Help planning & running a Guitar Hero tourney!

Sage_KVHS

I am a past PAX-goer, two years running ('05 & '06!), and this happened to be the first place I thought to turn for help.

Here's the story...

I'm the Operations Manager for a student-run non-profit radio station based in the SF Bay Area, 90.5 The Edge.
We're planning on having a March Madness live remote, and I'd like to throw a Guitar Hero / Rock Band tourney.
I need help/tips/suggestions on how to make this a success, and not a big pile of FAIL with fans walking away from our live remote feeling like they got jipped out of winning the contest.


So, the details:

We don't have a location nailed down just yet. We'll probably be taking over a small/medium downtown storefront location, hoping to generate lots of foot traffic. We'll most likely only have ONE full set of instruments plus the game itself + one TV with which to do this. That's not final yet, however- Depends on what prizes we receive as donations for this.
We may have a flood of people showing up to this...
And, to top it all off- we will only have *2 HOURS* in which to set up, run the contest, determine a winner, and break down our equipment, pack and head out... Talk about a time crunch? Yea.


Anybody who has helped run a tourney OR attended one, either to compete or just as a bystander, I need your feedback!

*What made the past tourneys you've run/attended successful?
*What kind of rules and brackets worked the best?
*What works the best, pre-determined sign-ups? Or walk-in sign-ups?
*How about audience participation? Yea/Nay?
*What problems did you run into, and how'd they get fixed?

***THANK YOU ALL in advance for any help or suggestions.***

Page-

Depending on the number of people you expect, making the brackets will be one of the worst parts. You should go for pre-reg, with maybe the option for walk ins if you have open slots. Doing brackets by hand can take a long time, too.

With only 2 hours, and again this depends on the number of people you have, you can decide on whether single elimination or double will be best. Single is much faster, but less dramatic. Consider that each song will be 3-5 minutes + setup time and do the rough math.

Up the stakes for the later matches. If you're doing single songs for regular matches, then do best of 3 for the semi-finals and maybe best of 5 for the grand finals. It builds a lot more hype and allows for more drama.

You need rules for equipment handling. If people want to bring their own peripherals then insist that they label them. If you don't then you'll have problems later on. Allowing people to bring their own peripherals will also increase the downtime between each match. In the same vein, have rules for accidental plug pulls or hitting the home or start button. If you want to borrow from fighting games, hitting start or home would be an automatic forfeit of the song (not the match). That may be too harsh if you just want a fun vibe, though.

The most important thing to having a successful and prompt tourney, though, is running the brackets properly. You need at least one person with a laptop dedicated to running them and make sure people are there on time. If there's enough space for them to be wandering off between sets then you need a way to call them back and a time limit so you can move on. You also need to arrange them so you can run them efficiently, though it may seem a little unfair to have someone play their winners and then losers brackets in succession. Just run them fast, get everyone on the machine right away and get things going. Nobody likes a sloppy organizer, and it's a lot harder to run things too fast than to run things too slow.

You might consider having song sets worked out, especially for the semis and finals. Say, if you're doing best of 3 then have 5 songs, let either the audience or the players eliminate 2.

Good luck.

FyreWulff

1) Have a bullhorn or some other voice projection equipment

2) Just take team or player names and fill them up down the brackets. It'll sort itself out.

3) With 2 hours, you need at least 10 minutes on each end for setup and breakdown. so you actually have more like 2 and a half hours.

4) Pre-plan the songlist. Letting players choose will slow things down.

5) You're only going to have time for about 15-20 songs. You also don't have time for a loser's bracket.

6) Do you have a roll of double tickets? You could hold a raffle prize so even if people don't win they still have a chance for a prize.

MetroidZoid

I'm getting flashbacks from the Pokemon card tourneys I used to go to (Gah that was ... over 10 years ago? Oooolddd ...) but if you have the capabilities, or man-power, sell chips and soda and such? Might be a way to 'earn-back' some of the time / money you've put into this.