Are there too many tournaments now? (UK)

[lunchmoney]

From comments noted else where (mainly reading the comments on the cancelled Ironmanj thread), on the thoughts of tournament saturation. Is that the case? Are there too many now?

To put it in my perspective (and by no means does this mean anything more than my thoughts, so diddly ), I started playing at tournaments in 2008 with the BBGT in Notts. There I started to learn about local tournaments, going to my first in March 2009, ARBBL. From that I chose to run my own and decided to go to as many as I could as long as they were with a days travel, so no over night stay was needed.

Due to dates the events have been on, this has turned into an almost Tournament Season for me. It starts in March, I go to about 1 a month, until September. Then take a break. But this is by no means intentional. If more events were run in the south, over the winter, I'd likely go to them as well as I love these weekends but cant afford the cost of travel and over night stays (especially now the wifelet, Tempest, plays as well).

So, for me, there is no tournament saturation. But, apart from the GT/NAFC, I dont travel far so maybe my perspective is skewed.

[Eski]

I think there is a good chose of tournaments across the Uk that if u were. to miss a few, you have other options

I would say the number of attendees are getting smaller....

[Magictobe]

We can see the same in Belgium.

There is certainly a saturation for 2 day tournaments and I don't see much more room for 1 day tournaments. Average is a tournament a month in Belgium.

The main reason is IMHO that there is a trend that bloodbowl players are getting older. Getting kids and more responsabilities. With kids at home it is getting harder to be away for a total weekend.

[Iranian Spy]

Scottish perspective: we have a couple of Scottish tournaments that seem to have died out recently and can travel to the Newcastle and Manchester tournaments with relative ease. That puts us at Monkeybowl, Geordiebowl, Flamebowl, the Chaos of the Warp tournaments we run (soon to be 3-4 a year), and beyond Eurobowl, that's about it. I'm pretty happy with that number and if anything I'd like to see some more in Scotland, hence the possible increase from Chaos of the Warp tournaments hinted at above.

I would like to see more players at these is the main thing and right now we're doing our utmost to do that by hoping to create longstanding leagues in Moray and Glasgow as well as the already well-established Edinburgh league. Fingers crossed we can convince more league players to head to tournaments!

[Darkson]

No, but then I don't get to do as many tourneys as I like, due to a combination of finances and having a job that involves weekend work.
Like Al, tournaments where I can, if necessary, travel there and back on the day, are more likely for me.

Of course, it helps if tournaments are spread out, both geographically and by date. 3 or 4 tournaments in a (relatively) small area in a small time frame will have an adverse effect on each other. If there had been another southern tourney going, I'd never have started the ARBBL in March, and I wouldn't have been looking at a 2nd ARBBL near the end of November.

[Jimjimjimany]

There are no doubt a lot of tournaments in England at the moment, almost 1 a weekend. The great thing about that is that it creates variety, if you want to play a tournament within a certain distance of where you live, at a certain team value with a certain kind of skill progression, then chances are there will be a tournament that fits your bill.

The down side is that many people only do a handful of events a year, and therefore instead of all heading to the same few events they all have this fantastic choice and this creates the situation with have now in the UK, more events, but on average less well attended.

I guess it all comes down to what you want from a weekend of bloodbowl. If you just need 5 or 6 games and a couple of mates then this isn't an issue at all, but if how well attended the tournament is important to you then it's not so good.

For me high attendance is an important thing. I think it creates a great atmosphere and allows you a greater chance of playing someone new. I have however had some great weekends of bloodbowl with just 10 or so guys there, so I'm not saying I hate small tournaments, just that I prefer larger ones.

[phil78]

I don't think there are too many but it does seem there is a bit of a north/south split happening.
I know the tournaments I can generally make it to consist of the same coaches , with the NAFC being the exception but it is a longer journey.

[Lycos]

Phil, you sort of have my view of this I think.

Alec you admit you started this thread because of what was in the IM thread. I too have read it but I also admit to putting my initial thoughts about this in private to a few on email. But thinking about it, I think I can say it here too.

This is a personal opinion. At this time, there seems to be an extremely healthy number of groups (can I call them leagues please, some of them probably arent playing league BB but they are a gaming group) or leagues in the South of the UK. This doesnt seem to be the case in the north just right now.

I can think of two key leagues in the North, Waterbowl and GBBL or Manchester and Newcastle. If we say the south starts somewhere around Nottingham then I guess the guys in the HATE league could be central but I notice we see them in the southern events not the northern ones.... so I think they act as a good guide to split it.

The southern half has something like this: Vanguards in Bristol, Exiles in Poole, There are the guys around Southampton/Aldershot of Woodel, there is ECBBL in London, Andover/Darksons lot, Swindon guys of Glowworm/Saan, There is Bunker guys in Chelmsford, the HEBBL guys in Hertfordshire, there are the Bognor guys, Daventry Vaulters, the Welsh guys in Newport/Cardiff.

My point is the south has a proliferation of very happy Blood Bowl groups who will do many or a few tournaments a year. (I have not included Spiky you will note and in my last league there had 20+ coaches). Right now the North of the country doesnt seem to have this. I have no idea why. But clearly this will affect the number of tournaments and how successful they will be.

I personally feel that this is the reason that some coaches will feel despondent when an event up north doesnt happen. Down South we all support each others events (I really notice this) and as a result there are many events to choose from. This comes from having so many leagues all happily moving along. But if say the Waterbowl league or the GBBL crowd go quiet for any reason, that will have a severe affect on any event they plan.

So in summary, there is no saturation. Quite frankly, I have not done a single event in November so clearly we need more!! But I can also understand why our friends in the north are feeling a little left out.

(Oh one other thing, not exactly relevant but related. Continuity of dates. That is also a key for me. At times Albion Coast has dipped to 10/12 players and I have seen more than 50. Same with Exiles... once a dozen, now best part of 40/50. But I know exactly when these events happen. I am already planning my 2013).

[phil78]

Manchester is in the North??

[Itchen Masack]

Anything past the Watford Gap service station is the North

And personally i would be up for more BB tourneys not less. Perhaps 2nd events hosted by existing successful groups rather than new ones that might not get the interest?

[Pipey]

Agree with all of this.

Ironmanj's issues are hopefully a blip.

And I think Leon would've got his 13 payments if the issue with the venue hadn't cropped up.

Definitely a discussion worth having though.

[lunchmoney]

Anything past the Watford Gap service station is the North

North of Ringwood is Hup North for me

And personally i would be up for more BB tourneys not less. Perhaps 2nd events hosted by existing successful groups rather than new ones that might not get the interest?

Much like Darkson and I are already doing, though our 2nd events are a little specialised in that Darkson's will (hopefully) be a team event and mine is Speed

Alec you admit you started this thread because of what was in the IM thread.

Al, please , and yes the comments there got me thinking, so I thought I'd share my thoughts and see how others feel. The discussion appears to be going well, carry on gents

[Joemanji]

As I said in the IM thread, there are more NAF games played in the UK year on year. This is surely a good thing. Undoubtedly they are played over more events with perhaps smaller attendances. Perhaps there is a downside to that, as less regular but larger events made us mix more. But different isn't bad. Hopefully we'll embrace the difference and the scene will continue to grow.

But I will say... you guys who don't travel are missing out. I understand why you don't or can't, family/money etc is more important. But just for me, travelling is part of the fun. I'm not sure I could go to a tournament on my doorstep and go home in the evening.

[Darkson]

I'd like do more "stay away" tourneys, but if I have to chose between one tourney "up north" or two tourneys local-ish, I'll chose the two. I'd love to go to events such as the Dutch open or the DB, but even ignoring the extra cost, it would probably mean it would be the only tourney I could make in terms of "goodwill" from the missus (still get grief for the WC ).

Maybe if I could attend 2 (or more) a month I'd feel different, but I can't.


But then, the other question to be asked is, why travel halfway across the country (with all the additional expense blah blah blah) if there's a perfectly good local tourney in the (roughly) same time frame?

(Suppose I should admit I'm a country boy at heart, hate cities, hate driving long distances [or what counts as long distance in the UK ] and don't particularly like the train, so travels not a good thing for me. )

[mattwhile]

...as less regular but larger events made us mix more.

I think there's more mixing at smaller tournies, it's easy to just stay amongst friends at a larger one.