I feel i must adress some of the issues with Campaign Cup this year.
First up, Heaven, you're entitled to your opinion that this is just a hyped up M25 event. But please conisder this:
You got proper trade booths, international professional teams, proper millennium fields, a really good staging area, fresh fruit and water, and nice grass to play on. Of course you're entitled to your opinion, but i really think you're streatching it a bit comparing this event to a M25. Still, if you feel the need... don 't let me stop you. If you the need to slate the tournament, maybe you'll try hosting your own. I will gladly come and give you some 'postivie feed back'. We have worked so hard to prepare this event, so it really sucks to read that people didn't enjoy it. I kind of wonder why we bother.
We knew from the start that we were going to get slated for not holding the event at Crystal Palace. For a number of reasons it was impossible to hold the event there, so it's unlikely that we'll ever be back. Instead we opted to hold the event at a venue that gave us more control over the layout. We had the choice to have one of the 7 man fields in the main pitch, but we chose to keep x-ball where we had the most spectator seating.
X-ball takes up a ton of resource, and generates very very little profit. It's hardly worth doing. But i must be clear about this, 7 man entry fees do not subsudise x-ball X-ball pays for it's self, barely, but it does.
Hopefully there will be an x-ball league next year, and hopefully more teams will play. After this weekend i never want to play 7 man again, it's too slow, too much waiting around, and you get way more quality game time in x-ball.
We made a mistake with the placement of the toilets. We'll get that right next time. You could all help us out by aiming a little more carefully...
The food wasn't what we ordered. there were supposed to be 6 different food vendors. However i thought the roast pigs were something different, did nobody enjoy it? We'll get the food sorted next time. Remember though, you can bring your own food, there was plenty of space for a nice picnic lunch...
We really don't have any control over the trade booths, they bring what they want to bring. We try to encourage them to bring loads of cool stuff, but in the end what they bring is up to them. Trade presence has been way down at Millennium Events this year, this problem is not unique to Campaign Cup.
We had more than enough staff booked for the event, but team Virus, and one other team dropped out at virtually the last minute, and that forced us to move the Campaign Power team from staff to Marshalling Duty. I had nothing but complements about Campaign Power, i'm proud of my boys they did a great job. I had complement about them from several div 1 teams, people who would actually know good judging if they saw it.
Evil Pigs however really sucked. They were so bad that we had to take them off field, and make them chrono judges. THe couldn't even to that properly. They will never marshall at Campaign Cup again, they embarassed us, themselves, and their sponsors with their pathetic marshalling. I will be suprised if they get even a third of their marshalling points once the ultimate judges reports have come in.
I read about the paint storm game. I'm not sure what the fuss is about. The guy complaining about it seems to be trying to make a big deal about nothing. They got the penalty what more do you want? To look like a dick? good, because you succeeded.
But we're taking the issue of judging very seriously, and it's something that you can guarentee we will adress for next year.
I really had a good time this year at Campaign Cup, but then agian i was running x-ball, and i felt the vibe was really good there. I mean the crows in the stands were pretty hyped up for the Russian Legion, even the guy at the cafe down the road who served us lunch today knew that the Russians won.
So what next? Well we're working hard to clean up this year's event, and we're starting to plan for next year. The positive and negative aspects will be adressed, but for us the most important thing will be getting the atmosphere right. We want to make the event memorable for you, we want you to feel like you were part of something special. And we tried. There's so many things we improved on, that nobody noticed.
My hilights have been:
watching RL beat Philly's finest.
Mark Baker bonus balling one of Philly, and Philly spazing out in the pits.
Trauma, these guys rocked. Thanks for comming to London, hope you guys come back next year.
Talking shop with Frank, Spesh, Tim, and the rest of Philly.
Ignition, these guys finally found their A game, and looked like they belogned in the EXL
Frank punching the penalty box in the final against Draxxus (Trauma)
Doing DVD comentry with Tommy Pemberton.
Yelling at Niall in the Car park on Saturday night, man he's scarry when he's pissed about something...
Getting to MC X-ball, and embarassing people...
Watching Sanchez hang the flag for RL, and giving him a shout out over the mic.
Of course the best thing was all the people who came up and simply said thank you for putting on a great event. When you've poured your heart and soul into something, it's awesome to hear that someone else enjoyed it.
Now i have to go get some sleep, because tomorrow i have to try and get all the paintballs off the main pitch. You know they actually think they're going to play rugby on that pitch on Saturday? we'll see...
