Wow man, that was a mouthful lol. But getting on topic here I completely agree, unfortunatley we may have ruined our chance with the freshman thanks to a lack of free play, which sucks because we did bust our asses hanging up those fliers. My suggestion for fixing this is designating some systems STRICTLY for free play and giving free play its own section at the LANs (maybe somewhere in the middle of the console section). That way, no matter what, their would always be games being free played and everyone there would be able to do something other than standing next to a table waiting to be called on for a tournament.
I also think that your idea for the tournament layout would be great! Two FPS’s, 2 Fighters, and either a mix of or 2 new releases and or one known popular game. This is a very good idea in my opinion and would keep things fresh.
There is one more thing I would like to add though concerning the game pickings for the LANs. We are suppose to, as a group, choose what we believe the people that come to our LANs want to play. Well I believe that if a game that gets voted in is in the bottom 2 in terms of sign ups for a game for 2 LANs in a row, it should NOT be allowed to be voted back in a third time for the sack of losing attendees. Now I know you guys are all about the philosophy “If you dont show up to vote, then you dont have a right to complain” but if you guys want more people to join the club and show more of an interest in it, then we need to vote in what the people want and are clamoring about instead of what we as a small group. And I believe EYCE’s new system of picking tournament games would fit well with this and keep things fresh and keep people coming back to the LANs.