Wali-G begins his Spring 2023 U.S. Foosball Tour on the South Dakota prairie against topshot foosball players from the Midwest and beyond. The foosball competitors gathered to compete at a 25-Tornado table weekend tournament at the Royal River Hotel’s Royal Room on the Flandreau Santee Sioux Reservation.
- Tournament #1: South Dakota State Championship
- Date: February 24-26, 2023
- Place: Flandreau Santee Sioux Reservation
- Host venue: Royal River Hotel and Casino
- Tournament software: HouseOfTournaments.com
- Team mate: Rob Garrett for Amateur/Expert/Pro/Open Doubles (Sioux Falls)
- The weekend long tournament event on Friday afternoon and ran till Sunday night. A marathon of foosball action and adventure!
If you have never been to a weekend-long foosball tournament to participate or watch, I liken the experience as a “Tough Mudder” of table sports event do to the need to focus and compete on your feet over a 65-hour weekend. Sure, you won’t get get beat up and dirty like filthy animal that you are at Tough Mudder, but you will definitely feel a unique version of fatigue that is hard to explain or replicate.
Foos-battles this weekend at the Royal Room were waged in multiple events. Events included Junior, Women’s, Beginner, Rookie, Amateur, Expert, Pro, and Open Single/Doubles from Friday afternoon to Sunday night.
A dozen or so individuals made the tournament room run smooth from set-up, competition, to tear down. Some of the names I’m familiar with for well run tournaments included Carma Burfield and Justin Shaw. Local crew help was mostly provided by local South Dakotans.
Terry Ward and Tim Everett were directors of events. Nice work guys!
It was an excellent regional tournament to attend to get geared up for the spring foos tour.
Tournament #1 Foosball Notes
*Acquire sponsorships and marketing material at least 2-weeks before the event. The more “heads up” time the better. This film production project didn’t really come to fruition until 1-week before the event. Sponsors, especially ones that you have not worked with before, would prefer a 1-3 month lead up.
*Need to dial in my coffee/food intake and sleep do to having a splitting headache I encountered Sunday afternoon before Amateur Doubles (I did not drink alcohol the whole weekend until the last match in order to try to combat the headache).
*$1,100 per tour event is extremely low for a 3-day weekend videography production that includes editing, marketing, and marketing materials.
*Participating in foos events cost me for than the $140 Amateur-package for 6-events. $50 table fees, $5 ball fee, and $30 for another event boosted the total, as well as having to buy 4-foos wraps and two more balls, to a total around $250 as an Amateur. This is not too much different than what you might expect to pay to attend a 3-day conference event.
*I created and posted (while at the tournament) 12-videos that I uploaded to Rock County Foosball and other Facebook foosball clubs (approximately 1 every 4-6 hours during the weekend). Kind of a “weekend foos Facebook” update.”
*DrifterRadio sponsored and teamed up with, Rob Garrett, from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Met him a couple of times 3 to 10-years ago, but didn’t really know him. He was introduced to me by Eddie S. from Sioux Falls as potential foosball partner. When I realized he was of Drifter of the Month caliber, I let him stay in my room since I had an extra bed. He was more than appreciative and was fun to hang out with. He was very open to be filmed and commentate on video which helped the overall video production of the weekend. Thanks Rob!
*I need to learn how to wrap the foos handles. When someone had to use the bathroom right before a match, I told them I would probably still be wrapping the handles when they got back…which I was. I told Al Foos, “my main goal this foosball weekend is to learn how to wrap a foosball handle.” Probably should have learned to do that before showing up to a major event.
*My 5-bar passing was looking good albeit slow. I used every guy on the 5-bar to pass which seemed to keep the defense guessing and off balance since most players stick to passing with two guys on one side of the table. I brought a different style to the table and it worked effectively.
*My blocking on from defense position was good in the back and decent in the front position. My 5-bar defense needs more work; some people I shut down, but most passed effectiviely against my 5-bar. My upfront defense was good and I tended to be a ball magnet.
*I was so much of a “ball magnet” that I got hit by two different balls flying off two different tables while playing. Rob commented he had never seen such a thing.
*Figure out what I should charge to promote sponsors and others looking for video marketing material and the editing/posting/eyeballs that go along with the video
*My parents drove up from Luverne (50-miles away) Saturday afternoon to check out the tournament, eat at the casino, and delivered the DrifterRadio.com demo books for Podcast and Marketing projects that unexpectedly showed up on Saturday. I gave the parents $30 to go get dinner for their efforts/support. It was nice to have tangible marketing on hand for the project because 1. it can be used in the production/videos. 2. it was something tangible and some what more detailed on what I am trying to achieve with DrifterRadio.com and the Foos Tour marketing production. Small low-content books are business cards on steroids. The “DrifterRadio.com: Film and Marketing Production” book sat at the event and administrative table during the weekend and was available for anyone to look at.
* I appreciate Jordan’s feedback after talking about a foos tour and looking at the book. “It will be interesting to see how the book develops over the course of the tour” is essentially my take-away from his feedback. The book is in Not-or-Sale beta mode and deserves multiple revisions before being up for sale. It would be nice to have version to sell at the later tournaments.
*I need to dial in what food/snack I bring. Bringing a case of bottle water was a good idea. Should have brought sandwiches and popcorn. The bison jerky medallions were good, but they may have been moldy by Sunday (which may have contributred to my headache).
*”Justin Shaw Sightings,” beard wax promotion, and “Foosball Book Club” were fun/goofy video productions with Justin Shaw, Rob Garrett, Tanja Marie, and Al’s Foos.
*Tried to keep my videos 15-seconds to 2.5-minutes long in order to share them on as many platforms as possible withouot video degration.
*I sponsored my second foos drifter Saturday…Or I should say 4am Sunday morning…when I let him also him stay (get a nap in) Sunday morning. I don’t think the queen sized beds are big enough for two people that aren’t married, but that didn’t seem to bother Garrett and drifter 2 since they have known each other for a long time and they are smaller dudes.
*Sleep was not disturbed by two strangers staying with me. I’ve been in the military before.
They may have had different hours and party-schedules, but I slept well for all of the coffee I consumed and bed-time hours I chose to rack out.
*With all my talk about things that needed to be improved on for the application beta-version of HouseOfTournaments.com software for the phone, it was handy and the future of tournament play. I’ve never used it before, so signing up and trying to navigate the platform was cumbersome to me. However, the text message notifications for when my match was up (and what table) was super useful especially when I was in my room or out in the car video editing. I could also track brackets and other players.
*Probably the biggest thing to recommend to the HouseOfTournaments is to have an instructional video on how to sign up and use the website/app before a tournament would be helpful for users. Perhaps drifterRadio needs to talk to them about a video project too?
