Winter is over and we're gearing up for summer. If you're just here for the date it's going to be July 8th, 9th, and 10th at the fairgrounds again. I (AJ) really can't begin to tell you how great those people at the fairgrounds are.
Anywho, it's been a bit over a month and now's usually a good time to go over some stuff we had in the survey and let you know what we have in store for the next event. Firstly, some really good ideas in there, as always. SUPER positive feedback overall. So let's dive into some of it
First some specific comments I'd like to address, when asked if people would or wouldn't attend another event…
The only reason not to would be because there weren’t very many updated game choices. It would be better if there were tournaments for games like: warzone, apex, league of legends, rocket league, etc.
We try to pick games that appeal to the masses. It's no fun spending hours/days planning a tournament to have 2-3 teams. Such is the case with many of the games on your list. Big time favorites like Rocket League get a little stale, at least for us. We try to rotate those in and out. We do look at the survey to try to get an idea though, so thanks for mentioning them.
Covid related restrictions. Please recognize natural immunity in place of vaccination for the next event. (If restrictions still apply). Otherwise, I would be happy to be there.
More on this later
Some things that caught our attention
Communication – This comes up a lot. Every year. There were bunches of comments of people having issues with the comm in the building. Yes we know it sucks, that's why we have Hype Bot go to the channels to let you know, why every announcement is available in our discord as well as on our lan site. The people that used/found these tools praised us. That being said, we're currently working on a MassiveLAN bot that you can invite to your OWN discord server that will also post and play announcements. We'll see if it's ready for summer.
Badges/Lanyards vs Wristbands – Look we hate the wristbands, but it's a system that works. The fact of the matter is it's much more difficult to just pass that off in the parking lot or something. I don't think people are actively trying to game us, but it could happen. The badges are cool, granted. We're looking for better ways. Once COVID is no longer a concern, we'll probably stop using wristbands altogether.
The expanded space – Generally, people loved this and want it back. The truth is, it chews up a ton of space. If we want to get back to 300 people or more (we do) this may not be an option. With limited capacity it's possible, with normal capacity, less so.
Chair curling – Yeah this is gonna be a wintertime staple
Network woes – Yeah this came up a bunch. And I have to say again you guys were super supportive of our team for getting it fixed. No one wants to see it. We learned, we'll do better.
More mini games – We love this part of our event, and yes, with less COVID concern there will be more opportunity for that. This event was really sort of us just getting back into a groove, and trying to focus on the core of our event. If all goes well, expect Baloon Stomp to come back in the summer, and I'm going to try like hell to get a cornhole tournament going.
Looking forward to summer
So the big question is going to be, "Are you going to require vaccination for the summer?" Well, we can't answer that, not yet. Best I can tell you is 2 things. 1: if you want to ensure 100% that you can make the summer event, get vaccinated if you're not. 2: We're going to draft a policy that hopefully coincides with the current threat level in Erie county. So you'll know by Erie County's guidance and be able to correlate that with what we'll have to do. We will still probably be keeping the virtual only ticket just in case, and will offer refunds to anyone that purchases a ticket and decides prior to the event that they can't make it for whatever reason. We'll try to have that outlined BEFORE ticket sales open, which won't be until April or May.
That's all for now, thanks for reading!
