I’ve been playing the game for less than a year and this past weekend had my first Grand Prix experience in Portland Oregon. This article is a critique of the event that will hopefully make future events better for all participants. While I don’t have the depth of magic knowledge that regular authors on ManaNation bring to the table, sometimes an outsider can see things that have blinded others. “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it,” isn’t the correct answer for any question.

Run Your Event like a Radio Station

Time spent playing matches is your best quality programming. You want to pack in as much of it as possible for two really good reasons: 1) magic players like to play magic, 2) it makes you (the event organizers) more money.

A player waiting to play a match might be doing so for a couple of reasons. You can liken waiting for the round to complete to a commercial break. Radio listeners don’t like commercials but understand the necessity, and magic players expect to spend some time waiting for other players to finish matches.

Similarly you can liken waiting for administrative or organizational reasons to dead air. That time when there is a full pool for an infinite draft but it hasn’t started yet: dead air. The first 30 minutes when we’re waiting for everyone to check table assignments before cracking packs: dead air. The time spent delaying the start of an event because half of the signed-up participants didn’t realize it was starting: dead air.

Most of my recommendations below focus on key ways to cut down on the amount of dead airtime or player confusion. The more dead air we can cut the more programming and occasional commercial we can fit in. Us players will go home happier to have played more magic and event organizers will go home with more money from events.

Referee Style Uniforms for Judges

This is especially critical for side-events, but anything with a timed round can be frustrating when a judge isn’t immediately on hand. I found the judges in the all black uniforms difficult to spot. I was told they used to wear the striped shirts and I found myself wishing that was still the case. Either bringing the striped shirts back or selecting less common colors for the judge shirts would make the judges easier to spot in a crowd of dark color wearing geeks.

Patches for Judge Positions

“Are you the judge for my event?” “Who is the judge for Infinite Standard #32?” I heard lots of players and even the occasional judge asking questions like these. A large colored velcro patch on the pocket area of the uniform would help clear up much of the confusion. This would make it easier on judges and players alike. I would recommend velcro patches as they could easily be swapped out when judges are off duty or changing events.

Color Coordinate Events

Each event should be assigned a color that stays with it the entire weekend. Ideally these would eventually be standardized across all events. For example Legacy could be purple and Infinite Drafts could be yellow. They’d have yellow sheets of paper to sign up on, a yellow background on the velcro patch for the judge, a yellow background on the poster describing the event. A yellow sign next to the appropriate table...

Clearly Label All Event Tables

At the end of each long row of tables should be a stand with a large table number starting with a letter A1 - A10, B1 - B10 etc. (Start it with a letter to not confuse it with pairing seating assignments.) Below this number should be a clipboard. When an event is running at that table a color-coated piece of paper indicating the event would be on the clipboard. The clipboard could also have “reserved for Legacy at 2pm” to avoid taking the time to kick players off of event tables.

When making announcements instead of having people meet up front, call them to a specific table. “Infinite Draft #34 is starting on table A3.” This will avoid the problem of people from three different events all trying to gather at the same time around a single announcer.

Post Pairings Online

For main events it is very time consuming to wait behind a horde of people to find your table number and then go across the room to find the appropriate table. A large (and growing) number of players have Internet access on their mobile phones. It doesn’t need to be pretty, plain text is fine. This one thing could easily cut the dead airtime in half before starting any large event.

If you wanted to get really fancy you could have results for each pairing also show up after they have been reported. Fancier still would be to allow each player to report via the web interface, but I’d be happy with just a simple text-only pairings.

Post Announcements Online

Far too often I’d hear events announced only to have half the players show. If I happen to be in the hallway, listening to music or just engrossed in a conversation I may miss it. Publish it to a twitter feed and let everyone check it on their mobile devices. Fortunately twitter doesn’t take any special software or money, and many players will be familiar with it. You would of course continue to make announcements about the events.

Be Professional When Making Announcements

We’re all here to have fun, not be publicly humiliated. There were a number of insulting things said about players who missed their event or weren’t responding to a previous page. (Quite likely they were confused, but some of the above suggestions will hopefully help.)

I felt really bad for whoever was paged because “your mother is here” when the entire room erupted in laughter and applause. It was funny, but will that kid want to keep playing magic? Will his mother want to buy him packs or bring him to events? We want to grow the community, and younger members are a huge part of it. I appreciate that magic is a game where my opponent might be twice or half my age.

All that said, I had a great weekend learning to play better magic and getting crushed by those who’ve been playing for a lot longer. I was impressed with the professionalism of most of the players and judges at the event. I’ve caught the fire and expect to attend more events in the future, where I’ll hope for even more playtime and even less dead air. I’ve heard opening a Baneslayer in your pool is good too, but perhaps that’s asking for too much.

Will Shaver