Just wanted to share my thoughts on the regionals held at Flat Land Games.

Gut Reaction: The overall consensus was that it was an extremely well run tournament that went very smooth.

Numbers: 91, 6 rounds of swiss, cut to 16. Had space for plenty more players. $15 entry. 120 minute rounds.

Positives: Well organized. Communication was really good to local players about what to expect. Registrations was smooth. Event organizer was obviously familiar with competitive tournaments. No food breaks were given, but with the time of the rounds, plenty of time was allotted to get food. The store organized a mobile food grill to cook right outside the store which was awesome. They also had hungry howies selling pizza in store. In between rounds door prizes were randomly selected. They gave away a handful of epic ships as well as some full OP kits at the end. To reiterate the gut reaction, the whole day was ran very well, good pace, and excellent atmosphere.

Negatives: The biggest negative were the playmats. Walking in I was blown away to see a regional tournament without actual playmats. We played on 3x3 wooden cuts outs that were spray painted black, some just bare wood, and some tables just had 3x3 blue painters tape to mark them off... I couldn't understand why they didn't ask players to bring mats, or reach out to other stores. I know Eternal Games bought 32 matching mats to hold larger x-wing tournaments. It's a shame those are being put to good use. I later realized that they didn't have enough table to put actual mats on, because they would droop off. The only way to make it work was to have wooden squares that hung over the edges a few inches. It was frustrating to lean over the table and bump the whole game....

Guys bathroom only had one urinal and was pretty dirty by the time it was over. Small complaint, I never had to wait for than a minute or so.

TO's were pretty new to the game itself. They made wrong calls on some well known rules.(in particular, one said that range was measured from cardboard to cardboard, and not base to base) That being said, I think they did an excellent job, and I don't believe there was a single major issue. They were quick to respond to inquiries, and were able to make decisions that satisfied all players. In addition, they were very adamant about discouraging draws which was good for the game.

No store credit or payout to top players. Yes they got prizes, but I've never seen a store not do store credit for winners. $15 x 91 is $1365 I'm pretty darn sure that wasn't given away in door prizes.

Last Negative. I think X-wing Michigan has a phenomenal community. A community in which many FLGS have invested lots of effort into creating. To my understanding, Flat Land did not even have a regular game night for x-wing when they were awarded the regional. I didn't think it was right to reward a store that hadn't helped build the community. Please don't take that personal Flat Land, that's just the bias of my personal feelings. I think FFG should consider stores that have consistently created great turnouts.

Opportunities: Other than sheer size, I didn't experience anything outside of a kit night at my FLGS. I think a regional brings opportunity to do side events after, awards for best custom paints, livestream, and other creative elements.

Final Thoughts: Hats off to Flat Lands for one of the biggest X-wing regionals so far. Great day of fun had by all. Great community of guys to play with. Great tournament! I hope x-wing regionals stay in Michigan and wouldn't pout if Flat Land got it again, but I wouldn't mind seeing a store with a bigger X-wing community get it next time.

Thanks a ton for the feedback! I would like to take a moment to explain some of the items, in the hopes of generating additional constructive criticism and conversation.

Re: prize support

We did do some pretty substantial additional prize support - we had three different raffles of $99.95 MSRP FFG products as well as giving out numerous gift coupons for on-site food from EJ's. In addition, top two each took home one of our fully painted boards. (A bit more on those later) We also did post on both our site and our Facebook event page what expected prize support above and beyond entry would be - we would do $7 in prizes for every player above 48, $10 for each additional player above 96. This would have put us at just under $300 in prize pay out based on actual attendance of 90 people.

As for not doing our prize support to top-16, it's a fair criticism. For many of our non-M:tG events at FLGS, we find there is a better overall community experience if we instead try to put the bulk of prize support into random giveaways as opposed to strictly rewarding the top of the competition. Without such giveaways, many participants drift away as the day goes on, and we lose the overall participation.

Your math is correct on total incoming entry fees, but it also doesn't take into account some pretty substantial costs. In anticipation of the event size, we rented a large number of additional chairs and tables. The Regional Kit is also not free; it sets back individual stores $160 plus shipping.

Re: tables

I can understand where you're coming from on the format of our tables. The decision to table out like we did was based on a couple of factors.

1) We didn't feel it was appropriate to lean on the outside community to provide the bulk of the necessary tables. Mats may be scratched or damaged throughout the day, and we would rather it be our store property that was damaged rather than that of players coming to the event. Further, we did not want to rely on players to bring enough mats when, by the time the event started, we still may not have had enough mats to use.

2) The feedback we received from our first Store Championship back in 2014 was generally positive to both the miniature table/tape conversion as well as the table toppers. We were caught off-guard by the number of people we had show up for that event (expecting 20, instead had 57 show), so we had to convert our Warhammer tables into X-Wing tables on the fly. In the two years since, we have had multiple smaller events, as well as a 2nd Store Championship, and we hadn't heard criticism since.

3) Cost and logistics. It is nearly impossible to find a reasonably prized, 36" wide table. Most standard card tables are 72" by 30". As such, strictly using FFG or other 3x3 floppy mats isn't a logistical reality. Further, (and this relates to expected payout above) we normally only had 8 3x3 table toppers. Part of the reason we advertised prize payout as we did was because we also had to cover the cost of getting an additional 30 table toppers made. Total material costs alone ran to $600. To get 3x3 mats otherwise would have run another several hundred dollars (even with retailer discounts) and still not solved the card table issue.


Re: Staff and community

I reached out to a handful of people and other stores in the area trying to find someone with more experience to head up the event. In every case, every name that came up for consideration on running the event indicated they preferred to play. I had a trio of players I consulted throughout the day on more substantial rules questions as needed; all three have experience judging multiple FFG games.

I should have cast a wider net looking for someone with experience. I'll fully own my mistake on that one.

As for whether or not we should have gotten a regional - we may not have a regular kit night, but we sure sell a lot of X-Wing. We have a sizable community, but they don't coalesce around a single night very often. We may not get 8+ for a kit every week, but it's a rare day I don't have 2-4 games going on throughout the day - some come in and take a long lunch, others show up two hours before we close. We have players and competitors, they're simply disparate in availability.

Re: Bathrooms

Gamers are gross.

We did do a couple bathroom cleanups throughout the day, but I'll make no excuse. I fully understand where you're coming from, though - this is one of the hardest things to keep up on during our major events.


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Apologies if any of this comes across as defensive. It isn't - I truly and fully appreciate the feedback, these are the kinds of things we need to hear about so we can continue to improve our events. I list many of these off because many don't always understand the resources and energy that goes into these events. My staff and I spent a lot of time and effort to put everything together in the weeks leading up, and I'm fairly sure most of us passed out quickly once we finally got to scoot out at night's end!

Thanks again for the review. I hope we see you at the shop again!

I thought the event went really well (except for my record lol). I was thoroughly impressed with the food options and the commitment of the staff to making sure it was a fun environment. Competition or not, it still is a game with plastic figures! My only gripe relates to the tables, but not because of the lack of mats (understandable) or the overhang on the edges of the tables (also hard to avoid). Rather, I found the issue was that there was simply not enough space between tables. I only had three pilots and a handful of upgrades but I still had to stack everything to make it fit. There simply was not enough room. Most games my tokens and rulers sat on the play space because there was no where else for them to go. Perhaps next time remove one table from each row and get a few extra inches between each. That would really help with the crowding I think, especially since there is no space between the player and the table.

Totally valid. I tried to cram as many spots in as possible, and we got a bit overzealous. In a perfect world, I would like to do one board per card table; anticipating 100+, we did three boards for every two tables.

If we get this kind of event again, we'll try to go 1 for 1.

There was one big upside to a smaller attendance - I was glad I could space everyone out better between rounds 1 and 2; I was afraid players were going to develop rear end callouses on account of how close we had done the initial rows!

I'll give 1.75 thumbs up for the event; I was there and enjoyed it. Thought the TO was very clear, good with communications, and where mistakes were made (pairings, scoring, rules calls) they corrected them quickly and explained what was going on. Couldn't ask for better communication, IMO. Time in between rounds was used well (huge improvement over the 2015 store champs where they said they'd start at 2 PM, and didn't start until after 3 PM).

Food approach was great. Drawings were a nice touch.

Only downsides for me: lack of mats (put out to the community and we'll bring 'em; I was going to bring one but forgot to put it in the car that morning) and space between tables. After the first round they pulled the rows of tables apart which really helped with moving around, but the space between game boards was really tight making it hard to lay out your stuff. Not the first time I've encountered this -- Chicago last year had the same issue -- just something to remember for next time.