Ugh. I don't think I'll ever blog on time. Haha. The week is just so busy and a baby makes it hard to blog. Hopefully you don't mind this post being a bit late. ;)
Our youth group loves playing old video games. We every so often hold retro video game nights where we bring in Super Nintendos and other older systems. Two Saturdays ago, we had a very successful Super Smash Bros. 64 Tournament. Our students love the retro feel of the older Nintendo 64 system and it's especially fun when they can play together competitively.
It was the perfect rainy, icky day to have an indoor event. We started it at noon and it went til the tournament was over. We pulled out all the typical teen consumption favorites, pizza and pop for lunch to keep it nice and simple. We didn't do sign-ups ahead of time for the tournament because we don't have a particularly large group, but if you chose to do this same thing with a larger group, I think it'd be wise to get as many of the teams done in advance as possible. We did both a singles tournament where everyone played for themselves and a doubles tournament where two people came up with a team name and played. I think half the fun was reading the silly team names. Haha. :)
[Here are two websites that can help you prepare tournament brackets: Here and Here]
For prizes, we had these Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi figurines to give away; one each for the single and doubles winners. We also plan on doing this tournament annually, so we had a plaque made up to get the winners' names and team names engraved onto every year. We also do a plaque for our church's fantasy football league every year with the adults, and they look forward to getting their name added, too.
We had three TV's set up. Or rather, two TV's and a projector screen. We did all the little matches against each other on all three and then for the big important matches we all watched on the big projector screen.
Some future event, I'd like to do some themed decorations and snacks. I think these wall decals would make it super fun for photo opportunities and atmosphere. These snacks are also really cute. Other tournament or video game night ideas could use Mario Party games or Mario Kart. Another theme could be Star Wars games such as Battlefront for Xbox or Star Wars Episode I Racer for N64. We like to keep other competitive games like Halo or Call of Duty for smaller groups of older teens (usually guys) because they can get intense and the subject matter is more violent. Anyway, there are tons of fun themes or just go retro, video games are a fun way to gather together for fun competition.
It was the perfect rainy, icky day to have an indoor event. We started it at noon and it went til the tournament was over. We pulled out all the typical teen consumption favorites, pizza and pop for lunch to keep it nice and simple. We didn't do sign-ups ahead of time for the tournament because we don't have a particularly large group, but if you chose to do this same thing with a larger group, I think it'd be wise to get as many of the teams done in advance as possible. We did both a singles tournament where everyone played for themselves and a doubles tournament where two people came up with a team name and played. I think half the fun was reading the silly team names. Haha. :)
[Here are two websites that can help you prepare tournament brackets: Here and Here]
For prizes, we had these Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi figurines to give away; one each for the single and doubles winners. We also plan on doing this tournament annually, so we had a plaque made up to get the winners' names and team names engraved onto every year. We also do a plaque for our church's fantasy football league every year with the adults, and they look forward to getting their name added, too.
We had three TV's set up. Or rather, two TV's and a projector screen. We did all the little matches against each other on all three and then for the big important matches we all watched on the big projector screen.
Some future event, I'd like to do some themed decorations and snacks. I think these wall decals would make it super fun for photo opportunities and atmosphere. These snacks are also really cute. Other tournament or video game night ideas could use Mario Party games or Mario Kart. Another theme could be Star Wars games such as Battlefront for Xbox or Star Wars Episode I Racer for N64. We like to keep other competitive games like Halo or Call of Duty for smaller groups of older teens (usually guys) because they can get intense and the subject matter is more violent. Anyway, there are tons of fun themes or just go retro, video games are a fun way to gather together for fun competition.
Have you held a video gamer tournament? Retro video game night? What other tournaments hander you done? Comment below!
