Pretty simple really.
At most majors, the tournament is the only show in town, so to speak. Nothing else is really happening at the venue, and the FG players make up a significant portion of the guests. The bedrooms are a short distance from the event ballroom. All of this means that it's really easy to just wander the halls and find people to play, often times very notable people at that. Season's Beatings 2012, for example, was probably kind of boring as a viewing experience from home (I recall the Marvel top 8 being particularly dull), but it was amazing if you were there. Roughly one third of every pool consisted of top or well-known talent. Pretty much everyone on the 3rd floor were tournament players, meaning we didn't really have to worry about noise complaints. I ran a stream out of my room with all sorts of notable players and got to play people from all across the US and Mexico while I was there. I literally didn't sleep Saturday night. It was awesome. Final Round this weekend was similar for me, with the exception of being tied up running one of the official streams for Friday and Saturday.
At EVO last year, I realized by the end of it that I had spent so much time just walking around and watching compared to other tournaments and it kind of bummed me out a little. The venue (Caesar's Palace) was huge, and not just a hotel, but also a casino and shopping plaza. The bedrooms were extremely far away from the ballroom, and a lot of people stayed elsewhere to save on costs. The BYOC in the ballroom was pathetically small (2 Marvel stations total when I was there, one of which hardly worked due to disc read errors), to the point where I'd much rather they have scrapped the room for industry panels entirely and gotten rid of most of the booths in the main ballroom to make room for more setups. Finding anyone to play was just such a chore, and by the time I did it could take almost an hour to walk to where I needed to be. Meeting up with all the GAF peeps was cool, though, and props to God's Beard for arranging the dinner. <3
Basically, unless you expect to place well in the tournament, you live closer to EVO than other majors, you want to meet up with people going specifically to EVO, you're more concerned with watching than playing, or you want to hit up Las Vegas in general, I can't really think of a reason why I'd recommend going to EVO over most other tournaments I've been to even though, overall, I had a great time and I'm glad I went. I would just put Final Round, Season's Beatings, CEO, and even the yet-to-happen Fall Classic higher on my priority list right now.
- fortunately Ken & Jun play pretty well.
