GosuGamers Barcraft World Tour

To start, why don't you introduce yourself.
My name is Scott, 24 years old. I’m a professional event planner, I do corporate events and public events and Barcrafts are my own little project. It’s actually my main focus right now.

How did you start up with the idea of doing Barcraft events?
When the beta was wrapping up, I started noticing the scene getting pretty big and popular, then the first tournaments started happening and I thought I can get people together and watch it. I used to get people to watch BroodWar a long time ago, and I thought why not SC2. I already have a community of people who are willing to come to things I do from over 7 years of event planning, so I had a good base to start with and the response I got with that was amazing.

I went online to see if people were into it, see if there was any interest in this sort of thing when it was just getting started. I found this guy who pretty much did the first Barcraft, also created a website for it, and I thought wow this can work. I ended up talking with him and some other people and it became this idea of Barcrafts.

Was finding a place difficult?
Initially no - the events manager from the first place I found heard of my work and he wanted to give me a shot, so it turned out to work great. The problem is that we got hit by a hurricane. I had 300 people confirmed on facebook and then that happened - big letdown. The next one I had 180 people on a 100 person capacity floor which was “interesting”. After that the event expanded to 2 floors and I got 230 people, and then about 210 the next event. Later, the bar came under new managment and decided to not open on Sundays so I couldn’t do it there anymore.

I went searching for 3 weeks, and had a lot of trouble because Boston is a very unique city. Anything outside town - did not have the tech capabilities to support us, anything inside, didn’t need the business on Sundays as Boston is a huge sports city. Then I lucked out and through some contacts found "Good Life". It’s in the heart of the city, where 3 main train lines cross - the perfect location. They never opened on Sundays before our event, so it turned out to to be a much better situation, they were dedicated to this event, and the event was to them, worked out perfectly.

You said you had a core group of people following you, how did you expand from that to more people?
Using up pretty much every platform I can think of. Facebook page, small twitter page (which I’m lazy to update), but the best is reddit. It’s a lot more helpful then Team Liquid where you don’t get much attention. I also posted up on every barcraft list I could find, but most people come from reddit.

I have a lot of special things that I do and try and keep improving every time. I get more people every event and with more guests coming in it’s just going to keep growing.

Special things? Guests?
I try and do some special events concerning the place and whatever they are associated with, specific beverages and brands, you know they send in girls in skimpy outfits with drinks. I try and help as much as possible, after all I do these events to have fun but also make the place money. They staff it and open, I get a laptop, plug the DJ sound into the headphones plug, bring people and we’re fine.

We had a special guest last time - iNcontroL got drunk as hell sitting in one of our booths. Artosis and Slasher were also guests, the event gets a lot of people just coming over to hang out with us. I’m actually working on flying people over just for events.

One of the biggest things has always been the raffle. Last event I had CompLexity as a sponsor, so there were mousepads (signed by our guests of course), 24 inch monitor, MLG gold accounts, and Razer BlackWidow keyboards. Tickets sold really well, there were 2 guys who came in and bought about 9 tickets each, won two prizes a piece, everyone was looking at them weird.
Recently I started talking with Tt eSports division (Thermaltake), they reached out and said they wanna sponsor. The event really gets a ton of people coming over like Dj WHEAT, people from twitch.tv, from MLG and more. Also NASL are gonna do a Barcraft spotlight on the event, so it gets a lot of attention.

What about tournaments?
I’m looking into tournaments, the problem is that Boston’s technical infrastructure is really weak, just because it’s Boston. It’s hard to have tourneys here because of the internet connection. I know of people who has tried but pretty much failed. Trying to work past that but I don’t have much to work with so it’s an unfortunate situation.

You said you sell raffle tickets, what do you do with the money?
Take the money and put it back in. I don’t think it’ll ever make enough money so anyone can make a living off it, but for me it’s voluntary work. Because I get sponsors, they will send stuff to raffle off, in return for exposure, it’ll take care of what’s spent on raffles and then I can think of other places that the money can go to. There are stuff I can improve in the video section, I’m looking into showmatches for the Barcrafts, other avenues of promotion and new sponsors.

The event has a 5$ entrance fee but it’s really not that much once or twice a month. The experience gets better when you put money into it so it’s understandable, as an example - I bought a TV to a location people asked for. I get it if others don’t want to charge, they don’t wanna put money before the experience, but I believe that what we get from the event goes back into it. Every time the event gets better and better. If it weren’t for the money, if I didn’t monetize, it wouldn’t happen. I won’t sit there and lose money, it doesn’t make any sense. All the really big Barcrafts are monetized as far as I know or someone is losing money. Barcraft as a business model needs to be monetized, just so that no one will be losing money. People who don’t take money for events like this will eventually collapse. It’s the same reason MLG is pay per view. The simplest way to put it - it’s not free. If you want Barcraft to get bigger, to maintain its stability, you can part with 5$ a month.

You have celebrity guests and you’re doing well, what about growing? Thought of streaming other games?
I’m in talks with a developer of a well known game, about starting a Barcraft like thing with their game. I can’t say who, but it’s well known, and hopefully there will be another Barcraft revolution and people will start watching other things. It depends mainly if the community will support it and also depends on how much the developers are willing to sponsor it. From the numbers I’m getting, it can get bigger then the SC2 scene - because it’s an 18+ bar, I’ll be able to surpass our SC2 crowd with this new game, but this is just speculation on my part.

Got advice for people trying to start with barcrafts?
Rome wasn’t built in a day *laughs*. I started really early so I had the ability to try new things. Most barcrafts aren’t run by people who have ever organized events so they follow some kind of model of what other people are doing. I took it on myself to attain sponsors and raffle prizes and try all these new things, so others should try stuff for themselves.
I don’t know where I would have been without my experience. For me it was really easy. Other people have a lot of trouble. I see a lot of guides on how to do a barcraft, and I think most of them are kinda wrong and they exaggerate. I do everything completely by myself, well my girlfriend helps with tickets at the entrance, but other then that it’s pretty straight forward. Find a place with tech capabilities, get a laptop, and just do it.

Scott thanks a lot for the interview! Is there anything else you wanna say?
I wanna thank Tt eSports and i Heart eSports for sponsoring us, and to people out there in the community - support your local barcraft!


Run a barcraft event? Leave us a comment with a facebook link and we’ll contact you.



This is a GosuGamers weekly feature by Eyal "KOKOStern" Stern, that is published every Wednesday.