Tournament attendance help

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indiana-utah
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Re: Tournament attendance help

Post by indiana-utah »

Chilli wrote:With regards to the popularity of Some of the midlands tournaments

Stone is run by Deeferdan of the double skulls podcast. He is also heavily involved in Derby and Waterbowl leagues and travels to a lot of tournaments so is fishing from a lot of ponds.

Stranglebowl is e Leicester league (LBBL) and the coaches there have also played in Derby and Birmingham leagues. They also did the hugely popular ‘Justin for champ’ campaign and one of the organiser also was in charge of Kickstarter ‘coins of corruption’. So there’s the LBBL of about 40 coaches plus brum and derby and all the social media coverage.

Holmfirth is about 30-40 min drive from Stockport so I think it’s the Waterbowl coaches to be focussed on. But lack of public transport / it being a Sunday could be an issue.

Happy to help push the events on Twitter if that helps and I’ll be there to defend my crown!
The last time we ran a Saturday event we had very little WaterBowl attendance (the time before we got some good attendance figures from them), so not sure what changed between the two events?

Without the numbers Saturday is too expensive as the venue has to put extra staff on to cover outside of normal hours. Sunday we fall within normal hours, so it's much cheaper.

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Re: Tournament attendance help

Post by Chilli »

The majority of the 83 signed up are not from LBBL or Derby. The first year was hard work, a lot of marketing and effort went in. I don’t think it’s fair to just say that there are loads of people nearby and not much else around as that isn’t really how it’s happened. It’s a very different BB tournament than anything else I’ve been to with a lot of effort and attention to details, and I think that is the main pull, personally.[/quote]

No offence meant Danny. You guys put in a helluva effort for SB1 and for SB2 as well as he ‘Justin for champ’ and everything else. Just gutted I’ve not made it back yet. I was trying to say there are a lot of connections to other leagues, just doing a bad job of it I guess! Hopefully catch you at nafc

Chris

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Re: Tournament attendance help

Post by indiana-utah »

leap wrote:
Chilli wrote:With regards to the popularity of Some of the midlands tournaments

Stone is run by Deeferdan of the double skulls podcast. He is also heavily involved in Derby and Waterbowl leagues and travels to a lot of tournaments so is fishing from a lot of ponds.

Stranglebowl is e Leicester league (LBBL) and the coaches there have also played in Derby and Birmingham leagues. They also did the hugely popular ‘Justin for champ’ campaign and one of the organiser also was in charge of Kickstarter ‘coins of corruption’. So there’s the LBBL of about 40 coaches plus brum and derby and all the social media coverage.

Holmfirth is about 30-40 min drive from Stockport so I think it’s the Waterbowl coaches to be focussed on. But lack of public transport / it being a Sunday could be an issue.

Happy to help push the events on Twitter if that helps and I’ll be there to defend my crown!
The majority of the 83 signed up are not from LBBL or Derby. The first year was hard work, a lot of marketing and effort went in. I don’t think it’s fair to just say that there are loads of people nearby and not much else around as that isn’t really how it’s happened. It’s a very different BB tournament than anything else I’ve been to with a lot of effort and attention to details, and I think that is the main pull, personally.
Hornswoggle is the most unique rule set on the tournament scene, caused a lot of attention last year, and we filled the venue in Leeds easily (we only had 16 places). Lost of noise this year, lots of promises, very little paid up coaches. :(

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Re: Tournament attendance help

Post by deeferdan »

indiana-utah wrote:
Hornswoggle is the most unique rule set on the tournament scene, caused a lot of attention last year, and we filled the venue in Leeds easily (we only had 16 places). Lost of noise this year, lots of promises, very little paid up coaches. :(
Re getting people to pay up. I think it is totally OK to lay it on the line and give people a deadline.
I had a lot of promises for Stone last year, but needed to book the venue and pay in advance, so I set a date and hassled people for the £15. No one minds that in my experience... and i'll be doing the same this autumn.

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Re: Tournament attendance help

Post by deeferdan »

indiana-utah wrote:
I hope we can keep doing events, I love running them, and we have a thirst for them in WYBBL, but unless we got more footfall, then we are dead in the water :(
Do you absolutely have to run as many? Maybe that is part of the problem? I'm not 100% sure this is the answer and it sounds a bit hard nosed, but if you are having problems with the scene financially, then cutting down on events seems a reasonable first step?

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Re: Tournament attendance help

Post by Danny »

Chilli wrote:
leap wrote:The majority of the 83 signed up are not from LBBL or Derby. The first year was hard work, a lot of marketing and effort went in. I don’t think it’s fair to just say that there are loads of people nearby and not much else around as that isn’t really how it’s happened. It’s a very different BB tournament than anything else I’ve been to with a lot of effort and attention to details, and I think that is the main pull, personally.
No offence meant Danny. You guys put in a helluva effort for SB1 and for SB2 as well as he ‘Justin for champ’ and everything else. Just gutted I’ve not made it back yet. I was trying to say there are a lot of connections to other leagues, just doing a bad job of it I guess! Hopefully catch you at nafc

Chris
None taken mate, was just trying to say if there is a consensus that it was easily filled with just a large local league that wasn't the case. The LBBL actually is very inactive when it comes to tournaments, most people travelled. It was a hard slog with a lot of time time spent on marketing and collateral, getting sponsors and trying to create a brand and not just chucking on yet another tournament. I am not sure people appreciate that to get numbers you need to put in the work, I see many tournaments and they look like about 30 minute of effort have gone into them, and the numbers often reflect that. I'm at the NAFC so will see you there mate! There are 4 of us from the LBBL coming that I know of.
indiana-utah wrote:Hornswoggle is the most unique rule set on the tournament scene, caused a lot of attention last year, and we filled the venue in Leeds easily (we only had 16 places). Lost of noise this year, lots of promises, very little paid up coaches. :(
I didn't mean the ruleset, StrangleBowl is pretty vanilla rules-wise apart from the special character.

But stuff I haven't really seen else where: We have a full website with lots of information on, nicely designed rule pack, clear payment info, travel info, timings, sponsors etc. a mailing list which we used to keep everyone updated, we had 1 person out of 50 not turn up which was amazing! An active Facebook page and event. The Champ star player had a nicely designed physical card for everyone (to also take home), dice for everyone (this year dice and a dice cup) all star players were fully painted, we had free tea & coffee & donuts/snacks all day, buffet lunch and hot pizza, on-site bar, a lot of effort signposting everywhere with themed signs and table numbers, the match report slips were all themed, we decorated the whole room with coloured table clothes, silly bits like inflatable flamingos, banners, etc. all helped with the theme. We had fancy dress, lots of decent spot prizes, a raffle, TV with a bespoke software for a countdown timer and standings every round, a projector, music, PA system, etc. I am going on but there was a lot of stuff behind the scenes and we always intended to put on as close to a professional event as we could and not just another tournament.

It was a massive slog last year to get 50 people but well worth it as this year they just went.

I don't mean in a negative way indiana-utah but what is your tournament(a)? I've not seen it/them advertised anywhere. Maybe step up on Facebook as I am sure people would travel, we have people doing 5-6 hour round trips for SB2. This forum is not a good place to market, it's dead, Facebook and Twitter are the way forward. We had 15 non-NAF people for SB1 and a lot for SB2 also, there are loads of new coaches since BB2016 that have never even heard of the NAF but will go to tournaments if they think they are going to be good value and fun.

All just my two cents, I could be talking crap!

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Re: Tournament attendance help

Post by indiana-utah »

Danny,

Tagged you into the last 2 posts. I've asked the WYBBL boys to crank it up (as admin I don't like to push too much myself as I don't want to abuse the position, though maybe I should?)

We've not really pushed Hornswoggle yet as Wibble Bowl is still on the radar...

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Re: Tournament attendance help

Post by Danny »

indiana-utah wrote:Danny,

Tagged you into the last 2 posts. I've asked the WYBBL boys to crank it up (as admin I don't like to push too much myself as I don't want to abuse the position, though maybe I should?)

We've not really pushed Hornswoggle yet as Wibble Bowl is still on the radar...

Got it, I didn’t realise who you were :)

Right, so a problem straight away. I have seen that lots of times before - I thought it was a league. Looking a bit closer it seems the branding is very similar, I think you need to make the tournament obviously different - name, colours etc. I just always ignored that as I though “I don’t want to join a league in Yorkshire”

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Re: Tournament attendance help

Post by indiana-utah »

deeferdan wrote:
indiana-utah wrote:
I hope we can keep doing events, I love running them, and we have a thirst for them in WYBBL, but unless we got more footfall, then we are dead in the water :(
Do you absolutely have to run as many? Maybe that is part of the problem? I'm not 100% sure this is the answer and it sounds a bit hard nosed, but if you are having problems with the scene financially, then cutting down on events seems a reasonable first step?
Long term, we've only lost on 1 tournament, but I've had to front costs. With gifts we've eventually broken even, but we need to get to a position of breaking even real time (not 6 months after the event).

Hornswoggle was supposed to be our one big event, and the plan was to hit big numbers this year, and then plug that each year (maybe as a 2 day event) while scaling back on the others as more local events with fewer numbers - recent events have sent this on a downward spiral... :(

Locally we have the appetite for 12 coach events every quarter, and when we push we can pass 20. We are just stuck in the too big for venues we have (or not the best location) and not big enough to justify a location in a serious location that brings the attendance figures to justify.

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Re: Tournament attendance help

Post by indiana-utah »

leap wrote:
indiana-utah wrote:Danny,

Tagged you into the last 2 posts. I've asked the WYBBL boys to crank it up (as admin I don't like to push too much myself as I don't want to abuse the position, though maybe I should?)

We've not really pushed Hornswoggle yet as Wibble Bowl is still on the radar...

Got it, I didn’t realise who you were :)

Right, so a problem straight away. I have seen that lots of times before - I thought it was a league. Looking a bit closer it seems the branding is very similar, I think you need to make the tournament obviously different - name, colours etc. I just always ignored that as I though “I don’t want to join a league in Yorkshire”
Tom - We need a better poster - lol

Danny - Good feedback - Thank you

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Re: Tournament attendance help

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Ok, from just an interested observer, I had picked up on wybbl date and am interested, admittedly haven’t paid yet however as I’m in the AWM tournament the day before now in a couple of weekends time I am doing rose bowl Saturday oop north and then fistful on the Sunday darn south so was going to see how the travelling pans out and whether I can make both,

Unfortunately Hornswoggle is on same weekend as the local Stafford tourney so unable to attend - had noticed all the shouting coming out of Yorkshire so reckon others have as well so don’t give up

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Re: Tournament attendance help

Post by The Champ »

Interesting discussion - i would echo everything said already - a couple of things I would like to add from my experience with Strangle Bowl on the day.

This may already be something you do anyway, but it was very important to me to have a spare player on the day to fill in the gap if we had an odd number of players, which we did. This meant that I didn’t have to play and could concentrate on the event running as smoothly as possible, and so apart from one 15 minute delay at lunch time when I went to collect pizzas, we were on time throughout. That may not be a relevant concern if you already dont play.

Another thing is that from the off we had said it will be annual. I think i saw above that you have a few going on throughout the year - i would say less frequency may well increase anticipation and in turn attendance.

For us though i think the main driver has been marketing.

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Re: Tournament attendance help

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leap wrote:Right, so a problem straight away. I have seen that lots of times before - I thought it was a league. Looking a bit closer it seems the branding is very similar, I think you need to make the tournament obviously different - name, colours etc. I just always ignored that as I though “I don’t want to join a league in Yorkshire”
Shit, same! :lol:

Yeah, I thought that these were just loads of local leagues! Will look again when they come up in future, though Yorkshire is a bit of a stretch from Costa del Swindon.

Down in the South-West, there tends to be a pretty reciprocal attitude to tournaments, we’ll take groups to each others’ events, when we can.

I think the main thing is spreading the word. Themes, quirky rulesets and gimmicks are cool, but only if you’ve got people there to see ‘em!

Join the big leagues’ Facebook groups, the occasional post on there isn’t too intrusive, but you might pick up some coaches from far flung corners of the nation!

My experience locally is that the ‘vanilla’ rulesets tend to be the easiest to market and fill, anything too kinky can put some people off, thus reducing your demographic (I say that fully aware that the two tournaments I run are a bit batshit!).

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Re: Tournament attendance help

Post by indiana-utah »

Maverick wrote:Ok, from just an interested observer, I had picked up on wybbl date and am interested, admittedly haven’t paid yet however as I’m in the AWM tournament the day before now in a couple of weekends time I am doing rose bowl Saturday oop north and then fistful on the Sunday darn south so was going to see how the travelling pans out and whether I can make both,

Unfortunately Hornswoggle is on same weekend as the local Stafford tourney so unable to attend - had noticed all the shouting coming out of Yorkshire so reckon others have as well so don’t give up
Good to know we are making some noise out there, and hopefully with all the feedback we can focus the noise a bit better :)

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Re: Tournament attendance help

Post by indiana-utah »

The Champ wrote:Interesting discussion - i would echo everything said already - a couple of things I would like to add from my experience with Strangle Bowl on the day.

This may already be something you do anyway, but it was very important to me to have a spare player on the day to fill in the gap if we had an odd number of players, which we did. This meant that I didn’t have to play and could concentrate on the event running as smoothly as possible, and so apart from one 15 minute delay at lunch time when I went to collect pizzas, we were on time throughout. That may not be a relevant concern if you already dont play.

Another thing is that from the off we had said it will be annual. I think i saw above that you have a few going on throughout the year - i would say less frequency may well increase anticipation and in turn attendance.

For us though i think the main driver has been marketing.
My son has been the spare many for a number of events, and moving forward, Spleggy is going to be our Head Ref / Spare man. To date we've never had a timing issue. :)

Our ultimate plan is to get a rule set that is loved by all, and make that our show piece event, the one where we get the big numbers. Hornswoggle is the one we want, but we've hit a speed bump this year due to a dates clash. :(

We need to ramp our marketing up, I've been a one man band (with some help from other WYBBL members for over a decade) in respects to running, and have not got a crew together to try and make a more focused push.

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