We were BLOWN AWAY! We had the room set for 156, figuring we might have an increase from the 138 we had last year. We knew something was up when the 150 promos I'd given to the deck checkers ran out at 9:25 (registration ran from 8:30 until 9:45). I quickly gave them the remaining 20 promos we had, and they were gone about 5 minutes later. The line was far from gone however.
Luckily the venue had some extra chairs which they had stored in the hall we were in, so we had then come ulock the storage room and we started adding chairs to the Junior tables. That was our backup plan, squeeze in a few more chairs in Juniors since we had 8 foot tables and only set 3 chairs per side.
We knew we were in trouble when the registration table said "do you have any more registration slips" - I had printed 200.
We kept squeezing in chairs until all but one table had 4 per side. The room was now set for 200, the line was dwindling at the deck check tables and we were only a half hour behind schedule.
The final numbers ended up as follows:
Juniors - 57
Seniors - 45
Masters - 97
For a grand total of 199
I think it was the best tournament we've ever had in Oregon (certainly the largest). The staff was first class, doing everything that needed to be done without me even asking. The players in the NW are the BEST in the World. We had less than 2 dozen drops for the entire day. People were yelling just as loud at round 6 as round 1, even though they had been there for about 7 hours at that point. We gave away tons of cool Pokemon stuff and had many parents express their appreciation. (I know the giveaways are boring for some of you that have all the Pokemon stuff you will ever need, but when I see the excitement generated when Chris rolls those dice I gatta say we're going to keep doing them) And finally, the 2008 Cason "Spirit of the Game" award was a wonderful way to honor a very special youn man's memory. It was so moving that his family attended and his sister presented it.
I'll be on a Pokemon high for weeks, and I'm already looking forward to April 12th!!! The words thank you can't really express what I feel, but
THANK YOU!
BDS