Crowdfunding Legacy

[JBlaze]

It's become pretty clear that we as a Legacy community don't buy enough booster packs or crappy overpriced standard cards for WOTC and SCG to give a fuck about us so fuck em, we could hold our own tournaments. Legacy has strong grass roots it might be time to go back to them.

I don't know that much about crowdfunding or running tournaments so I might be missing something but it seems totally doable to me and I just wanted to get you folks take on the idea.

[Phelix]

Dafuk u r saying?


If we give you money you will host an event, but you have never tried that before?

It seems a little senseless?

[iatee]

I don't think money is ultimately the issue...I don't think many people on this site were or are primarily playing legacy because they could win a couple hundred bucks at an SCG event.

The real benefit of the events was that they were pre-structured, well-advertised and run at competitive REL. Organizing stuff is hard and requires a lot of follow through, though I don't think it's beyond this site to develop something like a grassroots national league system.

[apple713]

This site has a poll feature we could use to test the waters and see if people would be interested but the amount of users here would be an inaccurate representation of possible attendance.

I'm thinking if you are serious you need to get some estimates together and start to figure things out. Get costs to rent space for an average turnout. Costs to hire judges to keep up it competitive. Maybe wizards gives packs for official events idk. Im sure that people on this site would be able to piecemeal all of the information tho.

[JBlaze]

Dafuk u r saying?


If we give you money you will host an event, but you have never tried that before?

It seems a little senseless?

No no no I should have been more clear I'm not planning on running the event or anybody giving me money or anything. I just wanted to get the idea out there and see what people thought.

[phonics]

mtg tournaments by their very nature are crowd funded.

[GrimoirePath]

I think its a great instinct. I alluded to the same thing in the SCG thread. The fact is, a large share of Legacy players visit this board. Advertising is built in. Add in Reddit and MtG salvation, and getting the word out about a Legacy event shouldnt be hard.

Basically, if people were interested, we would need a test venue. Pick a region and check out the costs for space. We wouldnt need a convention center like SCG because we wouldnt be running modern and standard at the same time. The things that need to be covered are room rent, judge pay, and prize support. The way to generate that money is by having a main event, a side event, and possibly a raffle. If a hotel is used, they may give discounted room rates to those attending your event.

As i suggested in the other thread, I think it would be cool to have a Saturday night small event for those who arrived early, and then a sunday main event. I kind of like taking it back to an old school, wild west feel, where its all community run. No select vendors, no prohibitions on selling your own cards, room for side casual play, etc.

If anyone is serious about attempting this, i am interested in discussing it. Im actually trying to arrange some events for my hometown (bloomington, indiana) now that Scg will probably be doing less legacy in Indianapolis and Cinncinati.

[Barook]

I think its a great instinct. I alluded to the same thing in the SCG thread. The fact is, a large share of Legacy players visit this board. Advertising is built in. Add in Reddit and MtG salvation, and getting the word out about a Legacy event shouldnt be hard.

Basically, if people were interested, we would need a test venue. Pick a region and check out the costs for space. We wouldnt need a convention center like SCG because we wouldnt be running modern and standard at the same time. The things that need to be covered are room rent, judge pay, and prize support. The way to generate that money is by having a main event, a side event, and possibly a raffle. If a hotel is used, they may give discounted room rates to those attending your event.

As i suggested in the other thread, I think it would be cool to have a Saturday night small event for those who arrived early, and then a sunday main event. I kind of like taking it back to an old school, wild west feel, where its all community run. No select vendors, no prohibitions on selling your own cards, room for side casual play, etc.

If anyone is serious about attempting this, i am interested in discussing it. Im actually trying to arrange some events for my hometown (bloomington, indiana) now that Scg will probably be doing less legacy in Indianapolis and Cinncinati.
The site probably should have at least some people in-the-know about all the things you have to consider when organizing a bigger event.

As for spreading the word, there's also Twitter and Facebook.

Maybe use a website with pre-registration to estimate user interest?

While thinking about it, that might be a cool idea: Make a website where you register and choose country/state/cities for locations that are feasible for you to play in (e.g. Germany/Bavaria/Munich, 100 km radius). Bonus points if there are filters for event size/prize payout/entry fee, so you can e.g. get results for bigger, more distant events you want to attend in if event size/payout is right. Event organizers could put up events on the website to check if there's enough audience.

Just the general gist of the idea.

[thecrav]

I don't think money is ultimately the issue...I don't think many people on this site were or are primarily playing legacy because they could win a couple hundred bucks at an SCG event.

The real benefit of the events was that they were pre-structured, well-advertised and run at competitive REL. Organizing stuff is hard and requires a lot of follow through, though I don't think it's beyond this site to develop something like a grassroots national league system.

+++++++++

EV is close to nill for most eternal events.

Pre-structured: YES! And included in this is that big events are just that - events. People will schedule going to them unlike their weekly local which they can easily skip because there's another one next week.
Well-advertised: YES! See above!
Comp REL: I think this is huge for a lot of eternal players. Knowing exactly how complex interactions work is a key part of an eternal match. When playing at regular REL, lacking this knowledge is often not punished. As a result, your superior knowledge of the format is not as much of a benefit.

One more thing I'll say I like about big eternal events - Every eternal community I've been in has been relatively small and tight-knit. Large events offer a chance to play people and decks outside of your usual group which I find to greatly contribute to my enjoyment of these events.

[MGB]

This is such a great idea. I wish this were something we could realistically do, but I fear that the overhead and the cost of organizing everything and finding judges and whatnot will be too much for a loosely associated player-run organization to handle. That having been said, it's worth a shot.

On another note, I once dreamed that if I were truly wealthy, I would fund a system of weekly or bi-weekly Legacy tournaments held in different parts of the world concurrently, and give out *real* prizes (in the tens of thousands) to the top-16, and actually see what comes out of Legacy if there was a system in which Legacy players could actually earn a living playing the game through these weekly/bi-weekly tournaments. In my system, at the end of the year there would be a "Legacy Champs" type of event in some exotic location like Hawaii or Dubai in which the standings leaders from the "regular season" were invited alongside winners of larger Grand Prix-like tournaments, and the field of 64 would fight for a multi-million dollar prize pot. This, in effect, would be like SCG or the Pro Tour on steroids. And only for Legacy / Vintage formats, and never Limited or Standard. Additionally, I would maintain my own banlist and not take any instruction from Wizards. :p Actually, that sounds like a great benefit of player-run tournaments - you could in effect have your own banlist because who cares about what Wizards says about *your* format?

[apple713]

I have some information that may be useful

If you get 200 players with an entry fee of $40 thats $8000 to put towards the event

You can pay out prizes the same as SCG 5k's so you have $3,000 left for space rental and judges

You'll want Approx 2,000 sq ft for 200 players (if my math is correct)

I used https://www.hotelplanner.com/ and found that you can get a decent location / accommodation for about $0.50 / sq ft. So for ~2,000 sq. ft. expect about $1,000 to rent for the day. Of course this will vary by location but I searched dallas because I'm familiar with the location.


I can't recall what the average turnout was the last time i attended a legacy SCG event but I guesstimated about 200.


In summary, 200 people pay entry of $40, gives $8,000 budget

$5,000 prizes
$1,000 space rental
$500-$1,000 judge support??? i have no idea what they get
$1,000 wiggle room (about 25 entry fees)



I know SCG has a $30 entry fee but with only 200 people that would leave $6,000 budget, meaning no support for judges and no wiggle room.

It's possible that after the first few event that the cost could be adjusted with the "wiggle room" from previous tournaments.



comments?

[JBlaze]

@apple713
Thanks for the info. I would drop $50 on an event like this with no hesitation and I imagine that I am on the lower end of the economic bracket as far as the player base goes.

@Barook
Absolutely love the web site idea. Could be a real game changer so to speak.

@GrimoirePath
Credit where credit is due. Your post in the other thread is what snapped me out of the "oh man they fucked us over" emotional response got me thinking again, and was definitely the genesis of this thread.

[thecrav]

When I think "crowdfunding legacy" my immediate thought is something like a Kickstarter where a bunch of people "register" for the event and if it hits the right amount of cash, the TO proceeds with organizing it. If you can get a quote on your venue that's good for a few weeks, this is likely a workable model for getting the tournament to fire. (But probably not so great as the core business model of a series)




comments?

Recurring costs

Does that rental fee include tables and chairs? If so, do they set them up? Is that an extra fee? If they don't, you're either investing time doing this yourself or paying someone to do it.

Space - Your square footage amounts are just for the players. How is that number affected by the tables, the gaps between them, and the "hallways" between groups of tables? You're also going to need space for the judge staff to do their thing. You also definitely don't want to be turning people away (unless you're pre-regging people, in which case people will know whether they can get in in advance). If you're offering side events, those will need a bit of extra space. You probably also want some space for trading, eating/drinking, and just general cooling down. Otherwise everyone is stuck outside the ballroom or at the table they played at. I'd probably increase your square footage estimate by 30-50% for these things.

Most hotels charge for the internet connection required for WER but I'd bet that the amount of data is so low that you could run the whole thing tethered if you don't mind your phone sitting at the score keeper's table.

You'll probably want a dedicated score keeper. I haven't tried to find one but I'd guess that people are a lot more likely to want to play magic or judge than they are to want to sit at the score keeper's table. Fortunately, this requires next-to-no Magic knowledge, so I'd probably offer it to a high school kid at the LGS who needs some cash or to an organizer's SO who doesn't play MtG but wants to be involved.

One time costs

You'll need a computer that can run WER. Having a backup is definitely a good idea. If you want to run side events, I'd probably go with two computers.

You'll also want a solid laserjet printer for deck reg sheets, pairings, and results slips (and don't forget to bring twice as much paper as you think you'll need). You could start by using your personal stuff and eventually buy dedicated stuff.

You'll probably want a projector for the round timer. I know some hotels will offer this for rental. However, as image size is the key and picture quality barely matters at all, buying a cheap one will likely pay for itself within a few events.

Additional Income Sources

Even if they're not actually involved, see if a local store will "sponsor" the event by paying to have their name attached to it.

Call every store that offers singles within in a few hours drive and see if they want to buy a booth. I'm sure booths at GPs and such are expensive but for a player run event, if you could get a store to throw in $250-$500, that would help a lot.

Tournament swag - Playmats are relatively cheap to have made in bulk. You could likely get some art donated or done at a low cost by someone who's supportive of these events. If you pre-sale, t-shirts are also quite easy. Their main problem is sizing (which is solved by pre-selling). If your bank-roll is balling out of control, sleeves, dice, pens, and life pads are also options.

Depending on the hotel, they may let you sell snacks or drinks. Sam's Club brand water bottles cost 9.95 cents per bottle and I'd happily pay a buck for one out of a cooler if I forgot to bring something to drink.

Further thoughts

With the costs you've laid out as well as the ones I've added, I don't think you're likely to do much better than breaking even. This would mean that each and every time you want to run one of these tournaments, you have to make a fairly substantial up front investment. If you were making money on the side from singles like SCG does, that wouldn't be as big a problem. But unless you've got money to burn, I think a good course of action would be...

Question to the players

Would you be willing to overpay for a few tournaments if it meant that the TO would have the money in their pocket to run the next event?

[thecrav]

Some other thoughts:

If you're in an area where cities are close enough together that people will travel between them for events but far enough apart that the stores in those cities aren't really competing with each other, you could try to get a store from each city to team up. For example, here in Texas, if I could get a store in Houston, Austin, and Dallas to each run events 4 months apart from each other, I'd get a big event within a few hours 3 times a year. But each store would only have to put in the effort once per year. Additionally, the stores in one city being associated with the event in another city gives you a built in audience/network of players who are likely to want to go to such an event.

This also makes me wonder - how often is too often for a 200+ person tournament? At what point are people not able to make time for all of the events. My guess is that you probably want to max out at around once per quarter per region.

[Barook]

@Barook
Absolutely love the web site idea. Could be a real game changer so to speak.
Makes me wonder why nobody has done it before.

I envision it as THE central MtG tournament hub where

a) players could easily find tournaments that fit their needs
b) tournament organizers could look at their region and see what populace might be interested in their tournaments
c) local gamestores could list themselves including formats etc. (like this (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28379-List-of-Stores-that-Support-Legacy), except searchable, filterable, etc.)

No more looking up tournaments on forums or social media or where to find the next LGS - all being packed on a single website.

I think this kind of site has some serious potential (think MtGGoldfish) if executed well (doesn't need to be Legacy-only). Sadly, I'm devoid of any webdesigning/programming skills, otherwise I would start to work on that asap.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Question to the players

Would you be willing to overpay for a few tournaments if it meant that the TO would have the money in their pocket to run the next event?

I would be willing to invest in each tournament without playing in them, as long as I can expect a reasonable payout down the road. Perhaps twitch.tv support featuring advertising for local scenes?

[GrimoirePath]

Provided the community is forgiving at the outset, the kinks can be worked out. The opens I have been to have had an average of 150 people attending. I would be interested in attending events even with fifty players, despite preferring more. If prize support were based upon attendance with a guaranteed minimum, i would be satisfied. I also think venue rental could be kept down if we didnt need a super fancy space in a super great part of town. Just some hotel off the highway in a city should cut it. These places usually have tables and chairs, which the TO would have to set up.

Im perfectly OK with low fi events, so long as it fires.

[apple713]

Does that rental fee include tables and chairs? If so, do they set them up? Is that an extra fee? If they don't, you're either investing time doing this yourself or paying someone to do it.

Space - Your square footage amounts are just for the players. How is that number affected by the tables, the gaps between them, and the "hallways" between groups of tables? You're also going to need space for the judge staff to do their thing. You also definitely don't want to be turning people away (unless you're pre-regging people, in which case people will know whether they can get in in advance). If you're offering side events, those will need a bit of extra space. You probably also want some space for trading, eating/drinking, and just general cooling down. Otherwise everyone is stuck outside the ballroom or at the table they played at. I'd probably increase your square footage estimate by 30-50% for these things.

With the costs you've laid out as well as the ones I've added, I don't think you're likely to do much better than breaking even. This would mean that each and every time you want to run one of these tournaments, you have to make a fairly substantial up front investment. If you were making money on the side from singles like SCG does, that wouldn't be as big a problem. But unless you've got money to burn, I think a good course of action would be...

Question to the players

Would you be willing to overpay for a few tournaments if it meant that the TO would have the money in their pocket to run the next event?


I calculated the space as follows

the complete surface area to seat 200 players not including spacing is 500 Sq FT. I doubled it for seating to get 1000 sq ft, Then I doubled it again for misc stuff like side events judges and such. Maybe thats not enough. IDK. What would be really nice is to have a store owner that knows numbers and space give some feedback.

Also, I don't think that Anyone here is trying to turn a profit by hosting it , I think our main goal is just to play legacy.

I think if you get a store involved thats a great idea. They might be able to make the deposit for you

The only real upfront cost is the deposit on the space, which seemed to be around the cost of the space as well. Some of the places I saw will set up tables provide wifi and refreshments because stye are hotel amenities instead of typical convention center amenities.


I also think you are right with respect to the frequency of tournaments. You'd have to divide the US into regions and maybe find the average travel distance for people to gather the largest crowds.

For example, each quarter you could have a tournament in one of the big cities in texas, San antonio, dallas, houston, austin.




Provided the community is forgiving at the outset, the kinks can be worked out. The opens I have been to have had an average of 150 people attending. I would be interested in attending events even with fifty players, despite preferring more. If prize support were based upon attendance with a guaranteed minimum, i would be satisfied. I also think venue rental could be kept down if we didnt need a super fancy space in a super great part of town. Just some hotel off the highway in a city should cut it. These places usually have tables and chairs, which the TO would have to set up.

Im perfectly OK with low fi events, so long as it fires.

Although u may be ok with lo fi events, I don't think other people will. If you don't have EV to support a tournament its not likely to be attended.

[Barook]

I also think you are right with respect to the frequency of tournaments. You'd have to divide the US into regions and maybe find the average travel distance for people to gather the largest crowds.
That's why I think a website would be the most useful and reasonable approach.

I remember that Team ABS had a website where you could enter your coordinates and then it showed up on a world map. That was kinda cool.

Maybe working with coordinates (since exact addresses with tenthousands of dollars in card board is asking for trouble) and, as I said before, filters for event range based on personal preferences.

Here's how I envision it:

- enter your coordinates
- enter first distance/max entry fee/minimum prize support/format
- enter second distance/max entry fee/minimum prize support/format
- enter third distance/max entry fee/minimum prize support/format
etc.
- bonus settings: Add on which week days you're actually able to play.

When you're done, you can either grab a list with links of correspending tournaments or get a map with clickable tournament locations - kinda like this: (excuse my shitty paint skills):

http://i.imgur.com/2gAMhB4.png

Store owners/tournament organizers have a different account where they also enter their tournament data (coordiantes/store name + address, format, entry fee, prize support roughly in dollar, links to store website, etc). Once they're done, they get a list of potential players and another graphic:

http://i.imgur.com/FaH9jd9.png

In this case, 3 players might be potential players for the tournament.

You could even include a function to search for the optimal tournament region:

http://i.imgur.com/93edRbp.png

The red marked region would pull alot more potential players than the current location.

I'm no web designer and I have no idea how hard it would be to create/programm all this stuff. Just to throwing in the idea.

[Stuart]

Quick thought re. costs: you could use a co-op model, in which entrants are basically player-owners. Charge a higher entry fee ($50-60?), but all players get a portion of the profits and/or better prize support at all levels.

[Jo11ygrnreefer]

Take into consideration the average Legacy player is not broke. Most of us are adults with good paying jobs. Basically, if you build it we will come!!!

[MGB]

Man I wish this could be a thing in the future. Having a community-supported and run Legacy tournament circuit would just be so nice in that it would allow us to tell SCG and Wizards that our community doesn't need their blessing or support.

[GrimoirePath]

Lets have a vote on the city where the first "The Source" legacy event should be held. Locals can huddle, select a space, and get back to the greater community with a potential date. Open a kickstarter/indiegogo, and when enough participants pay in to cover the venue, the event fires.

Something like that anyway.

Who likes the midwest?

[Ziveeman]

Why not start small? I'd just try to get a store located in a Source-heavy area to host an event with the Source in the name of the tournament (The Source Legacy Open, etc). Then build it from there. I'm not so sure that trying to commit a whole convention center when you don't even know what the potential turnout is going to be - and no, voting in a public poll is not indicative of who is actually going to show up.

Have the store deal with most of the logistics (they already do that anyway) then have crowdfund enough money for the Source to sponsor the event.

[GrimoirePath]

Why not start small? I'd just try to get a store located in a Source-heavy area to host an event with the Source in the name of the tournament (The Source Legacy Open, etc). Then build it from there. I'm not so sure that trying to commit a whole convention center when you don't even know what the potential turnout is going to be - and no, voting in a public poll is not indicative of who is actually going to show up.

Have the store deal with most of the logistics (they already do that anyway) then have crowdfund enough money for the Source to sponsor the event.

I like that too. I said earlier, im not into the convention center thing. Who has say over what can be a "The Source," legacy open? Id be more than happy to try to organize a fifty or so person event in Bloomington, IN, which is drivable from Indianapolis, Louisville, Cincinnati, and a few other locales. However, thats me being greedy. :laugh:

[JPoJohnson]

Why not start small? I'd just try to get a store located in a Source-heavy area to host an event with the Source in the name of the tournament (The Source Legacy Open, etc). Then build it from there. I'm not so sure that trying to commit a whole convention center when you don't even know what the potential turnout is going to be - and no, voting in a public poll is not indicative of who is actually going to show up.

Have the store deal with most of the logistics (they already do that anyway) then have crowdfund enough money for the Source to sponsor the event.

This sounds like a great plan. What area of the states would have a good Source support/legacy support where we could start this off?

[Ziveeman]

I like that too. I said earlier, im not into the convention center thing. Who has say over what can be a "The Source," legacy open? Id be more than happy to try to organize a fifty or so person event in Bloomington, IN, which is drivable from Indianapolis, Louisville, Cincinnati, and a few other locales. However, thats me being greedy. :laugh:

If you're willing to organize an event, I'd say go for it. Fifty people for a local Legacy event would be fantastic! Talk to the store you're closest with. I've been running our Arizona Legacy Series for the past two years and it's a blast. We started off really small (our events probably 3-4 years ago only got like 15 people), but the Legacy scene here has grown a lot!

To slightly backtrack on what I said, it's actually not necessary to attach the Source branding to a Legacy event - the real way to crowdfund Legacy events is for people in each community to step up and organize events (we can always attach the branding once the tournaments have been established). While running events isn't for everyone, we really need just one person in each community willing to do it. It would honestly be great if we could get some sort of subforum here to discussion tournament logistics, tournament marketing/advertising, prizing, and all that jazz associated with event organization.

[GrimoirePath]

If you're willing to organize an event, I'd say go for it. Fifty people for a local Legacy event would be fantastic! Talk to the store you're closest with. I've been running our Arizona Legacy Series for the past two years and it's a blast. We started off really small (our events probably 3-4 years ago only got like 15 people), but the Legacy scene here has grown a lot!

To slightly backtrack on what I said, it's actually not necessary to attach the Source branding to a Legacy event - the real way to crowdfund Legacy events is for people in each community to step up and organize events (we can always attach the branding once the tournaments have been established). While running events isn't for everyone, we really need just one person in each community willing to do it. It would honestly be great if we could get some sort of subforum here to discussion tournament logistics, tournament marketing/advertising, prizing, and all that jazz associated with event organization.

I second that notion, on a tourney organizing subforum.

[H]

I second that notion, on a tourney organizing subforum.

Do we really need a whole sub-forum? Perhaps just a thread to start with?

[Ziveeman]

Do we really need a whole sub-forum? Perhaps just a thread to start with?

Yeah, we could just start with a thread and see where it goes. Figured it might get messy but probably a good start regardless.

[amalek0]

Sorry if I'm late to the party; I've worked the floor at opens before; I live in VA and I'd be willing to staff these sorts of events at-cost--long as I'm breaking even on gas/food/hotel split for the weekend, I'm happy to drive anywhere within 7-8 hours to work an event, because getting to watch legacy and keep the community going is worth it.