Last week I asked for commitments from teams for the NZTC scheduled for June. I booked the Khandallah Town Hall (for the third year in a row) but the economics of this require attendance of 14-16 teams. In 2015 I had a number of teams pull out after committing as well as individual players. As I explained last week this creates a lot of extra work for a Tournament Organiser and creates financial problems.
There had been some interest from Australia where two-three people had indicated that they might have formed teams to attend. Given the expense both financially and in time for these teams, I did not want to signal that the event would go ahead only to later disappoint them. Therefore I sought firm commitments from locals before I confirm the event was definite.
Over the week since I asked for team commitments I got five replies flagging the involvement of six teams. Unfortunately this level of participation is insufficient to consider staging the event. I'm obviously disappointed with this as I consider the NZTC as one of the highlights of the NZ gaming year. Hopefully we'll see sufficient interest next year to consider hosting the event.
In part this is not an entirely unexpected outcome. The NZ Fantasy scene has become increasingly fragmented over the past 24 months. This started with 8th Edition "End Times", was followed by GW's attempted euthanasia of WHFB and its replacement by Age of Sigmar. This has been followed by the local community looking at other games - Kings of War and 9th Age - continuance of WHFB or forsaking fantasy gaming all together.
With KOW this currently appears to be played mainly in the Wellington region and Auckland but it is fair to say it hasn't secured the playing numbers seen in WHFB two years ago. I'm hopeful that over time the community will grow as I personally enjoy the game and think it offers a lot in a tournament format. Good numbers were seen for Runefang but numbers for Battlecry in Auckland and WSS Summer here in Wellington were less than envisaged.
So overall disappointing in the short term but I didn't want to compromise what I see as a marquee event.
Posted with Blogsy
Bugger, sorry to hear that. James, Dave, Bo and I were ready to come along and terrorize the lower levels of the tournament. Totally understand the decision not to proceed though.
ReplyDeletePete,
ReplyDeletelooking at the interest/lack there of it. It seems you have around 20 -24 players committed.
Do these numbers make it viable to offer a KoW Team tournament instead?
I.E., Kandallah School, 5-6 teams each team plays each team over 2 days?
Maybe not as cool as NZTC but you certainly have the player base for that event, it has a reputation as a fun event already, and it might pick up a team or two. I guess, as you have signaled, the risk to such an event is that players and teams pull out.
Anyway, please consider the idea. The trick for me is understanding how to grow a player base. Would a teams event help that process?
I am trying to see if there is interest in getting a Manawatu team to attend, regardless I am keen to play whether it be in a random team or Manawatu team.
ReplyDelete