loved the format
I only had to DQ people who didnt show up at all
nobody left the pool and everything ran smoothly
The only thing I would suggest is that you guys should turn off the lights right in front of the stage for better visibility of the projector.
Big thanks to the EVO staff for this event.
Looking forward to next year
I loved the panels. The Stream Monster panel was unforgettable with hilarious moments and interesting tips.
Definitely keep the panels, as I’m sure there will be plenty of different things to cover.
This was my first EVO and certainly not my last. Good shit and keep it going.
Pool optimization was great. Only thing I can think of is upping game entry fees and possibly changing out the payout schedule to be dependent upon number of entrants.
Other than that, I love evo and the staff and supporting SRK since this first few months it opened. I have been to evo since back at the Cal Poly days when it was B5. Always a blast.
I have two pieces of constructive criticism/advice:
[LIST]
[]Stop throwing people from the same city into the same pools together. How hard is it to seed by region like any other tournament? Non-local tournaments should be seeded by region first, by Evo points or whatever criteria second to better accommodate the majority of your entrants. There is little excuse to have people that travel together eliminate themselves off the bat.
[]Expand Evo to four days (Thursday - Sunday). If Evo is trying to act like a convention with the high registration costs, developer panels, sponsor booths, etc, then go all the way and turn this into something bigger. Most people already come to Vegas days before the events anyway, may as well give them a real reason to spend more time here. If cost is a concern, charge a venue fee for spectators.
[/LIST]
Otherwise, the event was fun as usual. Can’t wait till some better games are released and hopefully chosen for the official lineup so I can consider entering again.
:china: Much appreciated. Hopefully a video of it arrives online!
Wiz, Ponder, Inkblot… Thanks again for hosting such an incredible event. It was my fifth EVO and by far the most enjoyable. I’ll keep my feedback brief for easy consumption.
Positives
Negatives
EVO definitely needs to get back on the Strip. I arrived Thursday morning… I didn’t get an opportunity to even take a step outside the Rio until 2AM on Monday. I felt totally trapped, even with the free shuttles. Try and convince a bunch of drunk, FGC peeps to hop on a shuttle and go somewhere, much less 10 feet. Cesar’s was amazing 
Better seeding. There were a ton of pools featuring local players. Maybe that’s just because there’s so many people traveling from specific regions, but I think there should be a better effort put into making sure that locals at least don’t play each other until much later in the brackets.
There’s probably a billion other things, but these are the first that pop into mind. Again, amazing job you guys. See you next year
It sucked having to play my trainer partner the second round of pools.
if there was no way to put us in different pools I can kinda(but not really) of understand that, but I don’t understand why we had to play so early in pool play.
Not sure why people are bitching about the Rio being slightly off the strip. It’s like a 15 minute walk to Caesars Palace.
Regional seeding issues in pools.
Across 3 different pools for MK there were 2 - 3 Vegas people in each of them
In my pool for AE, I had someone that lives 15 mins away from me in it.
Props:
Smaller pools worked great
Panels were a nice idea
Overall it was better organized and just seemed better than last year
Suggestions for improvement:
Premium Evo access: Instead of charging a high venue fee, why not just have people pay for a premium Evo ticket that includes line cuts for games, reserved seats for finals, and choice of pool time?
Lines for UMvC3/SFxT: This kind of ties in with my last point, but it would really be great if you could pay to play the game. Most of the new game stations had some pro going on a 30 game winstreak while everyone else had to wait 30 minutes to play or just sit there and watch.
I did not play in any tournament so I do not how all the pools went. I did, however, go their as a spectator, and here are some things that I think need to be switched.
Other then that, being a spectator for the 3rd year in a row, I really did enjoy Evolution and will continue to go to it even with not participating. Caught the stream on friday, and that was really high quality. Flew into vegas saturday, and it was really high quality there too.
As a stream watcher I love how the streams let people who aren’t able to make it be able to witness all the action. Makes those watching it want to attend it that much more.
But I was wondering if before the main events. The top 8 or throughout the tournament you can adopt a style similar to WSOP where we get a bio on some of the participants, like a little interview. It would not only hype the event that much more but would give the viewers a deeper appreciation for the players then that guy just plays Ryu or Liu Kang.
Even for those who aren’t in the top 8. Like throughout the tournament I would see or hear about unique players who were playing. Like Noah the child prodigy, CJ Truth, Broly the handicapped Chun Li Player, Kayo Police and others. Be cool if you could highlight certain players whether they are pro’s or not so we can hear there motivations for attending and why the love the game so much. Like find a first time person entering EVO, a foreign player, a pro, a female player, or just somebody who looks like they are hype. If you can’t put it on stream just make a you tube channel that would be like a bonus EVO footage channel.
I know this would add more work then is necessary. But this is EVO and I think you need to think big. I’m entertained already by the action but it would add even more if you could add certain elements to make it that much more grand.
First of all thanks for a great tournament. This is THE FG tournament and it keeps getting better and better. I’m too old to compete, so let me say THANKS to Team Spooky and others responsible for a GREAT stream. Viewer numbers were insane and it kept going with almost no problems at all.
Two stream idea was genius to give more exposure to other games. Variety is always good.
Suggestions:
Online real time bracket please
When the stream stops to “show commercials” us international viewers just get the EVO logo. It would be nice to at least have trailers or something like that.
Interviews, lots of them. We had a lot of great players from all over the world. It would be nice to talk to them ,see what they think. -Hey make a 3rd stream with that,whatever.
More Kayo (more Japan scene stuff in general) would have been nice. Dude has a lot of charisma and the culture clash alone would have made for pretty hilarious moments. Have the ono translator on hand and ask kayo and the other players what they think of the brackets whatever. More of that. More of Korea too,they have put themselves on the map.
Balrog film was way too nerdy for my tastes,maybe I’m old.
You need to hire the guy that does the trailers for all tournaments (bosslogic? sp?) Better intro pre tournament trailers are needed.
Have some sort of online “betting” system, so the people on the chat can vote in real time on upcoming matches. That would be cool.
Anyway,shit was EXCELLENT. Thanks for all the hard work, and thanks for making this scene as great as it is!
The Good:
Smaller pools were sweet. Of the 6 pools I ran, only one came close to not finishing on time, and that’s because a dude in top 3 losers disappeared.
Pools and semi finals, at least for what I ran, got done quickly without much bitching from players. Didn’t have to DQ too many people, of those I did, only 1 came up to me later to see if he missed his matches.
The only thing i think that needs improvement is communication between judges and streamers. Tekken 6 semis started at 6pm, and the stream was still running BB. I didn’t know if i was supposed to send people up to play or what until someone came up about at hour or so later asking for matches. By that time, I already had 6 of the top 8 done and only about 5 matches left. As a result of the lack of communication, a lot of hype matches didn’t get streamed.
All in all, great tourney. Was planning on making this my last evo, but it will be hard to stay away next year.
Whitebread
First of all, this last EVO has been a blast. It was as hype as possible, and it ran as smoothly as possible. I loved the 16 man brackets this year! Made things run quickly, and I didn’t have to battle through crowds just to hear my name being called.
If I were to make any suggestions I’d make two:
1) Hand Sanitizer Stations
There was a lot of people this year at EVO and some of them are bound to be sick. I think this happens at most conventions, con-funk, and its something most people should know about. What makes it different for EVO though is the fact that there are hundreds if not thousands of sticks being passed around during the tourney! That’s a lot of hands on a lot of items. If we can’t get the sanitizer everywhere, we should at least have them at the booths that had the playable demos. I know a couple of people that have gotten sick toward the end of the tourney, and I think that could’ve been prevented if we had these stations
2) Easy-Carry Event Itenerary
I love how there are times on the back of the badges, but there were so many panels and other events that weren’t on there! I know they had a complete master schedule posted online, but I unfortunately didn’t have a good connection on my phone. Then there are others who don’t have smart phones at all! I’d like to suggest something they had at f8 which was a combination booklet and badge: http://designforfun.com/display.php?id=99&a=1&e=1
It might cost more, but it would be worth it not to miss out on watching Bang The Machine again!!!**
**
Other than that, everything else ran really smoothly so props.
The smaller pools were probably the biggest improvement compared to the last year. However, it seemed like the regional seeding wasn’t done very well. Two of my pools I had to play another Socal player in the first round (luckily, these were players I never played), but this shouldn’t be happening in the first round of a pool. Also saw two Socal players I know have to play each other first round, and I know these guys play each other quite often. That should not be happening, since you expect to go to EVO to play new competition. I know this sort of thing can’t be avoided when you get into the later rounds, but it shouldn’t be hard to put them against someone from another region or state in the first round.
I would also hope that seeding in the future can apply to all games at all EVO tournaments. Was kinda weird to see Tekken get points but only for the last two tournaments of the season. I don’t know how much this affected the entire outcome to be honest, but it was just odd.
I also miss the dual setup on stage, so you don’t have to watch each match start with button checks and whatnot. Last years finals were run much more fluidly without interruptions because of this.
The second stream was a nice addition, and I hope it comes back next year. I would like it if it had it’s own stage and/or projector so you can have a crowd watch the matches easily.
And this may be dependent on the venue, but I would like to see another match be shown on the projectors. SBO had 3 projectors, one showing a bracket, and the other two showing different matches. I think 3 projectors concentrating on one match is bit of an overkill, and I don’t think it would hurt to dedicate one of them to another station.
And bring back the player intros! (shoutout to evo 2004)
Can’t wait for next year!
Great pools, refs are helpful, streams are great, missed the panels but saw them on youtube, awesome.
Shortage of chairs is kinda tough.
Entry fee is a little high, don’t know where the money goes and none of my business either, but it did almost stopped me from going.
Some glass bottles were on the floor during the last evening, kind of a hazard, almost tripped on one.
I watched on stream this year.
I definitely agree with adapting the poker style payout. With that many people you need to add more incentive. if only the top3 get paid it discourages new blood. even if it is top 32 hell then I think even Noah would have gotten something.
If the pot fee needs to increase to do this I definitely support it.
I was not happy turning on the steam and seeing 2 EFL colorado players going at it so early in the tournament. I really wish tehre could have been something done even if they were in the same pool they should have not have had to meet until pool semis at best. IMO.
more chairs