Not forgetting the fee's they just kept from people, when they unregistered from the tournaments!
Bastards owe me £10!
If you're going to waste their administrative time by registering then un-registering, they deserve to keep your tenner. I'm amazed you have had a go at the casino for making £15,000 on registrations fees for the tour. They are running a business and are entitled to make something from it - in any case, as has been pointed out, the majority of that money has gone back in added prize money. Almost £200,000 is being added to the tour and if you think that's peanuts, go boil your head. There's certainly no justification in deriding the value this adds.
There's lots I want to comment about on this thread.
First of all, let me dispell some of the untrue rumours that are abounding here:
1. Grosvenor is not looking to end normal festivals, but I believe they should be more streamlined - we had 13 festivals in 2005, rising to 26 last year and about the same this year. This is too many - both to economically support as a sponsor and bad for liquidity, as there is only so much entrance money going around. Lets not forget that GUKPT events take place within festivals - they are not stand alone events in their own right
2. This year many Grosvenor clubs are undergoing refurbishments and this is the reason why some festivals are not taking place - Blackpool, Bonanza & 2 festivals at the Vic. It is not 'unlikely that scheduled fesitvals will run because of the Tour.' One or two other events have not been scheduled this year or have been cancelled as it became obvious that there was little demand for them in an already overcrowded festival calendar.
3. No decision has been made yet about what will be included on the Tour next year, but it is likely that Aberdeen (hope you will be there Ironside) will be included as there will be a Grosvenor opening there before the end of the year. With 11 events it is already a big tour and we have no desire to massively increase the number of events, but it would be nice to run things such as the Grand Prix and Poker 6 under the GUKPT banner.
What I do believe is
- Some clubs run too many festivals
- Overall the UK festival circuit is overcrowded, with clashes now a common occurance - a few years a go nothing ever clashed
- The likes of Napoleon's in Sheffiled, Rendez-vous in Brighton and Aspers have scheduled festivals against the GUKPT - they do so at their own peril...
-That there should be no more than 18 full week festivals on the Grosvenior Calendar (inc GUKPT ones).
- All GUKPT festivals should be a week long
-Weekend or 3/4 days festivals, which make up the majority of the increased number of Grosvenor Festivals over the last two years should not be called or marketed as festivals. These bleed marketing money and spread it to thinly when it comes to promoting the week long events. I would call these 'Long/Big Weekends' or something similar and promote them at a club/regional level rather than a national one.
-Every club should run a monthly bigger tournament, similar to Walsall's £300er
-Grosvenor did not get anything for the TV rights - in fact the cost of the TV coverage is being entirely covered by Blue Square.
-Poker is not the professional sport that some of you think it is and it appeals to a much smaller proportion of the population than some of you may imagine.
-Sponsors are not falling over themselves to give lucrative sponsorship deals to the winner of every event that takes place and until significant non-gaming sponsors get involved in poker, things are unlikely to change.
-Give somethingback to the players? Yes, we have done just that for the last 2 years and we are continuing to do so - In 2005 and 2006 Blue Square added £3,000 to every week long Grosvenor Festival and £1,500 to shorter ones. Now we are adding almost £200,000 to the Tour and £21,000 to the Poker 6. Yet so many of you still do not recognise this and continue to bleat that your casinos do nothing/little for you. What do you do for them? Lets also not forget that many of you are getting the chance to increase your profiles via the TV coverage WE are paying for.
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