I do think it's important for kids (and adults) to learn that no matter how hard they try, sometimes you just can't win.
Having said that, I also think that for Pokemon to encourage its youngest players to attend, those players need to feel like they had a fun time at regionals. We did have raffles at regionals (San Jose, CA) but side events with token prizes for the juniors probably would have been nice as well - items like stickers, erasers, or whatever you can get for a couple of pennies.
When a 6 year old walks away from regionals at the end of a long day, would they be so concerned that they went 2-4 or would they be excited that they got a really cool Psyduck sticker? As a parent, I would be a lot less inclined to go to the next regionals if my kid didn't leave with a good feeling (even if he lost).
It's like the badges and stuff you get from league. How many masters (and older seniors) are really interested in those trinkets? But the youngest kids LOVE that stuff - if they think they can get something, they'll keep returning.
This, this, and this! I was walking around nor-cal regionals (hanging out mostly). I walked around the juniors division just as the tournament was ending. Out of all the children, many were happy, but one little girl had a HUGE smile on her face. She was telling her parents about how much fun she had. She won 4 or 5 things from the raffle. I later found out that she went 0-X, but she had the best day ever. She will most certainly be coming back to as many tournaments as she can.
This is how we should be increasing the juniors and senior divisions. If we want to help the size grow, everyone needs to feel like a winner. Rummaging up old knick-knacks from Pokemon history (2004 Worlds door keys for example) and giving them to the players is a great way to make everyone feel like a winner. Even the useless beachballs and pencils were helpful in this way. A long long time ago, I went to a tournament (can't remember where) where the loser of the first round walked away with something small (a beach ball) while the winner walked away with a win. The first round (and the last round) are the two rounds with the largest amount of feel-bad from my experience. Having a not-winner prize for first round and random goodness in the last round is great to ensure that everyone is a winner. Being able to walk away from the tournament saying "look what I won" is a great way to increase repeat attendance... even if the person didn't actually win it. This psychology works for masters too, but the knick-knacks need to be bigger. Masters typically end up giving the beach balls and pencils to the youngins.
Once again, reducing the amount of Junior and Senior feel-bad is definetely the way to go. One mom at a cities last year high fived every junior that won a game. By the end of the tournament, you had juniors competing merely to win that high five (everyone ended up getting the high-five by the end of the tournament). This high-five, while a useless prize, became worth more and more by the time the tournament went on. At the beginning of the tournament, it was cool and fun. By the end of the tournament, everyone who hadn't gotten it wanted it badly. This wasn't a normal high five either. When one of the juniors highfived this judge, everybody knew about it. It was a big deal. By the end of the tournament, every junior won this high five, so there was absolutely no feel-bad. They all earned something, so they all walked away happy.
So yeah... that was way longer than I intended it to be. Onto the on-topic stuff
Pokemon is growing month by month. Straight numbers don't mean much when you take this into account. I honestly think we should be comparing the rate of growth of this year's regionals when compared to the rate of growth of last year's regionals and the rate of growth of the regionals before last year. A few factors changed, so our data is pretty much incomplete and trying to draw conclusions based on this one event will end in disaster. I think we should really start crunching numbers after all 3 regionals take place this year. Compare the total attendance to the total attendance of last year and the year before. The total attendance will definitely increase, but by how much? If the rate of attendance growth flattened out, that is where we might find issues. If it didn't flatten out significantly, we can conclude that the change had little effect on regionals attendance. If the J/S rate of attendance growth increased, the plan was successful. We just need to look at the expected growth of these events and the actual growth. Even with all the necessary data, a few things changed (3 regionals vs 2), so it is difficult to draw hard conclusions, but we can still draw some conclusions. Just wait to judge before we get a good sample of regionals (at least wait until the 2nd regionals is over).
