I know, I know – you want to cut right to the chase and hear about attendance numbers.
Noon Yesterday: 1590 Players (+171 over 24 hours)
Drumroll please….
Noon Today: 1784 Players! (+194 over 24 hours)
This beats the projection of 150-per-day signing up by over 25%! I don’t want to quite say it’s a sure thing that Grand Prix Richmond will set the record for the largest constructed Grand Prix in history, but I’d be hard to imagine getting less than 2,227 players at this clip. (At +150 players a day, we’d have 2,834 people registered by doors-open at noon next Friday!)
I want to give a big thank you to everyone who has preregistered for this event! As you may recall, the Grand Prix registration system was changed this year in the wake of Grand Prix Las Vegas. In previous years, you could sign up all day Friday and on Saturday morning up until the start of the tournament. This changed with the 2014 Grand Prix Season: On-Site registration closes on Friday night, and for most events, online registration closes before the doors open on Saturday. This means you *NEED* to either preregister online (for us, this ends at 8am on Saturday) or show up on-site and register by doors-close on Friday (which will actually be at 1am on Saturday).
The reason I am giving everyone a big thank you for preregistering is that we track preregistration numbers very closely, and the sooner that people sign up, the quicker we can adjust our planning to make sure that we are able to handle the size of the event! As I mentioned in Wednesday’s column, we were able to secure many additional Eternal Witness playmats for Grand Prix Richmond because our preregistration numbers were so strong a month out from the event.
We’re amazed at the response to Grand Prix Richmond, and we are committed to putting as much effort as we can into whatever logistical challenges an event this size may present! We’ve already added multiple additional staff members to our stage crew (the people who handle registration, scorekeeping, and keeping things running behind the scenes), our sales booth (and we are one of only 15 fantastic vendors attending Grand Prix Richmond – find the full list here: www.magicgp.com/Vendors, and our information booth.
For past events, our information booth was front-and-center as you entered the event hall. The booth had a lot of papers, such as maps of the event, schedules of side events, and side event information guides. As a late addition to Grand Prix Richmond, we are going to staff our Information Booth on Friday from noon-8pm and on Saturday from 8am to tournament start. And who do we have scheduled to work the booth?
If you have any questions about the event, or just want to come and chat up me or Pete, please feel free to stop by the information booth! I’ve promised free hugs to anyone who drove 8+ hours to come to this event, but honestly – if you want a free hug just for attending, I’ll let it slip by ☺
Also of note: After two months of looking, I finally had a couple of the “Chinese Counterfeits” come across my desk. I’ll be bringing them with me to the Information Booth. Spoiler alert: Without any question, these fakes are so bad that when you see them in person, your first thought will be, “the community got in a panic about these?” I’ve been telling people for a while that you can easily tell these are fakes (it’s not even close), and now you can see for yourself in person at Grand Prix Richmond.
Tune back in on Monday, and I’ll talk about some of the additional steps we’re taking to make sure that Grand Prix Richmond is a pleasant experience for all of the people playing in the event!