Nationals / MN States / Rosemount Invitational?

[Walsetmd]

Hey Guys -

Thanks for all the support this year, without your help our growth would be much weaker. Anyway, I thought I would post here first amongt the local players before I went to a different forum. My question is this, do we have a target date for MN States or Nationals? Are they going to be the same weekend or seperate? I didn't see anything about Nationals on the forums, just the Euro Worlds, and MPC this year. Is it our responsibility to hold and promote this thing? Would be nice to see the PC doing some of the prep work. At any rate if it is our responsibility, I think we should get it out there as soon as possible so people outside of state can plan accordingly.

I have no doubt MN States will have its usual draw, high 20s lower 30s.

If Nationals is a 2 day tournament I guess my thought would be hold MN States on an earlier weekend.

Actually the main reason I'm interested is I'm considering holding the first ever Rosemount Invitational tournament. I haven't set this in stone, but the overall goals of the tournament would be to gain public awareness, give new players the chance to experience a diverse playing field, and increase card collections of new players. Remembering these 3 goals is essential as you read the format of the tournament.

I would accomplish this by getting the local paper (Rosemount Town Pages) to cover the event. Take pictures, interview players and publish an article. This is NOT a school paper. This is a legitamate publication that covers stories here in Rosemount. They dedicate a whole section to the schools and what we're doing here in the education field. I'm very confident I could get a reporter to cover our tournament. Secondly, if I can time this right, maybe with Nationals, I can get players from outside of MN to come to this giving the new players a chance to see how large our community really is. And lastly, I'm considering buying 2 boxes of Refelctions III. If it's up to me I would like to give all of these cards to the Rosemount Players still in middle or high school (Sorry Mitch, Jake, and Thomas).

Now to accomplish this it would mean there would be a high cost to the tournament with little prize support. I'm thinking something like..
1) Trophy (winner of the event) $40
2) V-Card (for the winner) $50
3) Reflections III x2 (to be given away to student players) $600
Even if I charge $5 per student and $20 per adult I'm still going to come up short. Which I'm fine with but how many players are willing to pay $20 for a tournament knowing they'll most likely walk away with nothing? Do you guys think if I run this as a charity event people will come and play? Lastly if I time this with Nationals, I'm hoping to get some interest outside of the Bespin Region.

I just thought I would run it past you guys first.
Thanks,
Walseth

P.S. They already did a full page article on us back in March. Here's the link to read it, I'm the 8th one down the page, but I don't think you can read the FULL article unless you subscribe..
http://www.rosemounttownpages.com/event ... 20schools/

[imrahil327]

What sort of 'prep work' would you like the PC to do for Nationals, exactly? You know much better than we do when and where it would be best to hold it.

[cooleo1c]

Id pay $20 to be in the same room with you Mr. W. Im in.

It would be awesome if some socal guys came. Last time I overheard some Rosemount players talking about Shannon as the hero of ccg.

[imrahil327]

I can't speak for the Hero of SWCCG, but I said last year that I'd come if the money worked out. Personally I'm hoping for a date during baseball season so I can see Target Field.

[agnos]

If it's a good date and money works, I'd seriously consider going to visit family up there and then head up for the tournament.

[Jeeps]

I have room at my place for all y'all!

[Walsetmd]

WOW! Many quick responses. Thanks.

Would be nice to see the PC doing some of the prep work.

I apologize. I miss spoke here. My original post implies that the PC is not doing enough, so NOT true. You guys are great. I think my frustration is misplaced. I think my mistake is thinking of Nationals as a major tournament, and I think truthfully it's not (WHICH IS OK!), as per the 9 people who showed up last year. For example MPC and Worlds, have their own dedicated forum months in advance, they are both tournaments which are run by the PC (I think) with serious cash support and usually command a large turnout. How to make Nationals more successful is not the point of this post and not the direction I want this discussion to go. I want to focus on if and how I can run a successful Rosemount Tournament.

Agreed, if someone like Mark P, or Deadbody are willing to host and run Nationals I'll let them figure out a good weekend for it.

Assuming it runs a Sat (Day 1) and Sunday (Day 2) sometime in June / July / August if I held the Rosemount Invitational on a Friday, would that be a good idea?

I'm going to go ahead and say a Minimum of 20 Rosemount players would show up, and possibly High 30's. If I could get a verbal commitment from 20 players outside of Rosemount, I think I would do this. Would love to hear from...
1) Garrett
2) Mark P
3) Peter
4) John
5) Ryan
6) Brian
7) Tyler (Haven't seen him for a while)
8) Brady
9) Pistone
I apologize if I'm missing any other local players, but these were the first few that came right away to my mind. And then maybe a few players from across the country who would be here for Nationals.
For example I met a bunch super nice people at Worlds.
10) Chris H
11) Johnny C
12) Adam H
13) Kevin S (“The Hero” – I’m so going to have to find out which one of my students came up with that)
14) Chris W and his Son Jan
15) Seth A
16) Stephen M
17) Chris S (who may be from this area?)

I think it would be great Agnos and Imrahil if you guys came to this, definitley my personal thanks up front. And I know I’m missing many other great people… I wish I was better at remembering names.

I guess here’s what I’m looking for… If I hear from the first 9 people (or at least most of them) and they want this to happen, we’ll move forward.

Maybe if this does happen and it's successful, make it yearly, and who knows... if the turnout is high enough attach a Bye to Worlds? Huh? Huh?
Lastly, if you see this post and not mentioned please don’t be offended and if you think you might be here for Nationals and would like a 3rd day to play (Friday?) please post here. Please!

Thanks Everyone,
Walseth

[deadbody]

Depending on the cost and time I'd do my best to attend. Supporting what you are doing is something I am a big fan of.

If I know about it far enough in advance I can schedule around sports, and missing a lacrosse game is far easier than missing a hockey game.

So assume I am in.

[MasterJediAdam]

You can probably count me in as well Mark. Let me know what I can do. I need advance as well, as it is more frequently time than money that prohibits my attendance.

[Jeeps]

I am in, but if I am going to be of any help, I need to make sure I steer clear of any travel commitments I have during the weeks of June 17-23; July 23-29; August 3-6. Typically, these have been weekends of some of our biggest events... so I might have automatically dropped out

Honestly, Mark, I haven't had enough time to even adequately read your original post... I am only posting here to let people know I am near the subject. I will look at this topic again later this week. For now, I wouldn't mind helping run things or even being given the mantle of "in charge", but if that were to happen, I would need to able to pick the weekend for this event or multiple events in the case of a regional weekend AND a Nationals Event....

So, for now, I am going to dive back into my horrid collection of sophomore English papers... but I will be in touch.

[puck71]

Assuming it runs a Sat (Day 1) and Sunday (Day 2) sometime in June / July / August if I held the Rosemount Invitational on a Friday, would that be a good idea?

I think that would be the best idea, rather than splitting them out. Just try to space it out from the other MN super weekend (MN States/Bespin Regionals) if possible.

[cooleo1c]

Assuming it runs a Sat (Day 1) and Sunday (Day 2) sometime in June / July / August if I held the Rosemount Invitational on a Friday, would that be a good idea?

I think that would be the best idea, rather than splitting them out. Just try to space it out from the other MN super weekend (MN States/Bespin Regionals) if possible.

x2. I have no kids or that pesky life thing. I'm in 100%

[brady1194]

We always seem to drag our feet on our tournament schedule, so nice to see Mark get us going early. Here are my thoughts:

1. We usually hold ND States in May. The actual weekend floats a bit, but just assume it's Mother's Day weekend +/- a week. This schedule flexibility locks up May.

2. Super Weekend: We've been doing the super weekend, for, what, like 4 years now? There's a little tradition there, but nothing we couldn't change for a good cause. If we need to break it apart, we could. I think I'd like to see us hold your Rosemount Invitational as a big June event and then the Super Weekend as a big July event. Between ND States, the RI and the Super Weekend, we'd have a big event in May / June / July, which would be a nice summer tournament season.

3. Why Reflections III for prize support? If we want the biggest bang for the buck, I would think buying some large lots between now and then might net us more total cards. You know a lot more than I do about getting players started, so this is more out of curiosity, I guess. The PC might have some angles on helping us put together some prize support (like, players who may have large, inactive collections willing to be sold to a good cause for a discount).

4. Where do you intend to hold it?

5. I think the $20 is very reasonable, given the cause. This would be right in line with what we charge for the events over the Super Weekend. I think ND States is usually like $10. If we hold your event in June and the turnout isn't what you expect, we could always hold back some of the prize support and use it for the Super Weekend. I'm willing to contribute quite a bit more than the standard $20. Let me know.

Brady

[Jeeps]

Taking into consideration that Mother's Day weekend is May 11-13, I assume ND States will be that weekend as it has in the past.

With this said, I propose that Bespin Super Weekend be June 8-10 (first weekend of summer break for MN schools)

with Nationals being either July 13-15 or July 20-22.

I really don't have much flexibility with my dates other than the ones I have given. If people want different dates, I will have to pass on having much to do with these events (well, unless one of them is a weekend that will work). Make sense?

If you notice, each of the dates would be almost perfectly spaced out a month a part too... I like that part of it best...

[cooleo1c]

I say lets make the above dates official/ Anyone third that?

[puck71]

Taking into consideration that Mother's Day weekend is May 11-13, I assume ND States will be that weekend as it has in the past.

Actually it hasn't been on Mother's Day weekend. I generally try to schedule it between Mothers Day and Memorial Day weekends. (In 2011, Mother's Day was on May 8, ND States on May 21, and Memorial Day on May 30)

In 2012, there's only one weekend between the two, so it seems like ND States would most likely be on May 19. That's when the Fargo Marathon is, and we HAVE been sharing the date with that event for like three years now!

[Jeeps]

Huh. Call me a monkey's uncle! I stand corrected... May 19 works for me too..

[deadbody]

may 19th is not good for me. But I might be able to make it work. Missing nd states isn't something I want to do.

I can run any event if I can get it on my schedule. I'll post more tonight when I have access to a computer instead of my phone

[The Smoking Gungan]

With this said, I propose that Bespin Super Weekend be June 8-10 (first weekend of summer break for MN schools)

with Nationals being either July 13-15 or July 20-22.

i really think it would be best if you flip-flopped these events and put nationals in june. assuming texas mini-worlds is in late april and the big us non-worlds event is in mid-august, then a nationals in june puts a big event halfway between those other two big events. i feel that the scheduling is important if you want to attract non-MN players to the event. if you hold the big one in mid to late July, the traveling swccg players, who probably don't have unlimited time off or unlimited travel funds will have to choose between events, and most will go with the event that seems guaranteed to get the other travelers there. this gets mitigated (as much as is possible) by holding the event in june and having about 2 months between nats and worlds and nats and tmw. i mean, maybe you'll get the exact same attendance whether you hold nats in june or july, but at least you'll limit people from using the excuse that it was too close to worlds to explain why they weren't there

[imrahil327]