16th KO2 World Cup - Birmingham World Cup Bid

[Steve1977]

PROPOSED DATE: 11/12/13 November 2016
PROPOSED LOCATION: Birmingham City Centre
WIP WEB SITE: www.pressfiretoplay.com

There may be a sense of deja-vu for long term members when reading this, but a full 12 months in advance, we'd like to fly out the traps early and outline our plans for a 2016 KOA World Cup - which will essentially be the same as the 2011 World Cup - but better!
Aware of the current economic climate, the event will be superbly price conscious and our aim is to actually make it cheaper than the '11 WC...which in itself was one of the cheapest.

LOCATION, VENUE & TIME
Birmingham is a lively, cosmopolitan city in the heart of England and offers a wide range of pubs, clubs, restaurants, shopping centres, museums and art galleries. Main City centre is only a 5 minute Taxi Drive away and many historical places are also easily accessible.
We envisage the Hotel will be the same as 2011 so free parking, spacious carpeted room with massive 4k projector, PR system built in, Bar serving snacks as well as drinks, top restaurants within walking distance as well as KOBRA arranged Taxi service - so no getting ripped off.
Venue will have full Wi-Fi capability and also be open till late on all days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday). Last time we had a tournament at 2AM!

COSTS
To be Confirmed but around the same price or better as the 2011 World Cup.


GOALS
Our main goals are for all attendee's to have a good time, but for us there could be an element of 'been there, done that' when it comes to hosting. So our main goal for this World Cup is to have an unprecedented amount of visitors.
Every single previous attendee will be personally contacted by email, Facebook, Twitter and if we have their number then by phone. If they say no we'll do all we can to cajole them into coming. In the past this has ranged from basic begging to organising local tournaments with the express goal of getting people to attend the world cup. No stone will be left unturned, but even so...
We intend to advertise in national computer shop GAME, advertising in local retro shops, advertising at the European Game Expo at the NEC in Birmingham (EGX) - The UK's biggest games event - attracting 75,000 visitors.
EGX incidentally will be held in September...a prime time for targeting World Cup attendee's.
Our website will be open for registration from December 2015...a full 11 months in advance.


FLIGHTS
Birmingham International Airport (BHX) is 6 miles from the city centre, and transfers are available by train, bus or taxi (we've found a firm specialising in airport runs with preferential rates). The following airlines fly from the airport itself:

* Aer Arann
* Aer Lingus
* Air France
* Air Malta
* Balkan Holidays
* bmibaby
* bmi regional
* Brussels Airlines

* City Airline
* Continental Airlines
* Cyprus Airways
* Eastern Airways
* easyJet
* Emirates
* Eurocypria
* Flybe

* KLM
* Lufthansa
* Mahan Air
* Monarch
* Monarch (Charter)
* Onurair
* Pakistan International
* Pegasus

* Ryanair
* SAS
* Swiss
* Thomas Cook
* Thomson Airways
* Turkish Airlines
* Turkmenistan Airlines
* Viking Airlines

TOURNAMENT FORMAT AND SETTINGS
We intend to use the APT menu as normal, but with the new feature of Team A's A and T settings also applying to Team B.
So normal KOA rules, A=B, no wind and users able to use APT menu.


MOST CONNECTED WORLD CUP EVER
Steve Camber is da man for recording the big games at World Cups and one of the plans last time was to have more of the other games recorded but sadly it never came to fruition in the chaos that the weekend brings. But this time? We will have a 'LIVE FROM BIRMINGHAM' area where a few Amiga's will be linked up with USB Capture Devices and every single game played on these systems will have the games recorded. What you will be left with will be a massive library of games to watch from over the weekend ranging from the big hitters to the lower league scraps.
All this will be handled by assistants.


MOST UPDATED WORLD CUP EVER
In addition to the above, every single result will be posted to Twitter - as they are received by the assistants. So anyone who cannot make it will be kept upto date with the very latest data.


CONCLUSION
When we last did this we didnt post our proposal till 8 Months before the event, this time? 12 Months! So bear with us on the costs issue. But we've proved once before we can do something like this so expect all the good things from 2011 with a whole lot of extra.

[Rodolfo]

Thank you very much, it looks terrific!

[Lee W]

got a semi!

[iankay]

Ooh, I was only there today, I could have whipped the locals up into a frenzy if I'd had known.
Sounds ace. What I liked about Dublin was the new recruits - if you have ten people playing for the first time only one of them can finish last, which will hopefully encourage them to come back (stronger).
Would there be a maximum number of entrants?
"Our website will be open for registration from December 2016" - December 2015?
Birmingham Shout gay festival is usually mid-November, should be a cracking spectacle, although it might push hotel prices up.

[Steve1977]

Hi Ian, think I met you at a UK Champs a few years back? Either way I completely agree...to be fair, in most world cups you have the core players who play religiously but then the other players, even if they've took part in previous world cups, only play the game once a year so they're essentially new guys anyway. But yes, we pride ourselves on trying to entice new players (as you know from the UK Champs )....I play at a Tennis Club and have already found 2 new players lol.

But what we'll be doing is hosting a series of tournaments during the whole year so if people do wish to practice in a tournament environment then they can - indeed one of them will be the small matter of the UK Championships

Maximum number of entrants? Blimey, I hope we have this problem! The venue is very big and could hold double as to what it had last time when we had 35 attendee's, possibly a few more too. But if we did have approaching 100 people confirming for the world cup...well strap yourself in mate because it would be f*cking awesome! (I wouldnt bank on this though)

Don't worry about other things clashing, maximum number of people etc. just leave that to us. Besides, this is the beauty of getting it all confirmed ultra early...if anything needs to be changed then it can be done so with no detrimental effect.

[Danny D]

A very strong bid from Birmingham, that's the spirit!

Who are the people behind this bid? Is it just yourself Steve or have you got a posse ?

Of course the kickoff2worldcup.com website, email addresses, twitter account @ko2cup, google plus account and mailChimp accounts which I setup and ran for WC 2015 will be made available to whoever is hosting.

[Steve Camber]

This is awesome! I want to make sure the game recording is top quality and broadcast to the world for the whole weekend No more last minute bodging required

[Freshmaker]

Seems very promising indeed. Many ideas I wouldn't have thought of. Good going guys.
Just one question; could we make sure we have the "Big Screen" Amiga-station set up from the get go? That way we could assure the Silver Cup final, Shirt of Shame-match and eventual Bronze Cup final are all on the big screen? We haven't managed that in a few years, and I'd really like to see that back on track again.

[Lee W]

Seems very promising indeed. Many ideas I wouldn't have thought of. Good going guys.
Just one question; could we make sure we have the "Big Screen" Amiga-station set up from the get go? That way we could assure the Silver Cup final, Shirt of Shame-match and eventual Bronze Cup final are all on the big screen? We haven't managed that in a few years, and I'd really like to see that back on track again.

this...

it would have been nice to see some epic lobbing and last second screamers on a big screen!

[Freshmaker]

It's just such a fun part of Sunday, hanging out and watching games on the big screen. And I feel all the finals deserves it's big screen moment, not just the top 4 players.

[Steve Camber]

They all do of course, it's always delays during the day which means there's a lack of time for the big screen fun.
With some bullying on the mic for people to get on with their games on the free amigas, sufficient time for big screen games will not be a problem.

[Lee W]

couldn't be helped with the silver cup final this time i guess cause Jorg had to catch an early flight so it was all kinda rushed cause of that... so, as usual, we can blame the Germans!

[Steve1977]

A very strong bid from Birmingham, that's the spirit!

Who are the people behind this bid? Is it just yourself Steve or have you got a posse ?

Of course the kickoff2worldcup.com website, email addresses, twitter account @ko2cup, google plus account and mailChimp accounts which I setup and ran for WC 2015 will be made available to whoever is hosting.

Cheers matey - really appreciate this but we still have a few things from 2011 - yes, all that time ago! - So will use these.
But I do have a few favours to ask and will PM you if that's okay.




JORN: I fully see where you're coming from and it's a cracking idea. This would certainly fall under the 'doing it the same but tweaking it so it's that little bit better. So yes, this is definitely something to take into account when doing the layout.
One issue we had in 2011 and I believe it occurred again in Dublin was the issue of players having to leave early. Sadly if this occurs then it will be tricky to stop everything for a big screen game, only to start up again. But providing this doesn't occur, then yes, defo want to ensure it's not just the top players on the big screen.
This is why having a few amiga's linked upto laptops will be great too...by the end of the tournament we'll have a catalogue of games which we can watch along with the sounds of a thriving tournament room.
Last did this for one of the local tournaments and it was a simple case of uploading the finished stream to youtube, so by the time everyone logs on, on the following Monday, they'll have a shitload of things to watch and to experience the event all over again.