TL;DR: Went to Origins, had fun, but there’s room for improvement in the organization and execution of the event.
So I went to Origins and competed at the Nationals for the first time, and I thought I’d record some of my observations about good and bad for the event in the hopes of improving future events, or giving some suggestions to other tournament organizers.
By way of reference, I got into the game last year, and attended two Regionals this year (MI and PA), plus we’ve had some large store events in the SE MI area where I game. I have participated in (and run) large scale or Nationals level events in some of my other hobbies, so I’ve seen a number of different ways of organizing an event. Let me point out what I think went well and should be sustained for next year; what I think had mixed results; and what needed to be improved.
Sustain
(1) Fun! I enjoyed myself even when losing, which I attribute to friendly folks and a good community.
(2) Staff. The event staff were very friendly and helpful, and I appreciate that they were approachable whether with was judging calls or just chatting between rounds. They were juggling a lot of events under what I consider to be less than ideal circumstances, and they handled it well.
(3) Officiating. I didn’t see or hear about any bad judging calls, or hear about complaints about judging or scoring. Scoring and pairings posted fairly quickly. If there were problems, they were transparent to me.
(4) Space. Wow, for the first time at a big event I wasn’t elbow-to-elbow, or butt-to-butt with other people playing. Actually having enough room to lay all my game gear out on the table so it was easily accessible was very refreshing.
(5) Lunch break. A lunch break? In an X-wing tournament? With food close by? Admittedly, not as good as the food truck at the MI Regional, but still – nice that we had a break.
(6) Variety. Contrary to popular belief, the field was not all Palp Aces or Triple Jumpmasters (I personally faced neither). I think I saw every ship in current play on the board somewhere, except the Scyk.
Mixed
(1) Format. In theory, I like the idea of the graduated cut format – win three (full or modified) and you make the second day’s cut with a cut to the finals. It’s clear, and I think a good way to handle a multi-day event. However, I would have preferred one more round each day, six instead of five on day one; three instead of two on day two. There’s time for it (see below). I didn’t make the day two cut and so I was in the unfortunate situation of having paid more and traveled farther to play less X-wing at the Nationals than either of the Regionals I attended (both of which had six round qualifiers).
(2) Prizes. I very happy to have walked away with the Bossk card so I have some Nationals swag even though I didn’t make the finals (and even if Bossk looks a little derpy – is that a cell phone he’s holding, or is he nervously tugging at his collar? – he’s less derpy than Derp Rendar). On the other hand, I thought the finals prizes were kind of underwhelming because they were pretty similar to the Regionals prizes. Nothing quite as cool as the backpacks I saw from last year’s Nationals, for example – trophy, challenge coins, templates, Connor Net token. Not that I’d have turned a prize down had I made the finals, but … this is supposed to be the National championship, right?
(3) Time management. The event moved right along once started, not much wasted time. Getting started, though … more below; I’d have less to complain about had expectations been managed differently.
Improve
(1) Communication. I’ll break this into two parts: venue and event.
(a) Venue. This was my first time attending Origins, or any big con for that matter, I found the website, registration process, and finding events to be pretty confusing. I didn’t have a problem getting badged on site – I arrived Thursday but heard horror stories about Wednesday – but I did have problems getting dropped from events I’d registered, then having to track down what I was supposed to do since they charged me full value (two customer service lines later … generics). Then, if you did pre-register, how do you know what event you need to bring things for, vice those than will teach or provide material? It was in the event book you got at registration, but by that time it was pretty late and some things I wanted to do were booked.
(b) FFG Nationals event. The System Open and Regional events received far more advance billing and information than the Nationals – what’s up with that? I learned what the format was while chatting with folks before the event started; I’d assumed that like Regionals it would be one day with a cut to the next day’s finals vice the graduated cut. Then there was communication about time – the event had a published start time of 1000, so I assumed registration about 0900 (and actually showed up about 0830 thinking it would take a while to find parking) … only to discover registration started at 1000 to 1000, and we actually got started about 1130. TOs – take a hint from other events … put up a web page or Facebook page or something, have some of the administrative details, you know: “Registration 0900-1000, Pilot’s Briefing 1000, Skids Up 1015” or something like that. I see far more communication about smaller local and Regional events; I have higher expectations for a Nationals level event.
(2) Timing. Have a countdown clock that’s visible to players. I mean, the rounds are timed. Sure, the end times were posted on a white board that wasn’t visible from the play area, but still …
(3) Noise. It’s a big facility so there’s not much to be done about background noise, but the organizers did have a PA system. The problem was that it was pointed at the card gaming area, so it was barely audible in the X-Wing area (think Charlie Brown’s teacher … wah wah wah). The poor TO had to give the pilot’s briefing twice so that everyone could hear it. Turn up the volume, or locate the speaker closer to the center of the play area.
(4) Streaming. There wasn’t any (though some games were recorded and I understand will be posted soon). I didn’t care because I was at the event, but I really enjoyed watching the live streams from the various Regionals, and listening to commentary. If they can do the same for Nationals, I’m sure there will be a lot of folks interested!
(5) Side events. There were Epic and Team events on the schedule – I couldn’t get in during pre-registration and there was no posted information about them. How about an individual event on day two for us poor schlubs who didn’t make the cut? I hear the Hangar Bay event at Hoth was fun; I would have appreciated something like that. There was an independent club running a Trench Run event; I sat in (full, couldn’t join in) and they had fun and were doing a good job introducing people to the game. Speaking of which – I know FFG wasn’t exhibiting, but they missed a good opportunity to have some demo events set up for the game. People interested in X-wing were getting turned away at the Trench Run event and I’m sure a few converts could have been made had there been some quick play demo games available. I’m sure we could find some community volunteers, since the official FFG folks were tied up with the tournament. (And conversely, when you have a demo event, make sure someone is selling the game at the event! X-wing had a bunch of retailers, but I played in a Wings of Glory event – like X-Wing, only WWII – and enjoyed it enough to hunt down the company, who was at the show, to try to buy the game … only to discover that while they had a bunch of expansions they didn’t have the WWII core rules or starter sets on sale. Sale lost …)
(6) My flying. Goal for next year: fly even better. I went 2-3, narrowly missed the cut by literally the last die roll of the last game, learned a lot. I wasn’t prepared for Dengaroo shenanigans … boy was that a surprise!.
Will I go to GenCon … no. Work schedule won’t permit, and I’m not sure I’m up to that much larger of an event; the crowds were starting to get a bit thick on Saturday as is. Origins next year? Maybe … if communication improves.
If you made it this far, thanks … hope you learned something to make your event better, or if you were at Nationals share your own observations.
Bummed that you didn't make the cut. That looked like a fun list to fly.