Bruce how do your payouts compare to Larry Labond's? I've not played any of your events yet, but am looking forward to it. Up until this point there is no better payout than him in my experience.
Larry is generous with the amateurs. Larry and the Northern Waters guys are probably the best in Michigan. And with Larry, you often get Bells beer. You'll probably never see us including beer as part of the format. You have to have a liquor license to do that legally.
Larry usually does a "forced crap" player pack. That disc might not be crap if you throw it, and it is not crap to me because it just goes in my merch boxes, but at the Cracked Plastic I won it was your choice of one of these three DX discs and a mini. What was it this year? Our player pack is 15 Brass. That and a buck will get you two DX discs, so bring an extra buck. Also, we do the optional Throw Discraft Player Pack that is like a $20 to $25 value if you can use whatever the Discraft deal is.
Larry usually does a voucher for payouts, or if he does stacks o' plastic he is willing to trade. Our payouts are a little better, but our Innova prices might be higher. How was he pricing stuff? You really can't say on payouts without knowing pricing, but our payouts are about the same. I really cannot say if we are higher or lower. Larry has good am payouts.
Larry usually does a divisional CTP, more if Scott donates some Club Dead stuff. We do one 15 Brass CTP per fivesome, or one 12 Brass CTP per foursome. We do lots of CTPs. Some people think too many CTPs, but I like giving the DFL cards something to play for, and it is a variable we can adjust depending upon the rest of the tournament financials.
On trophies, we do dyed discs, and next year they will probably all be premium plastic. Larry often does the homemade plywood trophies that are cheap but not real pretty. I hope our trophies are cheap but cool.
So we run a more generous tournament for amateurs but most of the generosity is in a better player pack and the CTPs. I suspect Larry's am value is 125% on the PDGA report. Ours is close to 150%.
To answer your questions:
- Players pack this weekend was a custom stamp FLX Surge or Buzzz and a Star Skeeter. The Skeeter may have been something else for other people as with the FLX discs.
- There was a keg of Bell's and lunch was also served with lots of chili and cans of pop. This is the first Kzoo tourney I have had lunch at or seen beer at though. It may just be a Cracked Plastic thing. Alcohol is allowed at Coldbrook Park though, so that could be why it's only served there.
- He used vouchers and had a good stack of discs available. Pricing was $16 for ESP/FLX and $12 for Pro Starfire's. That's all I really looked at. CFR Wraith's were $30. Pricing in the past has been pretty comparable to the standards.
- Advanced winners took $240 each in plastic and Ziggy got a mini basket and the trophy for winning the tiebreaker. I tied for 12th and got a $41 voucher. You are pretty much right with the trophies. They are neat though!
- Sounds like you run a lot more CTP's. I always enjoy seeing those and looking at the names on the list. I agree that it gives more incentive and something for those playing badly to still win something. There were 5-6 per round I believe at CPC.
By the sounds of it I am definitely looking forward to the IOS events. Well, I already was, but now even more!
I just realized this is the Bowling Green thread...sorry for the drift.
I got the FLX buzz and a star gator, I was ecstatic, I love gators and was thinking of buying one so I guess it just worked out for me. I thought the trophies were interesting for Sat. I assume he did the same for sun, but it was the polished wood with a little plaque of the division and place and and on the wood was a literally cracked disc, I thought it was very interesting. for 9th i got a $36 voucher so i was happy and left with some stuff I can enjoy for a while, i got a t-shirt and some beer mugs and a disc.
That's a decent player pack. Better than I've seen him do in the past. 240 for first in Advanced is huge. Way off the charts. Do you know if he paid 25 in Advanced? The PDGA payout for first would have been 105, but PDGA payouts would have gone 25 deep.
18 deep.
I've gotten a 2 disc players pack in 3 of his events now.
Larry runs really good tournaments. Just as you learn more from your mistakes than from doing things right, I think you also learn more from other people's mistakes than from what they do right. I played a couple of Larry's tournaments before starting to run tournaments with the IOS consortium (and just Bruce and I before that) and I can say that I didn't learn anything from attending Larry's tournaments! His tournaments run inconspicuously smooth, his payouts are good and at the events where he has had food it has always been hearty, tasty and plenty of it.
Larry's disc prices sound like the same on Innova [he and I are both just using the prices they threatenned us with] and a little higher on Discraft. Larry does run good tournaments, though. I'm always surprised he doesn't get more lower ams.
The events are not advertised well in my opinion.