RingoContinuing my project it’s time to get into the sport specific questions. I broke the survey up into a section for spectators and a section for fighters(and completely omitting support as an option, YIKES 😬). People are often both but sometimes they are only one or the other and I think there was some confusion as to whether these questions pertained to participating or not. Next time I’ll have a prompt asking if survey respondents are spectators If they say no, move on to the next section, while those that say yes will be reminded the following questions are about watching. Some folks who answered that they never watch fighting responded here and that definitely makes the data a bit suspect. That said I think there is probably useful information.
First off the name of sport. Over half of the people like calling it Armored Combat. This is down from 73% last time which I think is mostly the selection bias. Steel Fighting is the preferred term by nearly a quarter while bohurt/buhurt is only 10-15% or so. There were a number of people with no preference or used terms not very frequent in the community such as live steel, fencing, medieval fighting, or knight fight. There were also a few commenters who said HMB, which considering that is the name preferred by the HMBIA org should probably be included next year.
I personally dislike using Armored Combat as that seems like it might refer to the SCA heavy list and other Rattan games, Hema Harnesfecthen, or a variety of sports…but also standardizing makes sense to me. I will likely try to use that more as my default and formal, keeping steel fighting as an informal slang thing, and try to use Buhurt to refer to our particular style of melee, based on this. I still think FightSword is the best name but alas it appears not to be
There hasn’t really been much change in how people found the sport. Primarily Social Media or a personal friend. After that we mostly pull from other orgs and people coming to local events. A significant portion of the “other” is knight fight and youtube and most of the rest is people who wanted to be more specific than “Friend”, “Event”, or “other Org”, despite that being what it was. In the future I will likely not allow an other options and limit to the above but split social media into the platform and include platforms like youtube, and then allow a secondary question for people to fill in details. Knight Fight will likely be its own as well to see how big an impact it really had.
My biggest take away from this is we need more local events and a bigger video presence. Everyone knows about the second and pushes it, but I think the local events are not prioritized as much. I do not think we need to worry so much about pulling from other orgs as they already know about us for the most part. Instead just create an open community, don’t shit on their hobby, and let them come over when it feels right.
Next we come how people watch. Previously recording and in person were the largest but since then live streaming has caught up slightly. As has just catching short clips while watching in person has dropped dramatically as a percentage.
Still recordings are the primary way people watch. It’s probably worth pulling apart which people do only one but like…I’m not doing that at the moment cause I’m lazy. Maybe I will later
I did go through the roughly 300 answers of what would make people watch more live streams and categorized them roughly into more general concepts. I broke those down into 4 types and summed up the totals on the top line. The total may be over 300. Many people listed multiple things and so got added to multiple categories. As you can see the most important thing is overall stream improvements mostly improving the audio and the video, but also there is a huge demand for not just announcers but engaging, knowledgeable, professional announcers. The next biggest want was easier ways to watch, primarily better, earlier, and more visible announcements and advertising. Some people dislike specific platforms but I doubt we’ll find a single one that makes everyone happy. Overall they want an easy place and ideally a central location to watch and perhaps some events not on a friday/sat night. There were a few dozen comments I couldn’t fit as well so I’ve left them out, but the only big thing I saw was a desire for less down time in between fights.
| Live Stream Answer Topic | |||||||
| Stream Quality improvement | 154 | Changes to the sport | 32 | Other | 56 | ease of finding | 98 |
| Better AV Quality | 79 | More consistent tempo | 16 | More | 20 | Advertising/Announcement | 44 |
| Announcers | 52 | More exciting sport | 6 | Time | 18 | Dislike platform | 16 |
| General stream | 12 | Better Duels | 3 | Personal team | 10 | General ease | 15 |
| More info presentations | 6 | Rankings | 3 | Joke answer? | 4 | Different schedule | 12 |
| Better organized? | 4 | Scheduling of the event | 4 | yes? | 4 | Single point of watching | 11 |
I also went through the roughly 300 answers for what would make people watch recorded events. Alot was the same but there were some difference worth highlighting. Again people mostly wanted improvements to the recording quality but in particular they asked for multiple camera angles and replays. That was less requested in streaming and I feel its because watching live people want to see the whole field to catch action as it develops. But after, they trust editors to focus on the action and not cut away from things happening on the other side of the field. There was also specific requests for informational pop ups about fighters and teams. Again access was a big thing, though people kept saying “availability” and I’m not sure they meant that there was more, that it was easier to find, or what? Alot of people just said yes or more, while some only watch if they have a personal stake, themselves or a friend fighting.
| Long Answers for Recorded Events | |||||||
| Quality improvements | 195 | Sport improvements | 18 | Access improvement | 77 | Other | 75 |
| Announcers/Breakdowns | 51 | More exciting fights | 9 | Advertising | 27 | More | 18 |
| Editing | 48 | Different categories | 2 | Availability | 23 | yes | 15 |
| Film quality | 42 | Better/More duels | 2 | Single location | 23 | Personal attachment | 14 |
| angles | 36 | International or big events | 2 | Playlists/timestamps | 2 | Time | 13 |
| Information pop ups | 10 | Followable teams | 3 | No ads | 1 | Nothing | 9 |
| highlights | 8 | No subscription | 1 | Language Preference | 2 | ||
| Joke answers | 2 | ||||||
| Watching with people | 2 |
I also asked what would get people to go to live events more…which in retrospect was a shitty question as many people appeared to answer it as what would make them go to fight more. In the future I need to make sure this specifies to watch live events. It’s less clear there is anything much to pull from this beyond people wanting events either close to them or close to an airport, that don’t cost a lot to go to.
| Watch live events Long answers | |||||||
| Quality improvements | Sport improvements | Access improvement | Other | ||||
| Nicer Lists/Stadiums | 8 | Fill down time | 6 | Location | 94 | covid | 46 |
| Announcers | 7 | Consistency/Season | 5 | Affordability | 32 | More | 17 |
| beer | 5 | More women’s fights | 3 | Advertising | 15 | Yes | 15 |
| More spectacle | 4 | More melee | 3 | logistics | 5 | Time | 13 |
| food | 4 | Better fighting | 2 | Schedule | 4 | Personal answer | 8 |
| Cheerleader | 3 | Professional fighters | 2 | camping/hotel | 4 | Less drama | 4 |
| Sponsorship | 2 | Not part of other event | 1 | Availability | 3 | Personal attachment | 4 |
| fanclub | 2 | Smaller events | 1 | rideshare | 2 | Not being able to fight | 3 |
| Auidence interaction | 1 | Easier to follow | 1 | Able to follow team | 1 | Joke answers | 2 |
| swag | 1 | New formats | 1 | Fighter info | 1 | noting | 2 |
| Family Friendly | 1 | bigger events | 1 | Ticket Price | 1 | Vanguard over bohurt | 1 |
| cash prizes | 1 | ||||||
| Pacing | 1 |
I do want to point out that one cat just kept referring to a sport called Vanguard that they insisted was way better than Buhurt, but like also the same? I can’t find anything on this so hopefully if someone reads this far they have better google fu than me and can explain waht the fuck that is.
What people are willing to pay to watch a live event seems to have gone up slightly but overall the right price point seems to be about $15. $20 might be better for a full day event but the question of whether the extra $5 a person outweighs the number of people who that blocks out seems to have a clear no answer to me. What’s more interesting is people are only willing to pay slightly more to see a full day event than a 3 hour event and that’s with a priming/anchoring question leading them to value a full day event as more. It’s entirely likely that without comparing the price of a 3 hour event to what people just said they’d be willing to pay for a day event, it would be the same. What this suggests to me is that when it comes to charging for crowds there is very little ROI on doing full day or multi day events.
Looking at the previous survey data is seems that people are significantly more willing to spend money. While a full 60 plus percent of people were not willing to spend more than $20 for a full event in 2018, in 2021 it’s almost reversed with near 70% saying they were willing to pay 20 or more.
What hasn’t really changed is how willing people are to pay for extras, like VIP seating or meeting the knights or swag or whatever. ~65% in 2021 to ~67% in 2016. This I find very surprising due to the face most respondents ARE in fact fighters who get to meet other fighters at events and get list side seats at plenty of events. I wonder if this is representative of people saying that seems like a thing other people would want since they are already at the event as a fighter or if its an accurate representation. If so would we draw more crowds to local events by having a tiered ticket system? Would that bring out fighters to come just watch? I hope to find out.
Ok wrapping up there as that’s the last cost question. The next questions go into what people would actually like to see at events and I think that will make a good theme for a post all on it’s own.