Tournament Kickstarter Fund

[IAdoreBunnies]

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I'm sure most of you know that transportation, including transportation expenses, is a barrier to making it out to tourneys. Driving a few hours to a tourney is viable for some, while driving halfway across the country isn't. Of course, as a community, we should work together to mitigate such inconveniences. I think it's been pointed out pretty often that most of the Soul Calibur tournaments are on the East Coast. That sounds about right to me, but I haven't exactly attempted to quantify this to make sure it's accurate. True enough, you can find plenty threads on this site of players trying to organize local tourneys. Just a few days ago, MKL was able to rally up some Nebraska players and have a small tourney at his house.

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Let me say that again.

1. IN NEBRASKA. (When was the last time you heard of a SC scene here?)

2. AT HIS HOUSE.

Shouts out to MKL for that. Also, he's been holding casuals at his house on a weekly basis, I think. Go check out the thread here. http://8wayrun.com/threads/nebraska-sometimes-i-forget-we-have-electricity.9064/page-27#post-622638

Everyone knows that Philadelphia, for example, is a hotspot, if you want to go to tourneys. So much of the action is there, but many other places remained barely touched, if touched at all. I would like for some of you charitable folks out there, or those of you who truly care enough about the Soul Calibur community, and are able to donate, to help kickstart some tourneys in neglected areas. I would like to set up a Paypal fund through someone everyone can trust. I think Jaxel wouldn't mind handling it.

The funds will go toward two things. The main goal would be venue rental. The second would be pot bonuses. This would be to make it worthwhile for the players that come out and compete. So if a pot is only about 100 or 200, then we'll set the pot bonus high. If the pot is about 500, then the pot bonus would be really low, if we even need a pot bonus for that.

Do we have a good number of players in Minnesota willing to come out and compete? Montana? Louisiana? Tennessee? Arizona? Colorado? If so, we could rent a venue that would be very conveniently located for them.

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Also, I'm going to start some regional threads. The purpose of this would be to have tourneys at a central location that players from several bordering states will only have to travel a few hours to. Look at the above picture for reference. As you can see, for players living in either Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado or Kansas, the location of the tourney has been conveniently selected for them.

I think it's only reasonable that we wait until a certain amount of people have expressed interest before we grant them a venue. Should we set the bar at 20? How about 30? I'll let you all decide. But I think we can still do pot bonuses for small tourneys. The aforementioned tourney headed by MKL is a perfect example. We can see that his efforts and the efforts of the other Nebraska players have already resulted in success, so we should already be looking at seeing what we can do for them with the fund. We'll also need to search around the other threads to see what we can find going on in other areas.

One final thing, regarding the fund. We could set things up to where a certain percentage of the pot always goes back into the fund, if no one has any issues with it. That would make the fund somewhat self-sustaining and not completely dependent on donations. Let me know what you guys think.

 

[Marginal]

Any kind of a fund like this is ripe for abuse and a splintered community as a result.

CO's scene is still massively fragmented from the last time this was attempted.

 

[Alex.J]

I've been putting in a lot of work in the West Coast to make sure our scene keeps thriving. I was a big proponent in getting a tourney for SC5 at the most recent NCR. I am also helping organize a side tournament at Evo with Chemie and Tomahawk. Not to mention the more local tourneys and gatherings I have been a big part of within Norcal. I agree that we need to start focusing on growing local areas in order for Soul Calibur to prosper. That being said, I really don't feel right asking for a large lump of money that we would dump in certain areas.

There would be a big logistics problem in having a large lump of money that we would give to people. How would we decide that one area deserves more money than others? Who would we really trust to hold that much money? This may of been before your time IAdoreBunnies but in SC4 someone was met with the task of handling a lot of money and used it fairly dishonestly. So I would be skeptical of doing anything similar to that.

If people want their community to grow, they need to be proactive. I literally go out of my way to tell people to go to things. I spend a lot of my time picking up people who don't have cars to events. Yes, it's a lot of work but it also yields results. If someone wants their scene to grow, they need to start hustling. A scene won't grow itself, it needs people that are dedicated and willing to put work in for something they care about. Also if they need extra funds, i'm sure if they have a good enough idea. They can talk to a Mod and get a donation thread front paged. For now that seems like a more logical way to handle things.

P.S. If anyone wants help or ideas helping grow their scene. I am fully willing to talk with them and help them out in whatever way I can.

 

[mkl]

I do wanna say that this was at a decently sized place for fighting games in Lincoln, NE-- not at my house. I do understand the point though. It's really difficult to drum up national travel interest for this game. If it was possible I'd want to hold a major tournament there and throw a pot bonus from my own pocket in to generate interest from everywhere. Nebraska is in the middle of the entire country, so it at least presents a central locale for the coasts AND midwesterners. You really don't get that often.

Kickstarting a major for us would honestly be difficult mainly because it requires many many people to be on the same page and send money to the right people, the right organizations, get the setups, etc. It's possible but logistically we all have to work hard for this and I am 100% in it with you guys. Let me know if you need my help with anything.

EDIT: I do like the idea of the panhandle of Oklahoma for a central location for us all but it kinda fucks over Wisconsin which has a pretty decent scene.
DOUBLE EDIT: FSAK2! hahahaha