I am writing this piece to talk about Santa Paws, the nature of the event, the misfortunes that befell it, and the mistakes that it made that I see other events make in the Melee community. I wish to preface this piece with two disclaimers: Firstly, I claim no knowledge of the inner workings of the Ultimate scene or how the event was viewed from within it, nor am I a TO. This is purely from the perspective of a long(ish) time, very active Melee competitor who very occasionally helps out with events. I am not an experienced TO and do not claim any such credentials. Secondly, I do not in any way think the organizers did a bad job. I saw nothing on the floor or before the event to suggest that Linkstain or Skrat that suggested to me that they were negligent or unskilled in their handling of the event. There was a lot of hard work, passion, and savvy behind the event, and there should be pride taken in providing it to the community, especially in such an underserved region.
I will begin this piece in the one area in which I do think there was a dearth of either planning or competence: The audio/video and stream production. Simply put, it was very bad. The lighting on stage/stream was such that players’ faces were half obscured in darkness, and this was very painfully highlighted by Professor Pro looking somewhat akin to a floating void on stage with a shiny forehead. That is not what Prof looks like. He looks like a perfectly normal gentleman. In a locale where people are already extra on edge about experiencing prejudice. it is absolutely not the place to have production mishaps of that variety. Furthermore, it frankly sucked that the commentary station was physically touching the stage. Players could hear the commentary (which was by no means excessively loud) while playing, which is never an ideal situation for anyone to be in, as it creates an awkward dilemma for commentators in addition to distracting players. Another issue was that the basic Windows sounds played loudly from the PA system for pretty much the entire event. Not the biggest problem, but it did add to the vibe of unprofessionalism. All of that happened in addition to the more publicized issue with the TV on which attendees could watch the stream going down for long stretches at times. I do not know who did the production for this event, but I have to imagine they were either met with nigh insurmountable technical difficulties (very plausible given the venue) or were just completely inexperienced putting on something of this scale.
The other major issue was the venue. Making no bones about it, Garrett Coliseum should have been condemned years ago. It had plenty of space, and there was an abundance of setups (partially explained by the event expecting a greater turnout, but it was not a great place to be. Those bathrooms were in dire need of renovation before I was born, and I am old enough to have fathered some of the Ultimate players I see at events. For anyone that didn’t go: If you’ve ever used the sketchy bathrooms on the side of the highway that have blue lights to prevent addicts from shooting up in them, this was much worse. I heard rumblings that Linkstain got the venue for free, in which case it’s difficult to blame anyone for the selection, but I also heard rumors that she ended up having to pay top dollar for it, and if that’s the case, a plague upon anyone expecting more than a pittance for the right to use it. A truly awful venue that cannot be redone fast enough.
Getting past all of that however, I want to dive into what I think are some of the major reasons why Santa Paws was not as big (in terms of total attendance) as I think it was intending to be, at least in terms of the Melee community. I don’t think it is any secret that an event flying in Jmook, Cody, Aklo, Kodorin, etc. was aiming for > 130 entrants, and I have a lot of thoughts on why that might be the case.
Firstly on this point, the primary issue was undoubtedly with holding the tournament in Montgomery Alabama. I think some people will look at Montgomery in retrospect and say that the city itself was the problem, but in truth I think that is applying hindsight in an unfair way. Very few people outside of AL (myself included) were familiar with Montgomery before the event, And besides, almost all of us have been to less-than-bustling cities to play Melee at this point. No, instead I think there were two main issues here: difficulty of travel to the city and perceptions of the South.
The first issue is the more material, and the reason why I hope majors avoid places like Montgomery in the future. Simply put, if you didn’t already live in a specific sub-region of the American South, getting to Montgomery AL is wildly inconvenient. Well over an hour from any major airport, and with no cheap, useful public transit between it and said airport, most people I saw who flew in relied on the generosity of Alabama Smash to get them from Birmingham to Montgomery. This may work for the cadre of top players the event invited, but it is not at all a viable strategy for an event. Some may point out similarities to Riptide, but I would submit that that is not a fair comparison. Riptide inherited the legacy of the already highly successful Smash n Splash series, and more importantly provides very clear, reasonably priced directions for anyone flying in on how to use transit to get to Sandusky. By contrast, Santa Paws provided…a discount link for car rental (irrelevant to the vast majority of Ult players, a lot of Melee players, and not at all what people are looking for.) You do not have to be wealthy or possess clout to get a ride to Riptide, just read and follow directions like a normal human being. By contrast, there were no such services available at Santa Paws, and it is just not a fair expectation to have people fly 80 miles away from their final destination and then expect them to just figure it out.
Secondly, one has to grapple with negative preconceptions of the part of the country Montgomery is in. It is true that the South is the most conservative region of the US, and the legal policies that are discussed and sometimes even passed in my home region fill me with shame. I promise you all: not everywhere in the South is Daytona.
As another point, I think I would be remiss not to mention that I think there might have been miscalculations made about the draw of the charity theme of the event. Santa Paws was intended to benefit the Montgomery County Humane Society, and specifically had multiple adoptable dogs moving around the venue. I personally found this beyond precious and a truly heartwarming thing, but my experience with the scene at large leads me to question whether it is a cause that smash players really care about, and whether it was a wise one to adopt. For lack of a better way to put it, I think the smash scene at large suffers from a sort of twitter-leftism syndrome, wherein there is a tendency to view activism as a zero sum game, and only the most important social causes are deemed worthy of attention. As though anything that is not crying out for justice for Palestinian children somehow takes food out of their mouths. I cannot make the members of the Melee scene understand that “Why aren’t you doing more important good over here?” is not an appropriate response when observing the doing of good. I can only observe the trend and adjust my expectations accordingly. Shelter dogs are not The Thing, and their wellbeing is unlikely to move the groupthink needle in our particular cohort. More importantly, I cannot help but feel bad for dogs that might be adopted at a smash tournament. As we all should know, adopting an animal is not something that should be done as an impulse decision
And while that knowledge pains my heart, I cannot ignore that it is true.
Lastly, I will say that the saving grace of the South is, as ever, the food. I went to two restaurants in Montgomery and both were stellar. I have no idea what Hugs was complaining about on Twitter, but in all honesty I think his dissatisfaction with being unable to find a kitschy low sq footage novel concept spot with a lot of Yelp reviews says more about foodie culture than the actual quality of the food. In short: skill issue. By contrast, I think I saw Chroma once all weekend without a Cookout milkshake in hand, and my heart was warmed by that show of solidarity (becoming fat like us).