May. 18, 2013 10:35 AM
Beyblade Challenge was the biggest Beyblade event I ever attended. We expected around 30 participants as the event wasn't publicized much in Pune. But, we ended up with 48 participants.
This was the first time we were having an event with Double Elimination format, but, things did go smoothly in spite of us being completely new to that format.
The event was scheduled to start at 12 p.m.
So, we started with registrations at 11:30. The Landmark people gave us the list of registered participants, whom they had already called and reminded about the event, the day before, just to make sure that they attend. However, we only had around 20-25 people by 12:30 in spite of around 30 people having registered.
We decided to switch to Round Robin Block since there weren't enough participants for Double Elimination by 12:30. This was when the Landmark employees told us that most participants would arrive around 2:00 pm as they thought the event was just random battles where we could enter and leave anytime we want.
Finally, after giving it some thought, we decided to proceed with Double Elimination and all those who were present, were moved to the winner's block, while the ones who did not show up were shifted to loser's block. This was, considering 30 people as the expected turnout and hence we didn't have actual battles for all the participants initially.
However, as we began the battles for winner's block, participants started showing up one after the other. Finally, at around 2, we had around 45 participants or so.
Since the blocks had already been made, we decided to shift the participants who were initially present, into the winner's block and the late comers were added to the loser's block.
The tournament was finally underway by around 1:45 pm.
The next problem that we had was of people without Beyblades. Ironically, even after having clearly mentioned in the posters that 'Participants have to bring their own Beyblades', around half of them didn't get their own Beyblades. Thankfully, I had some extra launchers and parts with me, so I gave each of them a Beyblade to play with, during their match. And thankfully, all except one, returned the beys and launchers before going.
Also, we had the problem of parents complaining all the time about how their kid is paired with an adult for his battle and how gattyaki is actually cheating. There were also some who said that they want a beyblade for their kid which can win easily. Of course, it wasn't possible to give everyone a bey that wins, so we had to spend some time to explain them how this game was based on skill and use of the beyblades rather than age and launch.
We had a wide variety of combos used, but the ones who used my Basalt 230 CS combo got the wins easily every time. So, towards the end, one of the kids who was battling for the quarter-finals, refused to give that bey to others, and his parents insisted that he should get to keep it until he wins. No wonder, we had something like Meteo 230 MB placing because it could counter Basalt 230 CS.
Even if everything did not go as planned, we had a lot to learn from this event.
We also had 6-8 people willing to participate in future tournaments and most of them were also ready to pay for the blader's passport.
Hopefully, this will be enough for the revival of the Pune community.
This was the first time we were having an event with Double Elimination format, but, things did go smoothly in spite of us being completely new to that format.
The event was scheduled to start at 12 p.m.
So, we started with registrations at 11:30. The Landmark people gave us the list of registered participants, whom they had already called and reminded about the event, the day before, just to make sure that they attend. However, we only had around 20-25 people by 12:30 in spite of around 30 people having registered.
We decided to switch to Round Robin Block since there weren't enough participants for Double Elimination by 12:30. This was when the Landmark employees told us that most participants would arrive around 2:00 pm as they thought the event was just random battles where we could enter and leave anytime we want.
Finally, after giving it some thought, we decided to proceed with Double Elimination and all those who were present, were moved to the winner's block, while the ones who did not show up were shifted to loser's block. This was, considering 30 people as the expected turnout and hence we didn't have actual battles for all the participants initially.
However, as we began the battles for winner's block, participants started showing up one after the other. Finally, at around 2, we had around 45 participants or so.
Since the blocks had already been made, we decided to shift the participants who were initially present, into the winner's block and the late comers were added to the loser's block.
The tournament was finally underway by around 1:45 pm.
The next problem that we had was of people without Beyblades. Ironically, even after having clearly mentioned in the posters that 'Participants have to bring their own Beyblades', around half of them didn't get their own Beyblades. Thankfully, I had some extra launchers and parts with me, so I gave each of them a Beyblade to play with, during their match. And thankfully, all except one, returned the beys and launchers before going.
Also, we had the problem of parents complaining all the time about how their kid is paired with an adult for his battle and how gattyaki is actually cheating. There were also some who said that they want a beyblade for their kid which can win easily. Of course, it wasn't possible to give everyone a bey that wins, so we had to spend some time to explain them how this game was based on skill and use of the beyblades rather than age and launch.
We had a wide variety of combos used, but the ones who used my Basalt 230 CS combo got the wins easily every time. So, towards the end, one of the kids who was battling for the quarter-finals, refused to give that bey to others, and his parents insisted that he should get to keep it until he wins. No wonder, we had something like Meteo 230 MB placing because it could counter Basalt 230 CS.
Even if everything did not go as planned, we had a lot to learn from this event.
We also had 6-8 people willing to participate in future tournaments and most of them were also ready to pay for the blader's passport.
Hopefully, this will be enough for the revival of the Pune community.