In my mind the most critical error in this planning process was making 3 significant changes all at once. There are concepts behind the changes that have value and are valid -
- Trying a new location aside from Vegas is healthy, perhaps they could attract more entries from the east coast etc.
- People may appreciate a change from Vegas to a new vacation spot, personally I like Florida to holiday more than Vegas.
- The new rating event format is interesting and helps people get more matches with players around their level
- There is a standard for entering the main singles events, this is an international open and should have standards in place - there needs to be a difference from the US Nationals, not just everyone can enter the men's singles etc.
I could go on, but it doesn't necessarily mean I'm in complete support. Essentially what I believe happened was that because of the track system for entering events there was some restriction in the number of events some could compete in, also with a new blanket entry fee system and a price increase in the entry there are people being offered less events for a higher entry price.
I can understand why people weren't in favor of that or might not want to attend. If you entered 3 events previously for say $40 per event ($120 total), why would you now want to pay a blanket entry of $275 for the same 3 events.
I think that 550 is a respectable outcome given the changes made were relatively drastic. I think it's healthy to try new things and I appreciate that the organization is not willing to just keep plodding along as normal, we need people who can think outside the box. Sure if things don't work out then learn from it and move forward, but actively trying to improve and choose things which you think will benefit a majority of players is important.
All I can say is I hope this trial of new things is fairly evaluated and used to continue help improving the event. At the end of the day we want more people playing and more people happy. It seems there were more people who were less happy with this combination of changes, and that's ok, as long as it's learned from and put back into the process.
Long yarn there ha
