Organisation issues at this year's Blood Bowl

[Dave]

first; the weekend as a whole was brilliant!
I do have some things, more or less minor that could be done in a better way.

1) it is on mothers' day and that means I won't be there if it is again (and it is )

2) cramped space! Remove at least one more row of the WH tables and move the BB tables to get some SPACE!

3) bad prices for the winners ..

4) the shop was disgustingly badly supplied.

5) the announcements were bad to hear

6) the match record sheets still proved slightly hard for some guys

7) painting points; have a set of judges judge the whole lot of teams as one ... pretty weird that Odium didn't get full points but was on the 10 selected for the best painted ..

again; the whole weekend was brill!

[Dave]

sorry indigo but what was the mail from the organizers again .. i lost it three times by now I think ..

[Indigo]

events@games-workshop.co.uk

or

specgt@games-workshop.co.uk

[Dave]

cheers!

[Anthony_TBBF]

pretty weird that Odium didn't get full points but was on the 10 selected for the best painted

Hrmm that is weird... I hope it was a clerical error. I think the majority of teams I saw at the BB deserved full marks.

[Dave]

most didn't ..

[Torpor]

This is what I sent to the events folks. Probably repeats a lot of things, but maybe some of them will get through.

The positives-

Bugmans was great (save Friday night - the comedian was crap. Can you arrange with Bugman's not to have 'entertainment' when 100+ people are trying to catch up with one another the night before a tournament?)

The water was most appreciated.

Removing the quiz from the tournament points for the sake of the non-English speaking participants.

The included meals had variety and tasted quite good. Cheers to the kitchen.

Most of the employees were friendly and courteous.

Thank Jervis, Andy, Jake and the rest of the guys for coming around Bugmans and chatting with us in the evenings.

The negatives-

Most of these come under the heading 'have one part of your company talk with other parts of your company'.

-The announcements were hard to hear. Please speak clearly and slowly. I am a native english speaker and I couldn't make out what was being said most of the time. I have no idea how the foreigners could be expected to do it. I know that one of my opponents, a spanish player, kept asking me what you guys were rattling on about.

-If you are going to have a hard time limit (the 2hr thing), don't interrupt us. Although I finished all of my matches within the allotted times, over meals I heard many complaints about this.

-Keep Warhammer World stocked with Blood Bowl related products over the weekend. I don't mind doing the special order gig (1-4+ hour wait), but absolutely none of what I tried to order was in stock.

-Make a t-shirt. If we are paying £40 for a ticket, £100+ for a hotel, £30+ for transport to Notts and so on, why not make some more money off of us by selling us a t-shirt, polo, or button down shirt. It's a no brainer. Most of us came with money and were looking to spend it.

-The table spacing was cramped. Could you move the tables a bit further apart next year?

-Get some decent prizes for the tournament. Little pieces of paper are nice, but miniatures or a gift voucher at a minimum would be better. Privately organized tournaments do a much better job on this front.

-Get the table pairings out faster, so we aren't milling about and there is less of a crush when you do post them. In addition, post a few more copies around so 200 people aren't squinting at the same 2-3 sheets of paper.

-The camera for the final was a good idea, but it was fuzzy enough that you couldn't really follow what's going on. Not sure if that was a lighting issue or that the camera wasn't terribly good.

-Give us correct final results. If they are screwed up, what was the point of breaking a photocopier or two to give us each a copy of incorrect results?

-If you are going to give us incorrect results, get the corrected results posted in a timely manner.

-The coin. <sigh> Do better than that in product (no coin next year please) and have it ready for the weekend. It isn't like you didn't know when the tournament was happening...

-Get Warhammer World to clean up its special order books. Those second edition figures have not been available for ages. Take those pages out. It isn't hard to keep that sort of thing up to date. I am sure that if that were the case in a regular GW store that the area manager would come down on the store like a ton of bricks.

What I would have liked to see

-A formal presentation on what's going on with Blood Bowl over the next year or so.

-I know that Jervis made this tournament format back in the dawn of time and that it is a holy relic, but something that doesn't seem like a 40k tournament that just happened to be played with Blood Bowl pieces would be a good thing. (removing references to armies would be a start)

[longfang]

Sunday morning started too bloody early for us pissheads!

Bugmans shutt too bloody early on sunday for us pissheads!

No beer allowed in the bloody tourny hall for us pissheads!






Nuff said!

[Ithilkir]

And make sure there's a proper taxi company in Notts!

Bloody useless place...

[TiMuN]

-The announcements were hard to hear. Please speak clearly and slowly. I am a native english speaker and I couldn't make out what was being said most of the time. I have no idea how the foreigners could be expected to do it. I know that one of my opponents, a spanish player, kept asking me what you guys were rattling on about.

Cheers mate. It wasn't me who you played against, but it was crazy i had my mates asking me or Dan from 10 tables aside what was going on with the speech ... If it's an international tourney, take some efforts so everyone feels invited to join and undestand what's going on ..

Another issue, maybe it's just that spaniards take way so much time to have our meals, but we all (18 or us) couldn't make it to the trivia thing, nor the paint competition scoring. If you have 200 people waiting in line for some meals, make sure the last ones are the ones 'making timings' ... we were last in the queue, had only 40 minutes to the next round, and were just touching those plates when the whole trivia thing was finished!!

On other matter of things, the space is really big to have us clobbed into small rows. It's a tourney, once a year, could you please get rid of the, otherwise, fantastic scenography for other games, and close the hall for BB ... for two days!!? Would that ruin GW!?

As said, 200 people looking to find their opponents in just one place is way too many. At the MADBowl, just 82 players had up to 4 places to look for their table numbers and opponents. Way faster to find your table, start your chat, and have a relaxing game .. no need to hurry up.

In the same fashion (thanx again Torpor), we all come to think the BB should be the best tourney in terms of it's ease to give proper credit and prizes to the winners. We tend to organize 6€ or 4€ tickets to tourneys, and i'm 100% sure the winner of any spanish tournament has gone with a full team, and at the MADBowl, it was Andy Hall who provided some minis for prizes too ... come on scratch your pockets a little more!! You've the venue, you've 200 people paying 60€ for a ticket, and coming from far places like Florida (or Vancuver which is actually farthest) (or Singapore last year) ... you ARE Games Workshop .. act like that (or did you?)

These are the main issues i can think of on the top of my head .. well, driving on the wrong side IS an issue, but not to be discussed here thou.
cheers!

[Dangerous Dave]

Here's my comments to events@games-workshop.co.uk

Sorry its a bit late..... but got lots of stuff to catch up on.

First of all, overall the tournament was pretty well run - pretty cheap given food was thrown in too.

That said, I think that there are a number of things that would help:


1 The seating was pretty cramped. Some of us are not little lads and people passing to get to the centre tables had some trouble - not to mention my legs. Lose some of the Warhammer tables and spread the BB table out a bit.

2 The hall got pretty stale - the water really helped and was a great idea. However, getting some air circulation / ventilation in the hall would be a help.

3 The results sheet was very unclear. Did you put your points down? your score, tick boxes or what? All you should need are your TDs, your cas and the TD difference (the latter to check to ensure that the game is reported correctly by both coaches). Excel or 123 etc can then work out the points automatically.

4 What is a casualty? This wasn't a defined term yet it was a prize winning event and a required report. In one of my games, my opponent injured himself on a dodge and said I "should" report this as a casualty. Needless to say I didn't since my view was that only blocking casualties counted (not fouls, not crowd, not failed gfis etc). I am willing to bet large that a good chunk of coaches did not report their casualties on the same basis as I did.

5 Food - I thought this was a bit stodgy. Sure cooking for a lot of people over a feeding time of 90 mins or so is not easy. However, something that stays fresh for a long time rather than drying out is much better suited. Eg pasta sauce, chilli con carne etc.

6 Prizes - why were the prizes for the Blood Bowl quiz (Res gutters) which was made non compulsory better than the prizes for the winner of the tourney etc (paper certificate). That to me is just plain wrong.

7 Painting - yup I'm not that good at it although I have spent time at it and do my best.... I don't believe that your tourney position should have the potential to vary by 50 places or so dependent on whether you have a well painted or average team. I fully support a painting competition and judging by the standard, a lot of others do too. But a lot of us have kids, work late etc - this means we cannot put the time in required to even improve our somewhat shoddy painting skills (hence why I am typing this at 11:30 PM). Have a completely separate prize for painting which doesn't affect the result. Sure insist that all models are painted in at least 3 colours and are recognisable etc.... but that should suffice.

8 Painting again. As I said in 7, the standard of the 9 entrants was brilliant. This meant that judging the best took ages. We had to file around in single file so a delay was unavoidable. IMO the review time needs to be made earlier (ie cut into lunch) or easier or both.

9 Time for matches. I had no problems finishing any of may matches except the last. Hence I am not a slow player. However, in my last match, I was on the top 20 tables and these were announced long after the lower ranked tables. This and the painting competition meant that my game finished some 3 turns early. Both my opponent and I were disappointed because it was a great game and the result was on the line. If there is a deadline to finish at 5:00 then all the games in the last round (except perhaps the final) should start by 3:00 PM.

10 Match ups - with some 200 coaches trying to find which table they were on in one place, this was certainly a pain. Let's have at least 2 areas to see the match ups.

11 Sportsmanship. This is a subject I completely agree with in principle. But.... it is so subjective and some will mark opponents much higher than others. That said, the biggest issue is that if you pick your opponent up on a mistake, (wrong interpretation of a rule, already used a reroll etc) - that's your sportsmanship points gone. Anyone getting 5 awesomes is almost certainly a great opponent. But an awesome, a couple of greats and 2 shockers may say as much about the coach marking you as it does about your own sportsmanship.

12 Sunday start time. Whilst I've complained about the time for the last game, is it possible to move the start time on Sunday to 9:30..... we do have to drink you know.........


And (nearly) finally some things which are not necessarily related to the Tourney itself - the shop.


Why wasn't the shop packed with BB merchandise?

Why not offer 10% off of any BB figures bought that week-end - I can guarantee that given stock availability sales would have been MUCH higher.

Why wasn't a new figure(s) released to coincide with the Blood Bowl - or players given the chance to buy it a few weeks early?

Please please please....... don't provide a coin as a token. Give everyone a figure for competing - up the price to GBP 42 or GBP 44 or whatever it needs to be... but give the attendees something that they will want.


OK finally, I hope the above is constructive. I enjoyed it - it was great fun and Brian and his team worked really hard and put on a good show.


Good luck for next year.



Dave

[Tomba]

Well we had a great time, and will be there next year!

For me, the positive points vastly outnumbered the negative points, but since you wanted to know what people thought I've tried to list them both, in no particular order. OK, it is in some order- it is the order they came into my head!

I should probably mention that most of these points are not necessarily directly related to the organisation of the event, but the organisers may want to bear them in mind to avoid these circumstances arising next year.

First: the bad

The following have all been said, so I'll just say 'I agree' and carry on- further whinging probably won't achieve much:

Coins
Certificates
Time
Tables (but see related comments below)
No display
No publicly announced seminar-type thing
Not enough minis available
Sportsmanship points affecting the result too much
Results sheet

I felt that *some* coaches were quite inconsiderate- instead of sitting on the stools provided some got chairs with cushions on, which (a) made it even more difficult to get past, and (b) significantly reduced the amount of room for the person sat behind.

I also feel that some coaches were very rude and really need to learn to shut up when the organisers are speaking (disclaimer- I am a teacher and so feel strongly about speaking when someone else is speaking and so on ) as I truly felt sorry (and a lot of empathy!) for the poor sod on the stage. Having said that...

Many of the announcements (as someone else has pointed out) were needless, often relelvant to a very small number of coaches or at times simply reminding us of what had been announced earlier. I know (from experience) that if you want a large group of people to listen to you, you need to make it concise and to the point, and ensure it is relevant to their needs. Too frequently the announcements didn't fulfil these criteria.



Now: the good

Water- a very, very good idea.

Food- as one of the (seemingly very few) vegetarians in attendance I was well catered for- not haute cuisine but very good by most standards.

The people on stage didn't resort to shouting 'SHUT UP' at the top of their voices this year when they were being rudely ignored. As an educational professional I was horrified last year, but saw signs of progress this year

I didn't need to order any minis this year, so didn't experience some of the stories I have heard, though I was frequently put off from purchasing by the size of the WW queue. I also wasn't in Bugmans Bar on Friday night.

Coaches. This plus point is bigger than all of the minus points on it's own. You guys are great!

I didn't come last

One of my friends who has given me endless stick about coming last over the past year...... came last!!!
(You have no idea how happy this makes me- I can assure anyone who is in doubt- he was *not* trying for last place- he just sucks!!!)

It seems my list is a little imbalanced, but I definitely am of the opinion that there were many more things which were right than things which were wrong.

Tom

[Colin]

I have to agree with the majority of post here. This was my first time to attend anytourney whatsoever, and therefore obviously my first time to the Blood Bowl so I can't compare to last year. It was great to meet all the people from TBB and kinda cool to see WH world and chat with JJ, Andy, and Jake. It was great they handed out water during the matches, I applaud them for that, but unfortunately, there's not much else I would applaud and I am seriously considering attending a non-GW tourney next year (they sound much better).

I was appalled by the seeming lack of organisation, many people have touched on all the problems with matches and results. I would suggest they take a bit longer in registration (though they do have 2 hours) and actually have someone (or a couple of people) to check to see if your minis met the minimum painting requirements, it was stupid to have it marked 6 times by 6 different people who probalby put down 6 different results. Also, if every game is supposed to be great, just ditch the sportsmanship points and just have people vote for a most sporting player or something.
That leads me to my next point, the lack of prizes. I too did manage to get a Rez GR, was surprised about not getting the most travelled (but as that was just a paper certificate, I didn't really care, hope OMM enjoys his piece of paper for his 7 hr. flight. My 8hr 45min flight was horrid and it would have been nice to have received something for coming all that way, but no big deal).
I was also appalled by the lack of merch in the store, I can't believe they would be out of stock of new releases so soon. Bad organisation.
The muppets allowed in to play LOTR and WH did piss me off a bit. I came all that way to play in the (supposedly) biggest BB tourney of the year and I had to sit squished at small tables that were too close together so that the muppets would have enough room for their 40K. That say to me that the GW staff doesn't give a f*ck about anything that is not BB, I don't like paying GBP40.00 for a ticket to be treated like I'm second class.
Anyway, enough of that, I found that the food was OK could've been better, but they definately need a more effecient way to handle all those people going for dinner at once.
I'm all for the idea of getting t-shirts for the next tourney (I even mentioned this to the head events guy), I doubt they will do a limited edition fig (at least that's the way it seemed from talking to Jake on Monday in Bugmans), but I think a t-shirt would be a much better souvinier than a dodgey looking coin. If they seriously change thing next year I might think about coming again, but the CDN$2000 price tag for travel and stay over there will make me think twice next year if there's no indication that they've dealt with some of the problems from this year.

[Kool]

I'm agree with the majority for good and bad points.

I want just to add to be surprizing to be in the nine for the paint contest with only 26points in ^^
and I'm totaly desapointed by prizes, when I decided to come to the BBT I chose to convert and play a Dark elves team, I was no hope to win the tournament but I did my best for the paint contest. I didn't win (gratz to spanish mate, if I did it, I would voted for your team it was very cool ) and I think it's better like that because to spend in average 10h per mini for a piece of paper (<= if you see what I mean )

and I don't know if I'll be back next year, perhaps later

[DoubleSkulls]

Bugmans shutt too bloody early on sunday for us pissheads!

I'd second that. Keeping Bugmans open for another hour probably would have made them a few more quid.