solution to crappy crowds was to really darken the arena and it gave the wresting ring .. this sort of ominous, almost foreboding feel... and you couldn't tell the arena was only 30% full. maybe for BTTV's next event they can really darken the audience area aka 1970s and early 1980s WWF. | ||
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StarkTemplar
United States9 Posts
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Bmilo
1 Post
Is an open bracket stream even necessary? What if we just made it offline, and used Friday as an additional setup day? Simply adding Wednesday to the days we rent the venue is far too costly, and it’s not like open bracket day gets that much hype, especially when it’s obvious who will get out. From a viewer's perspective, open bracket stream is vital so I can be hyped about a dark horse that might make a great run to the round of 8 who should've been knocked out in day one. Without it, the only story is the foreigners losing on day 2, predictable wins on day 3. Day 1 gives us hope and chaos. It sounds to me like the biggest issue is that the two of you are production, event organizers, *and* casters. My solution would have been to let livibee, crank, tempo, and feardragon do all of day 1 casting. Or even better - casters who aren't there. Nate/Rotti/ToD might have been convinced to cast if they could do it from home and just get olimoley to invite them to the games. Stream that in both their streams and basetrade. TL;DR We need *a* stream of day one open brackets - but it doesn't have to be a live stream from the event | ||
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Azhrak
Finland1196 Posts
I'd suggest that you release a rough schedule way earlier. Now I believe the schedule was first released 3 days before the event. Having at least the starting times and estimated end times for each day 3-4 weeks in advance would be great. Early schedule lets people plan better for themselves and organize stuff like barcrafts and other screenings. Optimal case would be to release a rough schedule at the same time as the event is released, so each news site can include it as well and spread the info. About the format, I also agree that an open bracket is a really nice addition. If you have the resources (PCs, space, time) to do it, then go for it. Thanks for doing HIAT and I'm looking forward to your next offline event which surely will be even better. | ||
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Heartland
Sweden24591 Posts
"So a few quick reflections on the tournament. It wasn't exactly what I had hoped for in terms of viewers, attendees, play and so on. There were many good and cool things though, it never felt contrived, the BasetradeTV silliness went over well in a live studio, the giveaways and dancing were never awkward but pretty fun and in general it was nice to see that what is BTTV worked well. It was good that no big community figures came in and stole the show for example but that it was Crank and Livibee who aided with casting. I think the slight disappointment I felt was due to two factors, a) the relative decrease in SC2 popularity. Really, really few tournaments have an actual decent offline crowd. The IAT crowd was really not bad but if you're just like 30 people or so you can never really get that crowd feel. B) Lack of hype players. Jaedong is a big favorite and I suppose Huk is pretty cool for the hometown audience but the tournament lacked it's Kespa heroes. Not that I know how to specifically deal with that but it's obviously part of why it only broke 10k viewers at the end and this thread is only 30 pages. TL could also have done it's share with a preview writeup (but I realize that writers have lots of stuff to do). Anyway, this felt like a step in the right direction but it's not quite there yet. It was good but not excellent." My comment on star players might not be entirely accurate, after all the MSI had plenty of those but their viewership was still below that of a big premier tournament. So perhaps its a matter of branding or caster personalities? Who knows. I think for the printing that you mentioned there are a few ways to cut those costs. Perhaps it's not too necessary now that you have a backdrop and whatnot for HIAT but it's quite possible to make a sketch in photoshop and then project it onto a fabric and first sketch the outlines with a pen and then paint it the old fashioned way. Then the costs are just the costs of fabric and paint, that can be done for flags, banners and similar. It's basically what (self respecting) football fans around the world do. Why not have a competition for the best photoshop image and then paint it yourselves? It could also be quite cool to have more flags and banners hanging around the venue, akin to how the International looks. | ||
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[PkF] Wire
France24235 Posts
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BisuDagger
Bisutopia19299 Posts
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16998 Posts
On September 01 2015 18:44 Heartland wrote: I think the slight disappointment I felt was due to two factors, a) the relative decrease in SC2 popularity. Really, really few tournaments have an actual decent offline crowd. The IAT crowd was really not bad but if you're just like 30 people or so you can never really get that crowd feel. B) Lack of hype players. Jaedong is a big favorite and I suppose Huk is pretty cool for the hometown audience but the tournament lacked it's Kespa heroes. HuK just standing around at the Eaton Centre at Yonge and Dundas in downtown TO in XMas 2010 drew a much bigger crowd than HIAT. Toronto was really good 2+ years ago for SC2 esports.. now its just another place. hopefully, HuK monetized his fame and has a few hundred grand stashed away... he is a hellava great guy ... and a good CoH player | ||
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EnderSword
Canada669 Posts
combine this with the fact that many travelled to be there.. and it shows that toronto is just another possible venue and not some "epicenter" of sc2 esports activity. so little cash was made from ticket sales off of locals and there really isn't much to lose by trying some place other than TO. But the point is it IS an epicentre, 4 of Canada's top 15 cities are within 90 minutes, Canada's 2nd and 4th largest city are several hours away, New York, Buffalo Detroit, Boston etc... are fairly close too. Part of the reason it's been popular is because it Is in the middle of a population cluster. That's the same reason Columbus gets chosen in the US. There's obviously some other locations in the US similar, but not in Canada. I think again you're somehow stuck on the idea of this event trying to be run by ticket money, it wasn't. WCS the month before got a large portion of its revenue from tickets, but that was never the intention when an internet cafe was chosen as the venue for HIAT. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16998 Posts
On September 02 2015 06:50 EnderSword wrote: I think again you're somehow stuck on the idea of this event trying to be run by ticket money, it wasn't. WCS the month before got a large portion of its revenue from tickets, but that was never the intention when an internet cafe was chosen as the venue for HIAT. then why do they even bring up the possibility of raising ticket prices in the OP? why discuss the money issue through the entire post? why excuse away MODs because they aer only "volunteers"? whether its UFC 129, Wrestlemania, or the Toronto Blue Jays... they're here for the cash. and i got no problem with that. everyone has to make money considering the time and energy they are spending... unfortunately, toronto has dried up for the UFC, WWE, and SC2 eSports. the HIAT crew works hard and they deserve to get paid man. i think you do good work as well. i hope you get some cash to man.. because your time is worth something. and if there is no cash to be made from holding an event here then its just another random place... i hope HIAT follows the money... where ever that may be. | ||
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docvoc
United States5491 Posts
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Taf the Ghost
United States11751 Posts
- Start the Open Bracket "main" broadcast at either the Ro8 or Ro4. - Have community streams a few rounds before, but it's probably not hugely important. - Have someone keep an eye on the "interesting" games played in the Open Bracket. Then cut a quick highlight video and have someone blind-cast the highlights. There is much room for hilariousness, if you have someone that can churn out quick highlight reels. - Add one of a stretch goals/donation goal/subscriber goal for "no Ads". (The rise of so much Flash/advertising beacons on websites has made AdBlock pretty necessary most of the time.) It could raise more money, probably. - Basic corporate sponsors can go pretty easy, if you have the contacts. I'm sure Redbull would send you some cases for pretty minimal exposure. Considering the size of their advertising budgets, it's really about having contacts with the companies. (If you're holding the next one in the USA, figure out a Pizza company and try them as well.) - The next incarnation should go better, since you have both experience and some name recognition. The first Homestory Cups weren't massive, but got really hype very quickly. There's the whole "brand building" aspect. Just randomly having a tournament has rarely gotten a big viewer counts. The other thing is that, while there are fan favorites, I'm not sure there's anyone that's truly a huge, huge personality to draw people. This isn't during the ascendancy stage of the game, so it's about finding players that will bring good games. Or will talk a lot of trash. Both work. | ||
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