billy
Joined: Jan 1st 1991, 12:00 am
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jeffbarnes
Joined: Jan 1st 1991, 12:00 am
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jeffbarnes
Joined: Jan 1st 1991, 12:00 am
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billy
Joined: Jan 1st 1991, 12:00 am
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Posted: Sep 22nd 2006, 07:13 pm
Post subject:
official world series of beer pong post
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Wow, I don't even know where to start, but here we go.
First, as I have repeatedly explained to people (not you or the forum in general, so chill), my number one goal here is to make sure every person at our event has a good time. We are doing this for the love of the game, not for money. We try to price things just above our costs, and for all the work we have done in negotiating and planning to make this happen, we have not paid ourselves one dollar. The second that people stop having fun at this event is the second I quit.
Throughout the years, I have been very careful to not set "the rule of the game." For example, I am not trying to say the game is called "beer pong" or "Beirut" - it's whatever you call it. How long is an official table? There is no official table size. And it goes on and on. With our event, however, some things do seem as if they could become a standard, sure, but we are not trying to set standards. We are setting rules because you have to have rules to run a tournament. If people want to copy our rules, fine. As we tell every single bar that contacts us to run a satellite tournament, "Here are our rules if you want to use them, but please feel free to use any rules that better suit your situation." Basically, if anybody tells me something is an "official" something for beer pong, I always tell them they are full of shit - there is no "official" anything for beer pong.
jeffbarnes
because last year's did not do that well. Do you think the WNBA charges as much as the NBA?
Not sure where you got that. As far as I was concerned, it went great, but I'll let every man/woman judge it for him/herself. My only goal was to make sure everybody had a good time, and I was constantly asking people if there was anything else I could do for them. From what I was able to tell, every person there had a great time, which means the event was perfect by my definition of "that well." If anybody out there was at the event and did not have a good time, please email me or call me and tell me what was wrong. I will do whatever I can to fix any problems you had.
Nope, I don't think the WNBA charges as much as the NBA, but I guarantee they charge enough to cover their expenses. That's all we are trying to do.
jeffbarnes
But please don't parade all the costs of running a business as a way of justifying the inability to offer willing participants other options if they are interested in participating.
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arade all the costs of running a business"? I was simply trying to do exactly what you are criticizing me of not doing, i.e., telling people where their money is going. So which way do you want it? Do you want me to explain where the money is going or to not "parade all the costs"?
"inability to offer willing participants other options if they are interested in participating" - It's apparent you think we are just making stuff up on a whim and not planning. I will not argue - you can think what you want.
For those that are genuinely interested, however, EVERY SINGLE decision we make is directly related to one of a few things, most often (among others): (1) making sure every person has a good time; (2) being fair to every person that comes to our event; (3) being very diligent to try not to set trends intentionally (yes, people are copying our rules, but that is not our intent; if you have a way for us to run this without people wanting to play by our rules, please let me know); (4) bringing positive attention to beer pong (to society in general); etc. These goals are sometimes conflicting, obviously. Instead of accusing us of having an "inability to offer willing participants other options," you could have simply asked, "Why is it this way?" A lot of people email me questions like that, and I answer them with complete honesty. So for those that are truly interested in the reason why we package everything together, here are some of the bigger reasons.
(1) (Not a big reason, but . . .) Mesquite is in the middle of nowhere, and last year, people thought, "Why can't I just stay in my own hotel?" I told them they could, but I was curious where they wanted to stay. The answer: Vegas. I would then ask if the person knew that Vegas was 80 miles away. The answer was ALWAYS, "No!" It did not matter how many places on the site we said that it was 80 miles/1 hour away - people overlooked it. Every person I told this to ended up in Mesquite. Furthermore, I have worked one-on-one with every person that has emailed me this year asking if they had to buy the package with the hotel. For example, one girl said her or her friend's family has a timeshare at the Oasis or CasaBlanca (I don't remember which). Fine, why waste money to pay something you don't need? I gave her the package without the hotel costs.
(2) The big reason: a sense of responsibility for the beer pong community at large (in part, liability (and not just ours, but liability of the entire beer pong community)). If you haven't noticed, beer pong/Beirut/whatever you call it has received a shitload of negative publicity. You said, "It's a shame that you guys have chosen to exploit that by dictating where participants can stay." Wrong. As I said, we think through everything before we make a decision. I'm not saying we are always right, but if you want to know the reasons and then make suggestions instead of accusing us of exploiting people, we are open to change. Just so you know, we make $0 off of having people stay at the hotel. The hotel would be perfectly happy to allow each person to call up and make his/her own reservations. In fact, it would be one hell of a lot easier on us. We are not exploiting people - we have absolutely nothing to gain. What we (we meaning all fans of beer pong) do have to lose is beer pong (in a way). People are playing in bars all over the place, for example. Beer pong players love that. Because of the attention that our event does get, however, all it takes is for one minor or major thing to potentially set beer pong (in general) back several steps. For example, by having people stay at the hotel, it helps minimize drinking and driving. Will people still drive? Maybe (we strongly discourage it). But at least this way, I am confident that it will prevent at least some, if not all, people from driving after having been drinking all day long. All it takes is ONE person to be in a semi-serious wreck. Even worse, people could die. Then the media will blow it up and most likely make it into a bigger story than it is (if somebody dies, that is a big story, but they will pin ANYTHING they can on us, us meaning the entire beer pong community). What is that going to do to people like Austin that run MDBeerpong? Sorry Austin, but I have a feeling that you'll be out of the beer pong business. I want to do everything to prevent that from happening, and if I feel requiring people to stay at the hotel where the event is could prevent that, then guess what, that's how it is going to be. (Note, however, that if this event was in a place like Vegas, we would NOT be including the hotel because there are more than a few hotels there, and unlike Mesquite, people would be able to walk from the event venue to another hotel.)
Somewhat similarly with the food - we make $0 by having you buy the food through us. Every penny goes straight to the casino (in fact, we lose off of it by paying the credit card fees). The casino's risk management person and others are strongly encouraging us to provide food as a measure to minimize risk. Their reasoning is that if people have something to eat while drinking, they will be safer. If people have already paid for the food, they are more likely to eat the food instead of skipping a meal. I'm not sure who you think I am, but I assure you that I do not have the power to walk into a casino and tell them how the entire event is going to go. If their risk management team says, "We want you to provide food for people to make sure they are eating while drinking," guess what - we have you guys buy the food as part of the event. You could argue that the casino is thus taking advantage of the situation. That may be true, but from talking to these guys at the casino day in and day out, I truly believe that their expressed intentions are good. Even if their intentions are entirely to screw you and me over, what am I to do? The choices are (1) go with what we can get, or (2) quit and don't do it at all. Yes, there are other venues, but my experience so far is that when it comes to a place that is willing to work WITH us to make sure we have a successful event, nobody will do as much or more than The Oasis is willing to do for us.
The bottom line on this point is that we have a responsibility to the beer pong community in general here. We are not trying to set the trend; we are only trying to give people a good time. We do understand, however, that what we are doing may be shaping what will become mainstream one day, and we therefore feel that we have a responsibility to YOU and every other beer pong player out there to make sure that our bringing beer pong to the masses does not ruin the growth of beer pong or the game as we know it. Even if we can run a safe event, people will always crack down on beer pong, but the instant something happens (no matter how big or small - at our event or not), school administrators, the media, liquor control boards, and governments will start cracking down on beer pong all over the place, which sucks for everybody that truly loves the game. We do not want our event to be the one that ruins it for everybody, so we will take precautions that we feel help maintain the beer pong world as we know it. If anybody has better ways for us to ensure that beer pong progresses only in positive light, please let us know. We will listen.
(3) I lost my other thoughts, but there are a few other reasons. #2 is the big one, though, so hopefully that helps your understanding.
jeffbarnes
For $290 to watch the games, that is more expensive than a ticket to an NFL playoff game.
Ok, fine, but what's it going to cost to get an NFL ticket, a four-night stay, six all-you can eat meals, etc.? That’s not the point, so look: the pricing is what the pricing is. We set the prices based on what we felt we needed to run this event. Some costs are "hard costs," e.g., the hotel and food - the money goes straight out the door to the casino and is easy to determine. Some costs are not, e.g., the overhead costs such as insurance, staff, security, etc. These are harder to estimate. I do my best to estimate them accurately - both so I do not lose money and so that the participants do not overpay. Any money that is left over goes back into the event. Last year, for example, we would not have broken even up until the last couple weeks before the event. With no extra money until a couple weeks before the event, we can't book bands. Perhaps if we had charged people more, we could have done that, but instead, we're trying to keep the costs as low as possible while providing a kick-ass beer pong tournament. The packages cover the expenses with a little left over. If there is enough left over, we'll do something with it that you guys will enjoy. If there is not enough left over, sorry - it's not like we are screwing you; we just didn't charge you enough to do more - that's why we are not advertising things that we are not sure we can deliver.
The main event here is a beer pong event. That is what you are paying for. Everything else is us giving up any extra money we have to give back something extra to the people at the event. If you would prefer that we raise the prices, I can guarantee you'll get more. Otherwise, we can leave the prices - you'll get what is being offered, and if we have extra money, we will bring more entertainment to the event. You said people have a right to know what their money is paying for. You know: a four-night stay, a three-day beer pong tournament, some food (meals and/or snacks), some beer (and the other stuff I mentioned when I was “parad[ing] all the costs of running a business”). That is what we are offering. Now, you are going to say, "But 'some food' doesn't tell me what I am getting." As specified on the site, it is "meal tickets and/or snacks." Thus, you know you will get snacks. At the time we posted that, we were still negotiating things. We could have just left it at snacks, and with what the casino was wanting to do, we would have left it at "snacks" and told you EXACTLY what you were getting, which was not very much for what they were wanting to charge us. Alternatively, as is the case, we said "meals and/or snacks." Since then, I have been able to get you guys much more than snacks - two buffet tickets each day (six total) for just a bit more than "snacks," as the casino called it. If you are coming for the food anyway, I’d advise you not to come. Again, this is a beer pong tournament, and we are spending any “extra” money above the costs of running the event to provide the best food options I can negotiate, among other things.
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The bottom line: this event is being planned to run it as cost effectively for the participants with the focus being on ensuring everybody has a good time while playing beer pong. Everything is carefully thought out and everything is fully planned to run the best possible event. We do not claim we are doing everything right, but we are always willing to openly explain why we made certain decisions and we are always open to suggestions. We are not doing this for ourselves. We are doing this for the beer pong fans and for those that love the game as we do. Nobody else has tried to do something like this, and we are trying to do it simply because we are fans of the game. We are putting our asses on the line (financially and in terms of potential liability) for no reason other than to try to unite and expand the beer pong community. If you add up all of the time we have put into this and weigh that in light of what we have received in return and the risks we are taking all to try to unite the beer pong community, you would probably say we were idiots for putting in the time we have to plan this and for taking some of the risks we are taking without getting more in return. We understand we will never be able to please 100% of the people 100% of the time. We are always open to suggestions. Accusations without understanding the underlying process, however, are not appreciated. I encourage you to ask anybody that has approached me one-on-one with concerns or has approached me in a non-accusatory way with concerns. I have always (1) listened to what the person had to say; (2) explained where we were coming from; and (3) changed things if we feel it is worth changing. Most often, however, the other person will say something like, “I didn’t think of that.” That’s fine, but at least the person did not accuse us of exploiting people without understanding why we set things up the way we did.
I would also encourage you that if you do not like the way things are, please do not come to the event just “because there really isn't an alternative.” People will come to our event, and they will have fun. If you are doing it with an attitude that there just is not anything better, you are coming for the wrong reasons.
I am declining the opportunity to respond to the direct attacks that are not supported by the facts of the current situation.
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