They should be using promotions to generate ancillary sales and not use the entrance fee as profit.

Pretty much everything a business does needs to generate profit in some way. That's why we call them a business rather than a charity.

Tournaments can be used as a form of advertising, but in many cases it won't actually generate any increase in customers. At my LGS we had a store championship for X-Wing, Armada and Imperial Assault. Two types of people showed up... Regular customers and people from far enough away they'd never show up again.

So in that case, none of those tournaments would generate any additional sales for that LGS. Which means if he didn't make any money from the entry fee, it would of been a net loss for him.

On this subject, it is my opinion that the LGS is performing a service to their gaming community. They should be using promotions to generate ancillary sales and not use the entrance fee as profit.

Most of the people that walked through the door for this event won't ever visit the store again unless it hosts another regional. Out of 112 people in attendance, maybe a third of them will ever do more than pay a tournament entry fee at the store.

Local tournaments are about supporting the community and building a community. An event of this scope is about making sure that you can bring in enough cash to offset the loss in sales you take from hosting it.

You honestly see this thread as a "witch hunt" and do not see the value of players voising concerns over the fixed costs to participate in X-Wing Regionals? If so, then I can't see how you can claim to have though about it before you posted.

Voicing concerns to the store is one thing. But voicing those concerns semi-anonymously to an international group of players is not particularly helpful, no--and similar discussions in the past have degenerated into people hurling insults at each other.

You do not think that FFG reads the forums?

I don't know who at FFG reads the forums, how often, or how seriously they take feedback posted here.

You do not think that the forums are the appropriate place for players to raise and discuss issues with FFG sanctioned events?

No, I don't. I'd suggest that customer service, Organized Play, and the store itself are all much more appropriate (and much more likely to get an actual response).

You do not think that players can have a legitimate basis to question the level of profit that an event host selected by FFG profits from hosting the event?

No, I don't think "I want to pay less for a particular luxury good" is a legitimate basis for complaint.

But, maybe you did think about it. Why do you believe that this thread is a "witch hunt?"

As noted above, complaint threads posted here about particular events have a history of degenerating into flaming and bitter disagreement.

It is appropriate to discuss what players expect from X-Wing tournament hosts and it is appropriate to criticize hosts who are not providing what players want. This is all information that FFG can consider in the future to make what it believes is the best environment for players.

The assumption here is that FFG is interested or particularly cares what the forums have to say about it. In fact, the entire point of establishing tournament guidelines is so that you don't have to monitor stores individually. There's no shortage of stores queueing up to buy Regionals kits, so clearly owners/organizers see value in them. Maximizing that value, or not, is up to the store--and to its customers. Which is why announcing on an international forum that you think the store should have kept less of what (the OP assumes to be) its profit for the event is... It's not that it's bad or wrong, but I just don't see the point.

The assumption ? Since when is that an assumption? FFG employees have admitted to reading the forums and decisions of FFG have been reversed following community outcry on the forum (e.g. cross-faction dial rules).

I didn't say FFG doesn't read the forum. I said you're assuming they're interested in what one or two people on the forum have to say about a particular event.

FFG has reversed decisions following community outcry, yes. That outcry was expressed by many people on the forum here, on Reddit, on Twitter, on Facebook, and by e-mail. That's different in both breadth and volume of feedback.

Again, if I were the OP, this is where I'd come to vent (and I'd think twice about doing so). If I wanted to express my frustration with the policies at this particular event, I'd discuss it with the store and with the groups at FFG who area actually responsible for dealing with Organized Play events and policies. If I wanted to talk to the community about what's generally appropriate or expected, I'd have posed the topic post quite differently.

They should be using promotions to generate ancillary sales and not use the entrance fee as profit.

Pretty much everything a business does needs to generate profit in some way. That's why we call them a business rather than a charity.

Tournaments can be used as a form of advertising, but in many cases it won't actually generate any increase in customers. At my LGS we had a store championship for X-Wing, Armada and Imperial Assault. Two types of people showed up... Regular customers and people from far enough away they'd never show up again.

So in that case, none of those tournaments would generate any additional sales for that LGS. Which means if he didn't make any money from the entry fee, it would of been a net loss for him.

While I understand what you are saying, some LGS's I have enjoyed playing at have offered free or substantially reduced entry fees with a purchase of $15 or more. In other words, you can just pay to be part of the event or actually get something for your fee in addition to being able to play. This has also been true of bigger events like Regionals.

I just feel it is short sighted to charge a higher fee ($20+) and not offer a substantial amount of extras. But I suppose as others have said that it is a buyers market and in the future I will simply decline to attend events that would do this -- the downside is that FFG might see the decreasing attendance numbers as decreasing interest in the game / format as opposed to players rejecting LGS's with (what some of us see as) crappy business practices.

Vorpal, I'm sorry that you and I disagree about what a "valid" complaint is, but I submit that individuals have a right to ***** about anything they like. Cost of a tournament included. If you are convinced that it is unproductive you are always welcome to enjoy reading and contributing in a thread you feel is a better use of your time.

Oh my goodness, you cannot complain about the way AEG San Diego regionals was run. This is my second regionals, the previous being another $25 entry at Sacramento. At this tournament, there were about 70 players, with a cut to top 8 after 6 rounds of swiss that lasted until 2 AM. The store was enormous! Adequately held this tournament WHILE a second tournament of another kind was taking place, with no intrusion on the actual storefront. Meanwhile, AEG was filled to the brim, basically shutting down operations for us to play a full 2 days of x wing. (sure, it was a fairly normal second day).

Both were well run. The Sacramento event had a large water cooler. That was nice. The 2 day event at AEG was so smoothly run and communicated. This is something we have come to expect from the usual TO who manages such a good job consistently, and on to add to his usual competency there were 3 other officials, at least 2 of whom I know to be seasoned TO's as well.

On to prize support, beginning with participation prizes. I can't remember so I don't want to assume there were or weren't enough participation prize boba fetts. At AEG, the organizers guaranteed that each person who attended received a Hera. Additionally, each person received an awesome custom token unique to this event.

At sacramento the ONLY prizes beyond the FFG standard kit were 3 raffled off gaming mats. No store credit raffle, no store credit for the winners or top 8. If I've managed to place top 8 at a huge tournament, I expect to at least make my entry fee back in credit. Nothing says I ought to expect this but after playing in several dozen tournaments this has been the case all but this once.

Meanwhile, at AEG there was a cut to top 16 that gave prizes beyond participation level. As well as countless raffles. I actually lost count of how many people were called at random to receive some sort of prize. Maybe not all the prizes were hefty but neither did they have to be! I've been to tournaments where the raffled prize was bigger than 1st place. I've been to tournaments where the prize for taking last place was incredibly sizable.

So in comparison, I'd say $25 for sacramento regionals was a bit steep considering there was no effort to make prize support, but the tournament was well run and no complaints beyond the price. $25 for AEG's above and beyond tournament hosting, excellent chances of non-winner prizes, expanded participation prizes, and adequate reward for placing well.

If you were disappointed by anything beyond some bad luck at AEG's regionals you need to fly better.

I think $25 is reasonable, especially for a 2 day event. As mentioned before, game stores are a business and deserve to make profit of off a desirable event.

I generally only play x-wing at stores because they provide space and access to the community, so I'm fine with whatever keeps them in business. Events like this take a lot of planning (I'm sure managing registration alone for 100+ people is a nightmare) and wrap up as well. At my job, if I work extra hard, I expect to get paid extra. I don't see why stores running regionals shouldn't be able to expect the same?

Now, I'm not advocating for $100 entrance fees or anything, but I believe a regional tournament should be beneficial for a game store, not a burden.

I attended this tournament. I know the primary TO that ran the regional and essentially organized the whole thing. Let me point a few things out:

The store in question is FANTASTIC. They have amazing support for X-Wing, the community, and its customers. Store Credit was given out pretty generously for the Top Players AS WELL AS around 10 random players. In regards to Bathrooms, they had one very clean one in the shop, and went out of their way to make sure it was okay for us to use the nice bathroom at the arcade LITERALLY 20 FEET next door. It was not that hard to walk an extra 1 minute to use a different bathroom.

The tournament started pretty much on time and was extremely smooth. Time between rounds was never longer than 15-20 minutes. For 112 pilots (one of the largest turnouts in the country) that is an amazing accomplishment.

Something else that the OP is failing to mention is that the TO made sure that he requested extra Hera cards from FFG so that ALL participants could receive them, not just the Top 64.

Also, speaking of prize support, another thing that ALL participants received was an AWESOME acrylic token. Getting over 112 of those made probably wasn't super cheap. So no, I don't buy what OP is saying. At the end of the day if the FLGS makes a bit of profit so that they can continue putting on amazing events, then I have absolutely no issue with that. This store has been GREAT for X-Wing, and is looking expand even more. Don't start a which hunt and potentially get this store banned from getting anymore FFG tourneys, because you're 100% dead wrong.

Here are the tokens they gave out to all participants both this year and last year. (I've covered up the store's name)

Keep in mind IronTau that we are not speaking exclusively about any one regional here. Some have been amazing, some notsomuch. I wish FFG organized play collected email addresses of attendees and did post-event surveys as a means of providing some Quality Control and as a factor in who gets allotted Regional events in subsequent years,

I was at the SoCal regional. I did not have a problem paying $25 for entry into a major tournament. And I do not "EXPECT" any extra prize support. I have a friend who runs a very nice game store in my area and to expect thing like that seems presumptuous. However I wont lie. When a store does do a great job at prize support I enjoy it, and I never see a post here about it. I will fix that very shortly. AEG ran a good show this weekend. I do have complaints, but none of those would lead me not to attend again. The judges seemed fair and accessible. There seemed to be adequate room to play at every table. And a good time was had by all, that I talked too.

On the negative side: It was very crowded and hard to get around. I hear that they are fixing that post haste with a new addition. In my opinion it was too long on each day. There was too much time between games. It seemed that they did not enter results until all games had been reported (might not be the case, but others I was with thought the same thing). And sign in was not early enough and division of labor at sign in was done poorly. And I thought bottled water at the venue was insanely over priced (I am willing to pay for water, but to charge almost double what the gas station in the same parking lot was charging for a smaller bottle was a bit much).

Again; all these are minor things. None of these would cause me to not attend another tournament there.

While I understand what you are saying, some LGS's I have enjoyed playing at have offered free or substantially reduced entry fees with a purchase of $15 or more.

Some do, some don't. Some don't have the stock to do that. I know my LGS would be hard pressed to do so. But they only charged $10 for the store champ entry fee.

I just feel it is short sighted to charge a higher fee ($20+) and not offer a substantial amount of extras.

The price they charge is going to be based heavily on how much it costs them. One could debate how much profit they should make, but I don't think you can reasonably expect them to take a loss. So $20 may or may not be short sighted depending on how much it costs them to host the event. So unless we know the cost, we can't really comment about how fair the price is.

I wish FFG organized play collected email addresses of attendees and did post-event surveys as a means of providing some Quality Control and as a factor in who gets allotted Regional events in subsequent years,

It would seen to be in FFG's best interest to make sure the people hosting their regionals are offering the best possible experience to their customers.

The store may be the one hosting it, but a poorly run event can reflect poorly on FFG itself.

But that also doesn't mean the OP in this case has a valid complaint, because we don't know enough details to say if $25 is a fair price or not for what was offered. Even if we did, that's a fairly subjective thing in the first place.

Hi guys, my name is Glen and I was the TO for the event.

I'm not going to go into all of the ins and outs of the expenses of the event, partly because I don't work for the store. But I hope to shed some context based on long and argeous conversations I had with store management when deciding on prize support. Also, I probably won't follow-up afterward. I'm on all the local FB forums for the several surrounding states and metas -- I think everyone more or less has access to me -- so if there is something you'd like to contact me directly about, feel free. I may not give you any more data than I post here, but I am happy to receive any personal communiques.

First off, this is the second year running the event. Last year, we did a "break even" event like we do for most of our events. Meaning we spend all given resources we take in on the event itself. We offered free beverages and food, we gave out 100% of the rest in product. We also charged $25.

According to the store, it was basically the worst weekend they'd had all year financially. I'll come back to that in a minute.

I don't know what other store charge, but it varies around our meta. Typically the tier is something like $10 for a OP tourney, $15 for store champs, and $25 for Regionals -- give or take $5. I don't know what people charge in your area, but this is a coastal city so things cost more than they might as you move inland.

Now, again, you have to recognize we effectively closed the store. The store's loss leader, the gaming space, was basically closed. I had awkward conversations with MtG players explaining why the empty tables we were using for people to relax in between games weren't available to them (they didn't get it, MTGers are weird). They mad a few isolated purchases throughout the day, but people were warned via signage and social media ahead of time: if you're looking to use your normal gaming hangout, this weekend is not going to be the one to do it.

When we'd talked through this event, we'd talked through a lot of options: $35 ticket and food trucks, cut way down on the cap, etc. What we'd decided on was keep the same cost as last year, attempt to serve as many folks as we felt like we could, and offer less prize support. We didn't offer food so the store could sell overpriced sodas and candy.

I know some of the numbers, and I have a vague sense of the rest. Some of the stats quoted in above posts are accurate, some of them are way off. We tried to have specialized prize support for everyone who stuck it out most of the time, in addition the making sure every person -- not just top 64 got the Hera promo. We didn't give out as much door prize support. We just didn't.

I hope this makes sense. I know it can feel predatory. I know those long car rides home can be filled with tales of gamer barons trying to fill their gold lined coin purses with that sweet, sweet X-Wing moolah, but to bring myth to reality: the store is trying to make money (gasp). They are trying to pay for an expansion which will include nearly double the game space and beer taps. They do it to both make a profit and because they love games like X-Wing.

I'm going to stop here. I almost went into a rant about how X-Wing players don't really realize how little money stores make off of them despite being one of the largest minis games around, about how there are a lot of really great games which continue to grow because people make money off of them and are able to continue to use that money to re-invest and grow that game, about how I can't believe we're sweating a store $25 x 112, or that we aren't excited that we're getting to a place of 2 day and 112 player events -- but all of those seem like rabbit trails to the original issue.

Hope this lets you see the man behind the curtain a bit. I understand your concern, and I hope my moments of sarcasm don't take from the fact that I am responding is to help lend context and understanding -- even if disagreement remains. There won't be a follow-up from me here (or probably anywhere; sorry Mynock Squadron, but feel free to beef about it if you need to).

Thanks, everyone. Post casual.

I absolutely agree, the subjective nature of the value judgement puts this whole thing in the realm of opinion and conjecture.

Now, again, you have to recognize we effectively closed the store. The store's loss leader, the gaming space, was basically closed. I had awkward conversations with MtG players explaining why the empty tables we were using for people to relax in between games weren't available to them (they didn't get it, MTGers are weird). They mad a few isolated purchases throughout the day, but people were warned via signage and social media ahead of time: if you're looking to use your normal gaming hangout, this weekend is not going to be the one to do it.

...

I'm going to stop here. I almost went into a rant about how X-Wing players don't really realize how little money stores make off of them despite being one of the largest minis games around, about how there are a lot of really great games which continue to grow because people make money off of them and are able to continue to use that money to re-invest and grow that game, about how I can't believe we're sweating a store $25 x 112, or that we aren't excited that we're getting to a place of 2 day and 112 player events -- but all of those seem like rabbit trails to the original issue.

I don't really think it's a side issue at all, because it's a huge consideration that many (especially, apparently, the OP) don't seem to digest.

X-Wing isn't very profitable for stores . It *does* turn a profit, usually, sure, but...nothing, nothing like WH40K or MtG. Like, not even close.

So shutting down WH40K or MtG play for an entire day, or possibly entire weekend, to support X-Wing...is going to cost the store a lot more than just the actual dollars spent supplying and running the event. It is, at the same time, lots of lost revenue from the other games that COULD have been run there .

So a store deciding that a certain number is needed from their side to make the event worth running hardly means they are ending up swimming through piles of gold coins at the expense of X-Wing players. Game stores are a business with relatively thin margins, and store owners that have been around for a few years have a pretty good sense of what their revenue numbers are going to be any particular day, the impact of events on those numbers, and what they need to do to cover that gap.

They are trying to pay for an expansion which will include nearly double the game space and beer taps . They do it to both make a profit and because they love games like X-Wing.

beer taps .

beeeeeeeeer!!!!

So a store deciding that a certain number is needed from their side to make the event worth running hardly means they are ending up swimming through piles of gold coins at the expense of X-Wing players. Game stores are a business with relatively thin margins, and store owners that have been around for a few years have a pretty good sense of what their revenue numbers are going to be any particular day, the impact of events on those numbers, and what they need to do to cover that gap.

Note: That's a picture of Dee Yun and his Challenge Coin collection, not the owner of AEG and his haul from X-Wing Regionals.

112 people attended, there was 2 judges and the TO. There was no additional people in the store except for the cashier who they would normally have.

That is incorrect. The store had 3 or 4 employees present at all times during the first day. None of those employees were part of the TO staff. They opened early and closed late to accommodate the tournament. The store is normally busy on Saturdays with most of the tables taken up by card games, and other miniature games players. The sections of the store that are normally used for RPG, board games, and painting/modeling were filled with tables for X-Wing as well. The store had had flyers posted weeks in advance telling their regular customers to not even bother coming in on Saturday unless they were attending the event.

Outside of the X-Wing tournament the store was essentially closed. Other than $25 per person what revenue did the store bring in for the entire day? I know I didn't spend anything. I didn't see many other players buying stuff while they were there either. This isn't like throwing a local tournament, where the cash you spend to give fat prize support is likely to come back to you in the form of loyal customers. How many of those players from LA, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and elsewhere are ever going to show up in that store to shop? Even if it had zero prize support, it was an expensive event for a game store to host.

It was a well run event, everyone I know that attended had a good time.

I attended this tournament. I know the primary TO that ran the regional and essentially organized the whole thing. Let me point a few things out:

The store in question is FANTASTIC. They have amazing support for X-Wing, the community, and its customers. Store Credit was given out pretty generously for the Top Players AS WELL AS around 10 random players. In regards to Bathrooms, they had one very clean one in the shop, and went out of their way to make sure it was okay for us to use the nice bathroom at the arcade LITERALLY 20 FEET next door. It was not that hard to walk an extra 1 minute to use a different bathroom.

The tournament started pretty much on time and was extremely smooth. Time between rounds was never longer than 15-20 minutes. For 112 pilots (one of the largest turnouts in the country) that is an amazing accomplishment.

Something else that the OP is failing to mention is that the TO made sure that he requested extra Hera cards from FFG so that ALL participants could receive them, not just the Top 64.

Also, speaking of prize support, another thing that ALL participants received was an AWESOME acrylic token. Getting over 112 of those made probably wasn't super cheap. So no, I don't buy what OP is saying. At the end of the day if the FLGS makes a bit of profit so that they can continue putting on amazing events, then I have absolutely no issue with that. This store has been GREAT for X-Wing, and is looking expand even more. Don't start a which hunt and potentially get this store banned from getting anymore FFG tourneys, because you're 100% dead wrong.

Here are the tokens they gave out to all participants both this year and last year. (I've covered up the store's name)

Hi guys, my name is Glen and I was the TO for the event.

I'm not going to go into all of the ins and outs of the expenses of the event, partly because I don't work for the store. But I hope to shed some context based on long and argeous conversations I had with store management when deciding on prize support. Also, I probably won't follow-up afterward. I'm on all the local FB forums for the several surrounding states and metas -- I think everyone more or less has access to me -- so if there is something you'd like to contact me directly about, feel free. I may not give you any more data than I post here, but I am happy to receive any personal communiques.

First off, this is the second year running the event. Last year, we did a "break even" event like we do for most of our events. Meaning we spend all given resources we take in on the event itself. We offered free beverages and food, we gave out 100% of the rest in product. We also charged $25.

According to the store, it was basically the worst weekend they'd had all year financially. I'll come back to that in a minute.

I don't know what other store charge, but it varies around our meta. Typically the tier is something like $10 for a OP tourney, $15 for store champs, and $25 for Regionals -- give or take $5. I don't know what people charge in your area, but this is a coastal city so things cost more than they might as you move inland.

Now, again, you have to recognize we effectively closed the store. The store's loss leader, the gaming space, was basically closed. I had awkward conversations with MtG players explaining why the empty tables we were using for people to relax in between games weren't available to them (they didn't get it, MTGers are weird). They mad a few isolated purchases throughout the day, but people were warned via signage and social media ahead of time: if you're looking to use your normal gaming hangout, this weekend is not going to be the one to do it.

When we'd talked through this event, we'd talked through a lot of options: $35 ticket and food trucks, cut way down on the cap, etc. What we'd decided on was keep the same cost as last year, attempt to serve as many folks as we felt like we could, and offer less prize support. We didn't offer food so the store could sell overpriced sodas and candy.

I know some of the numbers, and I have a vague sense of the rest. Some of the stats quoted in above posts are accurate, some of them are way off. We tried to have specialized prize support for everyone who stuck it out most of the time, in addition the making sure every person -- not just top 64 got the Hera promo. We didn't give out as much door prize support. We just didn't.

I hope this makes sense. I know it can feel predatory. I know those long car rides home can be filled with tales of gamer barons trying to fill their gold lined coin purses with that sweet, sweet X-Wing moolah, but to bring myth to reality: the store is trying to make money (gasp). They are trying to pay for an expansion which will include nearly double the game space and beer taps. They do it to both make a profit and because they love games like X-Wing.

I'm going to stop here. I almost went into a rant about how X-Wing players don't really realize how little money stores make off of them despite being one of the largest minis games around, about how there are a lot of really great games which continue to grow because people make money off of them and are able to continue to use that money to re-invest and grow that game, about how I can't believe we're sweating a store $25 x 112, or that we aren't excited that we're getting to a place of 2 day and 112 player events -- but all of those seem like rabbit trails to the original issue.

Hope this lets you see the man behind the curtain a bit. I understand your concern, and I hope my moments of sarcasm don't take from the fact that I am responding is to help lend context and understanding -- even if disagreement remains. There won't be a follow-up from me here (or probably anywhere; sorry Mynock Squadron, but feel free to beef about it if you need to).

Thanks, everyone. Post casual.

This is my home store and happen to think they the Staff, TO and Judges did an excellent job making my experience as Awesome as any other day I show up to play a casual game of X-wing with friends or League Night.

I feel sorry for the people who did not enjoy themselves and the excellent comradely\conversation with fellow x-wing players. I personally did not come to win prizes (Would have been nice but I had an off day 1-5) but to meet new people test my ability against other players and have fun...

They are trying to pay for an expansion which will include nearly double the game space and beer taps . They do it to both make a profit and because they love games like X-Wing.

beer taps .

beeeeeeeeer!!!!

Oh man...for reals? Guess I better make more trips down south!

That's...not uncommon anymore?

Guardian Games here in PDX has 3 beers on tap, as well as a bottle bar, in their 'Critical Sip' area of the store. Very often a food truck outside, too, and our excellent local 'Hot Lips' pizza has a delivery cart that they keep stocked during the day. So...beer and hot, fresh, good food on hand.

That's...not uncommon anymore?

The FFG Event Center also has beer on tap and sells wine.

Voicing concerns to the store is one thing. But voicing those concerns semi-anonymously to an international group of players is not particularly helpful, no--and similar discussions in the past have degenerated into people hurling insults at each other.

Before you agreed that it was a "witch hunt," and now it is just not helpful - which one is it?

Regardless, why is voicing one's concerns to the community at large, many of who travel to participate in even store championship level events, unacceptable? You are on a forum. Forums exist for discussion. The OP wants X-Wing players, which, presumably, is the one thing that everyone on this forum has in common. Just because you feel that this thread will result in insult hurling (which it has not, if you have not noticed) is not reason to call it a witch hunt or to attack its existence.

Also, anonymity has nothing to do with the usefulness of the thread. The OP wants people to discuss prize support and hosts profiting from FFG events. How does anyone's identify matter in that discussion? If he started the thread by introducing himself as Steve Smith from Seattle, what difference would that make?

You do not think that FFG reads the forums?

I don't know who at FFG reads the forums, how often, or how seriously they take feedback posted here.

You do not think that the forums are the appropriate place for players to raise and discuss issues with FFG sanctioned events?

No, I don't. I'd suggest that customer service, Organized Play, and the store itself are all much more appropriate (and much more likely to get an actual response).

FFG obviously reads the forum often enough to know what players are discussing and asking about. FFG takes the discussions on the forum seriously enough to change its official policies. You know that.

The OP now has 4 pages of "actual responses." The OP wanted a discussion and got one by posting on the forum, which is where people discuss things.

I can't imagine how reaching out to a single customer service representative would have better accomplished the OPs goal. That is stupid.

You do not think that players can have a legitimate basis to question the level of profit that an event host selected by FFG profits from hosting the event?

No, I don't think "I want to pay less for a particular luxury good" is a legitimate basis for complaint.

Is that what the OP said? You read the first post of the thread and that is honestly what you took from it? Come on. The OP is dissatisfied with what he received based on what he paid. Since when is that type of complaint objectively unreasonable?

I don't know what you deal is, but mischaracterizing things has no value in a discussion, particularly when that mischaracterization is completely transparent.

The assumption here is that FFG is interested or particularly cares what the forums have to say about it. In fact, the entire point of establishing tournament guidelines is so that you don't have to monitor stores individually. There's no shortage of stores queueing up to buy Regionals kits, so clearly owners/organizers see value in them. Maximizing that value, or not, is up to the store--and to its customers. Which is why announcing on an international forum that you think the store should have kept less of what (the OP assumes to be) its profit for the event is... It's not that it's bad or wrong, but I just don't see the point.

The assumption ? Since when is that an assumption? FFG employees have admitted to reading the forums and decisions of FFG have been reversed following community outcry on the forum (e.g. cross-faction dial rules).

I didn't say FFG doesn't read the forum. I said you're assuming they're interested in what one or two people on the forum have to say about a particular event.

FFG has reversed decisions following community outcry, yes. That outcry was expressed by many people on the forum here, on Reddit, on Twitter, on Facebook, and by e-mail. That's different in both breadth and volume of feedback.

Again, if I were the OP, this is where I'd come to vent (and I'd think twice about doing so). If I wanted to express my frustration with the policies at this particular event, I'd discuss it with the store and with the groups at FFG who area actually responsible for dealing with Organized Play events and policies. If I wanted to talk to the community about what's generally appropriate or expected, I'd have posed the topic post quite differently.

FFG is clearly interested in what is customer say on the forum. With respect to the number of voices required to draw FFG's attention, it can;t be that high. Do you think that the Painting forum coming back to life at this particular time is random? There were no riots in the streets calling for it to be restored - just some concerned players who raised and supported the idea.

With regard to your assertion relating to the volume that this discussion will reach, your response was the eleventh post on the same day that the thread was created. Can you see the future? How could you have known, or know now, that the OP's thread will not start a large discussion?

You, literally in the same response, just stated that volume is a factor in achieving change and that a quiet word with the store owner would better serve the OP. Hopefully you are just arguing for the sake of arguing and do not think that makes sense.

I am trying to convince one of the local stores in MD to add beer. Problem is that Maryland's liqour laws are a pain. But whatever store does it, has my business.

In regards to prize support. You get what you pay for, if prize support is this important to you then ask before you buy the ticket what kind of prize support there will be.

I have helped my local store get their monthly tournaments off the ground. My advice was to cover their costs then take the remaining money and divide it 50/50 between profit and prize support. This seemed like the easiest way for them to go about running the tournaments AND making money.

Problem is that Maryland's liqour laws are a pain.

Yeah my LGS tried this too, but apparently the town owns a liquor store and bar, and so they're very, very stingy about giving out other liquor licences to avoid any competition.

Love the idea that the owner of a business can legally maintain a monopoly because they're also the ones enforcing the law...

You do not think that players can have a legitimate basis to question the level of profit that an event host selected by FFG profits from hosting the event?

I thought this thread was not an attempt at an actual discussion about entry fees and prize support and was more a thinly veiled attempt to validate complaining about the regional the OP went to.

Seems to me that you pay your money and really your only expectation should be a number of games with some fun competition.