NOTE: I checked out the Tournaments forum and it seemed more suited to tournament announcement than tournament discussion. I apologize if I got that wrong and this thread would be more appropriate in the Tournaments forum.
Okay, I know that this is going to sound odd to a lot of you. I love the fighting game scene, but I’m a spectator - I love watching top-level play and following the competitive FG world, but not having any competition I don’t play very often and certainly not at a tournament level. On most occasions I would choose to watch others play over playing myself. I wanted to see a major in person for a long time so I went to SoCal Regionals a couple of weeks ago and had an absolute blast. I didn’t enter any tournaments except for the free TTT2 tournament since $70 is a lot of money to spend entering a competition you know you can’t advance in. I spent the whole weekend playing TTT2 and SCV casuals and watching the AE2012 and UMvC3 finals on Sunday. Watching the finals in person was an incomparable experience and I’d love to experience that excitement again.
I work at an airport, and one of the perks I get from that is free air travel to anywhere in the country. This is how I was able to go to SoCal Regionals from my home in Massachusetts. Geography is not an issue. I really want to check out another tournament, but Clockw0rk told me that SCR becomes more like a convention every year - with that in mind, I’m guessing that most tournaments don’t offer as much as SCR does for non-competitors. Can anyone offer suggestions for upcoming tournaments where I could have a great time as a spectator, not entering the competition but watching and playing casuals? Or would most events leave me standing around with nothing to do if I’m not playing competitively? I’m thinking about GVN Winter Brawl since a friend of mine lives nearby. What do you guys think?