I think instead of taking two of the best contest organizers of the past 20 years and trying to get them to “defeat” each other, you should take note that Hironori ran scores and organized the judges for the contest in Prague, and Korda was in attendance and helping at the contest in Tokyo. The people who actually make these things happen are constantly trying to help the next organizer, while the people who didn’t go are trying to decide which is “best”.
You can either be the sort of person who wants someone to win, or you can be the sort of person who wants ALL OF US to win.
Every year after a contest there are two kinds of threads that pop up very quickly…one is trying to determine if that contest was the “best”, the other is trying to second-guess all of the judges decisions.
Amazingly, the one that never pops up is the one that thanks all of the organizers, staff, and volunteers, and asks “How can I volunteer for next years event?”
We don’t need to fix our judging or fix our contests…we need to fix our culture. We’re all in this together folks, and if you aren’t interested in helping that’s totally fine, but don’t be the person who just wants to criticize everyone who did.
The intent of this thread was not to bash either contest but rather list pros of each of the contest. It’s not necessarily to defeat a contest or complain about either. The intent of this thread is to talk about things that were great about both contest so that in the future the best parts about the two best contest can be combined to continue making great contest.
Since I have never been to a world yoyo contest it is tough for me to see ways that I can help at the moment. The best way for me to help in my opinion is to learn more and more about people’s opinions. That way in the future I can help because I’ll know what people like and how I can help expand on it in the future.
It’s just like making yoyos. Before you can make yoyos you need to compare yoyos. Just because you’re comparing two yoyos doesn’t mean that you’re bashing either of them. Just seeing preferences. That way there can be new yoyos that fit people’s preferences even better. This thread isn’t to see which is better or complain it’s all just about seeing people’s prefences.
I was at neither, so I can’t really say too much about the contest other than what I saw on the live-stream, videos, and stories from people, but:
I think the stage was better in Prague. It was not as distracting to me like the Japan one was.
I think the Prague atmosphere was better. The crowd seemed more into it than the crowd in Tokyo.
I like the MC job better.
I liked the live stream better with slow-mo replays, names on the screen and where the players are from, and the multiple angles. There was a commentary and interviews after the prelim round.
Overall, Prague seemed more professionally done. In Tokyo, the live stream camera was constantly moving around, you could hear people’s conversations and stuff like that. Nothing of that sort happened in Prague from my memory.
The one thing I liked about Tokyo more was the actual freestyles. The winning freestyles this year beat all of the winning freestyles last year, imo, except for Naoto Onishi’s 4A.
I was at both of these contest, at both of them as one of volunteers.
They were quite different, in Tokyo it was still feeling like yo-yo contest, but the best one. In Prague it was something little bit more. So you can’t say which one was better.
Tokyo was main hall, ground floor with sales booths and basement. In Prague it was much cooler theatre with balcony and with bar and lounge, all with TVs with stream.
Prague was standing audience only, in Tokyo 3/4 of hall were seats and unfortunately due to this, some people didn’t get to main hall.
Tokyo definitely had better air conditioning. It was able to handle completely full hall of people, but sometimes it was little too much cold. It’s strange where there is +30°C outside and you are wearing sweatshirt inside.
One thing that was quite bad and many people felt strange about it, was ban on yo-yoing almost everywhere. You couldn’t play in main hall, in corridors or even outside! Competitors were banned from throwing on stage before their divison started! Only place where to yo-yo was basement, but that was problem for competitors, since their practice was interupted by kids just hanging around and throwing.
Last thing, my volunteer T-Shirt from Prague is more cool than one from Tokyo:)
For finals there were three MCs. Cheng from Singapore, Eric from Germany and guy from Japan, whose name I unfortunately forgot. I must say, to me and my friends there, Eric was really on top of his game and he was best MC there(If we don’t count Cheng’s amazing music number ).
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