Hosting a tournament?

[thetrooper27]

With a few guys unable to attend the Buffalo tournament, I was wondering what it would take to get some of you Toronto guys to fly further west so that some of these other chaps could get in on a tournament?  Is it prize support that makes it worth your while?  What stands in the way?  Airfare?  Time off from work?  Responsibilities?  Fear of losing??

How many guys are on the west coast, or in some way or another can't make it up north for a tournament, but could make it to somewhere closer to Middle US?  I'm really excited about Buffalo myself, and though it wouldn't be till later this year, or next even, I think it would be great for everyone who loves this game to have an opportunity to get in on a tournament.  I'm just brainstorming here, so what kinds of things make a tournament possible and appealing for guys that play an out of print card game with a small community of players?

[Jack]

For me, I'm just about to graduate from university and start working a full time job. I plan to visit some friends within the next 2 years that have moved away from Toronto into various places across Canada and in the US as well. Notable hot spots are Seattle and Northern California and I hope to make these trips once I'm financially stable to do so. While on these trips, I'll bring along a few decks and hope to meet up with community members and get in a game or two, or 20. I don't expect a tournament and I certainly don't expect prizes.

The problem with having events at arbitrary places is that we have almost no one to contact and book venues. Just finding places to play in Toronto is hard enough though we're fortunate to have a few stores that don't seem to mind our presence.

I also see hot spots of OverPower spring up, there's definitely one in Toronto, there's the New England bunch, mid Atlantic is a huge hot spot judging by the Facebook members, and Southern California with the tournament held last year. I'm not saying it wouldn't happen, but financially, there's an increased cost associated with holding events outside these hot spots in terms of travel costs, lodging, etc.

Another way to play OverPower would be to arrange OverPower around comic conventions or vacations. We here in Toronto will try our best to round up our group if there's someone coming in from afar for a vacation with family or to take in Fan Expo or other cons.

And, of course, there's always OPOnline though there hasn't been a tournament in a while.

[thetrooper27]

Is there any way to accurately gauge a turnout for a particular region?  How many people play OverPower? 

[Jack]

It's hard to say what the turnout will be. For tournaments, we usually have people tell us they'll come so we can work out prizes and round structures in advance. For meetups, we don't care about taking down names too much since it's all casual games and people can come and go as they please. We even have some players drop by our venue and see us playing and come back an hour later with their cards.

As for the number of people who actively play OverPower, again, hard to say. We have photographic evidence that there are about 40 people that played in the past 2 years. There are about 20 people in Toronto, about 11 in SoCal and the group of 8 or so in Brazil. I'm sure that number can easily be closer to 100.