An Tir Dearg

Thanks to everyone for making this a success, guys. I also had a lot of fun. We appear to have had about 77 attendees.

I also had a blast. Thanks to everyone for their help.

Now, just to confirm on some loose ends.

It started snowing very heavily when I left to make a trash run and it was not physically possible for me to return to meet with the port-a-john people or get the last batch of trash that was left unbagged.

1) Did the portajohn people make it out there successfully?
2) I can head out that way tomorrow so long as the snow isn't as bad as it was and bag up the last of the trash and dump it. I don't want us to get cited.

I have gotten in touch with the Empire Waste folks, several times today, and the final plan is to get out there at 2-ish and load the port-a-johns. I'll take trash bags and try to get it all cleaned up. I am sorry I wasn't there all the way to the end.

Edited

I'd like to know the source of Aquilonia's particular offense. I'm happy that they're being polite about it, however I'd rather not be thought of as a cheater. 4 heralds on the field with several "unclean" calls would generally be considered fair in my opinion. Isk, is this something you can diplomatically find out?

Tibby, thanks for deciding to remove the private stuff that got put up by mistake. I'd rather let this die and move on. I have done what I can to clarify things on the Bel board regarding the tourney and whether it satisfies the Aquilonians or not, it hopefully keeps the air clear for everyone else. I have PMed you details regarding this as well.

One very real and major issue with how this event was run is the fact that I decided the tourney structure of who would fight who, I helped herald most of the matches and then I fought in the tourney. I did this out of habit without thinking it through. I ran this just like I would at a practice where it's just for fun and doesn't really matter. At an event, though, where the competition is 'real' and there is a prize and bragging rights at stake, I should have taken this more seriously and been careful that there was appropriate separation of responsibilities. I did it wrong and that is a major flaw.

I would like each of us to give a 3 things that worked well and 3 things we should change/improve here on the board.

The Awesome:
• Feast
• Night Fighting on Friday
• Everyone's willingness to help and positive attitudes in the face of challenges

To Improve:
• A real site that is easy to find
• Better trash collection
• Clear separation of duties for the tourney

Also, lest we forget, almost all of the feedback was very, very positive. Many people who traveled a good long way indicated they will try hard to make it again next year.

THE GOOD
complimentary firewood
friendly and available leadership
memorable event

THE BAD
Cow poop. couldn't be helped, but still something to be avoided if possible
Last minute scramble for site. Easily fixed by getting a site well in advance, and also picking out a 'fall back' site.
Matching of tourney fights. Maybe have competing groups sign up by a number and draw those numbers from a bucket/hat/hole in the ground.

Well we all know that FB would have nothing good to say about anything.

Isk the event was awesome great job i had a lot of fun. Sad about the rain on Saturday because i was planning on fighting the whole time. Ah well cant have it all.

Lets hope for no hotels in mesquite next year then no FB Huzzah!

Anyway great job Isk Tib Lib and any others that helped.

Barrikaide, welcome to our forum! I personally have no beef with Fork and feel like he's done a lot to contribute to the game. No, his style of leadership and communication is not mine, but I'm always glad to see him at events and I appreciate what he brings to the game.

How about your three best and three to improve Barrikaide?

oh Right:

The Good:
The Towers. Although Rickety added a fun element to the game and made a good fire at the end.
The Food. It was very good. Im not sure if there would have been enough for everyone if people didnt leave with the heavy rain but it was very tasty
The Location. although not ideal with the poop and stones it was a PIT in the Wilderness which made it pretty awesome to me. Spend a few days clearing it and it would have been awesome. (cant do that when you got moved to this spot on the friday.)

The Bad:
More Tournaments. I would like to see more tournaments weather on Saturday stopped a lot of fighting but some more tournaments would have been nice.
The Sign on the road. I think i read a post that there would be a big sign pointing out the turn. Good thing i got there during the day because it was a small black sign. i know a couple people missed it and drove an extra hour or so.
The Weather. Cant fix that though.

Welcome Barrikaide, and we appreciate your supporting words in our defense, to be sure.

Anyway, I'm happy and thankful as to how our event turned out. It was a great time indeed.

Positive:
The friends and turnout.
The good attitudes.
The tournament (along with all of the fighting).

Negative:
The location, and it getting switched up on us like it did. (Not our fault)
Some questionable attitudes. (Not our fault)
The accursed weather that keeps hosing us. (Also not our fault)

I took my time making up this little list. As I review it, it's somewhat comforting to note that the majority of the negative aspects were out of our control, and can, for the most part, easily be rectified next year.
There were other things that I liked of course (such as feast, to name one) but I didn't have room, heh.

All in all, thank you everyone who participated, helped, contributed, and tried towards making this a better experience for us all.

I'm really glad I was able to attend the event and it was a blast. I'm having difficulty coming up with negative things that are actually withing our control, so pardon if I'm repetitive.

POSITIVE
The fighting was great, the tournement was awesome and a lot of the other fighting on Saturday made me a much better fighter.
The turnout, I felt that we had a good turnout with a lot of fighters that helped me improve personally.
The fire, it was just freaking awesome when we threw the castles on the fire Saturday night.

NEGATIVE
The last minute site change, enough said on that one.
I felt that there were some ridiculously high tensions between people, but not much you can do about that.
I'm out of negative things to say. I mean, the weather sucked but theres really nothing at all you can do about that.

Overall, thanks to everyone who came and participated in making my first even awesome. Here's to looking forward to many more in the future.

I'm hearing that folks are claiming food poisoning from feast. Any of you sick?

My stomach was being mean to me last night, but I don't think it would have taken that long for any food poisoning to manifest itself. I'm more inclined to believe it was the two gas-station hotdogs I had.

well i think that the food poisening is a perspective of people cause if you eat something your not use to having it will mess with your stomach where as to some people just have iron stomach and will be fine no matter what they eat but thats just my opinnion

Nothing food-related bothered me, and I don't think I have an iron stomach. Think it could be the alcohol mixing poorly? Or has it affected someone that didn't drink?

I'm inclined to agree with Link, but there are quite a few people claiming sickness as well as a 3rd party account of chicken being found bloody inside. All of this is on the Bel boards. I'm not sure how alcohol figures into the mix, but that was my original inclination.

I didn't "get sick" I simply had my usual natural reaction to beans. Totally worth it for those beans though.

As I said on the Bel thread and Fork pointed out, it seems to be a particular batch of the chicken that was undercooked, perhaps because they didn't get it thawed enough beforehand. Either way, I am not inclined to go back to the same caterer.

I have thought quite a bit about how to do the tourney next year and I think what we should do is try to get the teams in advance on the bel board, then teams mostly from Utah (and Vegas?) should go in one hat and teams from out of state in another. Then the matchups could be randomly drawn while still allowing people to hopefully fight someone they don't face on a regular basis. I think best of 3 single elimination worked well, but obviously no one heralding should be fighting.

That sounds like a good solution to both problems. I really liked 2/3 elimination because you at least got to fight twice.

Perhaps with getting the teams ahead of time we'll be able to write up a bracket on a poster board and give an additional subconscious reminder that the tournament is both professionally run and honest.

I like that. Having it on poster board or a white board makes it much more 'official'. To achieve transparency we publish on the web beforehand how the teams will be assigned so that no one can whine about the team assignments.