Tournaments are always great. However, you would have to organize it carefully. You'd have to decide the structure. If you want to do 1v1 matches or have a big qualifier race that feeds into top 4 / top 8 matches or even pools throughout all, you have to decide what would be best for the set up. If you have a larger quantity of tournaments you might not want to do all 1v1 matches since it takes forever but pool races together, etc. You also need to supply the consoles, games, and controllers.

Is this for on stream or off stream? If for on stream you might want to consider either running a 2nd stream for the tournaments / panels. If no 2nd stream then you could host the quarter finals / semi finals / grand finals on the last day / bonus stream day.

If you are looking for prize support for the tournaments you could also host qualifier races months before the event itself and take any sub/ad rev and use it for prize pool at the event itself. Or offer special passes that admit people into the tournaments with that extra fee going toward the pool. (qualifier race winners get free entry etc). There is a lot to figure out if you choose to have prize support.

Panels, i'm not so sure about. The purpose of panels is for information. For an event like this you could run a couple panels off stream or on a 2nd stream. Just be careful. The twitchcon speedrunning panel this year was terrible. They seemed to have no focus. If you decide to do a panel make sure you have a focus like "proper console capture" or "how to increase video quality". Don't do a general "how to grow your stream" and throw around shit memes like watch pie or something. Panels generally should be done at decent hours of the day so you can take questions from chat/audience. You don't want to host a panel during graveyard hours and have it be dead.

I was Judge 3 and used a scoring system to judge the games I had time to watch. The scoring system was out of 100 points. 10 categories with 10 max points for each category. If the game scored 60+ I accepted it.

3 categories were based on the game itself:

1.) Popularity = How popular the game is among average viewers. The higher the score, the more popular. 2.) Variety = How similar is the game play compared to others. Higher score meant the game offers more a variety of game play than just a basic plat former or just a basic shooter. 3.) Easy to Follow = How easy is it for an average viewer to understand what is going on. The higher the score the easier it is for people to follow along.

6 categories were based on the speedrun itself:

4.) Duration = How well the game would fit in a marathon. I used an average of 20-25 mins as the perfect marathon run. If it is too fast or too long it would score lower. The closer the game is to that time, the higher it would score. 5.) Movement = How fast is the overall movement. This score takes into account the actual movement given to the player and if there are any tricks or techniques used to speed up the average flow of the game. The faster the overall movement, the higher the score. 6.) Speed Tech = How many tricks, glitches, sequence breaks were used in the run. The higher the score the more tricks and glitches used. 7.) Challenge = How difficult the speedrun appears to the average viewer. The higher the challenge, the higher the score. 8.) Low Risk = How often is the speedrun prone to complete failure/soft lock/game over. The higher the score, the less likely it is to mercy kill the run. 9.) Category Clarity = How easy it is for the average viewer to understand the goal of the game. Some categories can get pretty confusing. The higher the score, the more clear to goal of the game is.

The last category was based on overall hype/excitement the run would bring: 10.) Hype/Draw = How well does the game and run bring in the viewers? Some runs are more exciting to watch than others. The higher the score, the more likely to have more viewers watch.

I used these metrics for about half of the games I submitted, but I didn't have enough time to type out the 2nd half for the submissions so I just put "good" or "maybe next time". I sent a message to naegleria saying that if any game in particular needed me to post the scores I had, I could when I had the chance. The biggest issue I personally had was time. I have a seasonal job and work 80+ hours a week. So it was hard to watch a lot of runs in the time frame. So I was unable to judge a lot. In hindsight I regret not putting in feedback comments to go with the scores for each game, so if I can do it again, that's what I would do.

Overall though, solid game line up. Should be a great marathon.

Not sure where to post this, so I will post it here.

When you change the background of your profile page, the background is only changed for the case sensitive version of your page. For example my page, I have a specific background for /user/Tyr_1 but if i go to /user/tyr_1 it's blank. Not sure if this is intended or not, and it is very minor, but if it is possible to make it consistent that would be great.