Splatoon 3 at The Big House 11

September 3rd, 2023|0 Comments

For the best interest of everyone involved, we the Splatoon tournament organizers alongside the head TBH11 event organizers have made an extremely heavy decision to cancel Splatoon 3 at The Big House 11.

At the onset of the announcement of Big House, Raze and myself were approached to consider whether it was best to pursue running Splatoon again. Even during that first conversation, we knew things would look different this year. Various circumstances that allowed us to create the success of last year were different this year, by factors outside our control. After the awesome event we had last year and especially considering how much The Big House helped us and nurtured a relationship with the community, we both wanted to make the most of what we could and show our devotion to working together on creating an exciting experience for players.

One of the factors is the calendar of events. The saturation of tournaments was something the SplatLANs TOs have been discussing since early last year. More LANs are great, but our playerbase doesn’t have the density nationwide to make events that happen at the frequency we see with Smash, so the audience we see at these events is made of repeat attendees. Everyone’s wallets are hurting this year, and most players can’t afford multiple trips in such a short time, or if they can then they also risk burning out. Combined with the timing in the school year, Big House fell on a very awkward spot on the calendar for players.

Another factor is the personal bandwidth we have this year to support and run the event. Even knowing this and the risk it posed to how the event would perform, we wanted to try and overcome that with a marketing presence similar to last year. However, many things in our personal lives prevented us from pushing the tournament as much as we had liked. For both of us, we had bitten off more than we could chew.

Delivering a proper tournament experience is why players sign up. Without the proper mental and financial resources to put on an event of a reasonable caliber, we feel that to continue forward would not meet the expectations of anyone involved with the tournament. We also want to announce this far enough ahead of time so that the few players who have already signed up and made travel plans would be given ample time to adjust their plans. Canceling now will help us maintain a mutually beneficial partnership, in order to create something special for the scene in the future, something that players won’t want to miss out on. Everyone involved with making this decision is in agreement on one thing: we’d like to maintain a good faith partnership between Splatoon Community and TBH for potential future events.

This decision was not easy. I feel as though I’m admitting defeat, but in my mind, I know this is the most responsible thing I could do. If anyone is upset with this, I want to hear them out and talk with them personally. By the time this is posted, I’ll have already communicated with the players signed up for the event. There’s still a lot of Splatoon to be played, and I know for a fact bigger and better events are to come, but this one wasn’t able to bloom. Thank you for reading this, and I hope to see you all at another event soon.

Best,
Magic8Ball (Splatoon 3 tournament organizer)

Juggleblog: Introducing The Big House Online

November 10th, 2020|0 Comments

Even the year 2020 can’t hold us back. I’m excited to introduce The Big House Online, this year’s version of our cherished fall Smash major. It’ll take place on December 4-6, featuring both Melee and Ultimate.

I’ve always believed constraints can breed creativity, and I fully intend to show that with our online edition of the event. One of the first things I realized while brainstorming this year was: while we miss out on in-person interactions at the venue, we also have no setup resource constraints since everyone playing at home uses their own setup. This frees us to run a swiss pools format that offers more and higher-quality playing time to the average competitor. I’ve always wanted to try a swiss pools format, and The Big House Online is the perfect opportunity to do so. I’ll post another blog about swiss details later.

Another push I’ve made in recent years is diversifying activities for Big House participants of all backgrounds and skill levels. To me, the most rewarding part of an event is the shared community experience. You compete in your favorite game all day, but you also get to participate in non-Smash activities at the venue, or watch the best players in the world put on a show. And while the physical gathering element isn’t there this year, we’ll do our best to provide the next best thing. To that end, you can expect Discord side events on Sunday to enable more fun even after you’re eliminated from the competition. More information on that is coming soon.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you’ll join in on the most unique Big House installment yet!

You can register today at: smash.gg/tbho

Best,
Robin Harn / Juggleguy

Join The Big House Online discussion! This year’s installment is set to take place on December 4-6, 2020.

#TBHO

@TheBigHouseSSB