King of Darkness and Swiss Pro Slalom this weekend

[Horton]

 

 

[Wish]

Is there a schedule as in what time does slalom start and what time does jump start??

[Horton]

@wish it is all in the URLs below

https://www.kingofdarkness.org/

https://www.swissproslalom.com/

https://swisswaterskiresort.com/

Thanks to our webcast sponsors: @skiparadise @hobelakeskiclub @usawwf @connellyskis @d3skis_official @laguapateques @drewrossrealtor @waterswetsuits @skiprogear @swisswaterskiresort @Toyou @myfamilypetfood

 

[jgills88]

Tournament Preview Article: https://www.waterskiprotour.com/post/may-madness-waterski-pro-tour-stops

[Horton]

Prelims are happening now. Here is a link to the scoring https://iwwfed-ea.org/competition.php?cc=T-23SUSA079&page=live

Does anyone know what happened with Men's Jump? 

[rockdog]

Wow those scores are unbelievable. So tough to win an event when so many guys are running mid 10.25 these days. Plus of course Nate a half pass better than everyone. Can't wait for Swiss.

[Ski2000]

I take it there’s no video coverage of the prelim rounds. I didn’t see anything.

[Horton]

correct. The webcast is only the finals

[MBlohm]

On 5/1/2023 at 10:50 PM, Horton said:

@wish it is all in the URLs below

https://www.kingofdarkness.org/

https://www.swissproslalom.com/

https://swisswaterskiresort.com/

Thanks to our webcast sponsors: @skiparadise @hobelakeskiclub @usawwf @connellyskis @d3skis_official @laguapateques @drewrossrealtor @waterswetsuits @skiprogear @swisswaterskiresort @Toyou @myfamilypetfood

 

If you want to see the schedule from King of darkness 2021 it’s there.

[Slalom.Steve]

@MBlohm You beat me by 6 hours to the post. Seems KOD is just a touch behind in updating the schedule 😆

[Kelvin]

KOD starts Saturday at 5:00 EDT.  

Schedule is roughly Womens Slalom Head to Head, Mens Slalom Head to Head, Womens Jump Finals, Mens Jump Finals.

It's going to be a fun evening.

[Horton]

[B_S]

So what's the story behind the 2 wraps of duct tape on Jamie's rear leg?

[ETskier]

Can anybody there tell how close they are to the dock in their Rideout?  Sure looks close on the breadcast.

[Cooper_Trelawney]

Since when do 48 year olds jump 226' at night to win a pro tournament and beat a field with an average age about 1/2 of his?  Freddy Krueger is the G.O.A.T. considering he's been a top 3 jumper (often top 1) for a quarter of a century.

On a different note, where was Dodd?

[dave2ball]

@ETskier they were 6 feet or so from the start dock. It was safer than it looked.  

[Wish]

Anyone know why all or part of the tournament was class C? That’s what we heard. 

[Horton]

@Wish

 I don't think any of it is C. maybe some of the KOD was sea after the sun went down

[jhughes]

Is it just me or are there a ton of nasty/scary falls at the Swiss Pro Slalom this year? What the hell is going on?

[Cam]

Great two days of competition viewing thanks again TWBC, did any ballers win the skis at Swiss?

[ISP6ball]

I guessed the women's results correct, but guessing several others did also.  

[RAWSki]

Enjoyed watching both events and some great skiing.  Big shout out to the Isle of Lake Hancock community, the sponsors and the people behind the scenes there obviously did a lot of work to create a great Saturday afternoon - evening show folding in the Juniors  and Show Skiers between events was a fun add.  TWBC is starting the season strong with nice rotation on the commentators.  

Edited May 9, 2023 by RAWSki

[UWSkier]

Props to the TWBC crew.  That was a LONG weekend of work for those guys, and the production value has gotten to be incredible.  I LOVE the combination of drone and in the boat shots.

Only thing I'd request is to leave the skier name on the screen at all times.  When tuning in and out, you're most likely going to catch it while a skier is resting, the replay is running, etc.  Also helps if pausing, fast forwarding, or trying to catch up later by moving to a different point in the broadcast.

[SkiRVA]

Definitely props to the TWBC, but I am pretty irritated with the lack of promotion for the King of Darkness event. It is as if the sponsors only wanted pros and locals to attend? I considered planning a trip to go to this event about a month ago, but when I researched the event, it looked like ONLY a jump event. That combined with the schedule from 2021, I just decided to give up. 

Fast forward to last week when I realized via Instagram that some of the slalomers were prepping for the event too!???? I would say I am a well above average fan (and a big MC fan) and I am the first to say that the lack of promotion was embarrassing for the sport. 

I loved the idea of the tournament, and it appears they got a big crowd, but you would think the promoters would lose their minds that the only website with a schedule had the WRONG INFO.  

[lpskier]

Can’t speak to promotion but the sanction published on the USAWSWS website clearly showed it as a cash prize slalom and jump. 

[dave2ball]

@SkiRVA you are SO WRONG about the lack of promotion of KOD. this tournament was designed for the locals to watch professional skiing and grand night jump tournament. There was local TV interviews with Taylor Garcia and signs thought out all the subdivisions.  They had posts on facebook and instagram from the day the event was released. Not sure what you are looking for but they promoted the piss out of this. I don’t see anyone or dealership doing anything like this. 

[BraceMaker]

@dave2ball Just putting this out there, but "defending" the promotion is sort of silly.  

Here you have someone saying that they being the target audience for the sport felt like they weren't reached by the marketing for it.  That's incredible feedback that's what marketing people want to know.  That's the sort of thing that marketing people pay money to hire PR firms to do research about.  You'd have to pay thousands of people to get them to sit down and check some boxes 1 to 10 how interested in waterskiing are you.  1 to 10 how much money do you spend on waterskiing.  1 to 10 how do you receive your media about waterskiing.  He's a friggin gold mine of data and is therefore not "so wrong"

This is exactly stories about planes landing at the airfield with bullet holes all over and the engineers wanting to reinforce the areas with all the holes until someone pointed out there is a survivorship bias - IE the planes that landed with holes in them are the planes that weren't shot down not the planes that were shot out of the air.  You were going to know about it and watch or be there anyway and as such the marketing reaching you and you going didn't work.  Or maybe you were reached and didn't go - that'd be an even more interesting data sort of a local got heavily marketed to and didn't bother.

But if @SkiRVA is a member here and felt like they didn't know what was going on in the sport - well that's a really important thing to pay attention to.

[dave2ball]

@BraceMaker  where does @SkiRVA live?  If he is not a local he may  not see the marketing for this event.  Does he have FB, instagram?  If he does the hopefully he saw the event posted. The web cast was an added bonus for everyone. 
It’s pretty poor for someone to criticize a group that promotes a sport and tries to bring in new blood from the area.  If he he feels the marketing was not up to his satisfaction then I maybe @SkiRVA should put up some money put on an event and he can market the event his way if he feel it was poorly done.  
 

 

[BraceMaker]

@dave2ball you just did it again man.

You're taking what is good valuable criticism in terms of growing the sport and turning it into some sort of personal attack or criticism on you.  Guess the 7K person viewership blew all of TWBC's expectations out of the water and they don't wish there was a single extra person who wanted to tune in.

[dave2ball]

@BraceMaker I gave up 3 days to be there as an official. I saw first hand all the hard work that went into this event.  What I don’t like are people on this site throwing out negative opinions when they don’t know the facts or the intent of the event. If the sponsors were unhappy why have they been throwing money into the event when it occurs. 
If 7k people viewed the event that’s great.   I know the shores were packed.  

Edited May 11, 2023 by dave2ball

[mike_mapple]

KOD tries to get people who dont know about the sport to come watch from the neighborhoods outside of the site..

[BraceMaker]

@dave2ball man I get that you've made an incredible investment.  Thank you for your time and energy and it was a great event.  I tuned in and enjoyed it the efforts are appreciated.

I'm not in Florida nor the south east or east coast and the marketing reached me - so awesome right on target you nailed me.

But something missed someone who's a member on this forum.  And 7000K viewers for the event is great, and the banks were packed - that's great all of that is awesome and thanks again for yours and everyone's efforts and time.

But why did a member of this site even with only 4 posts but registered in 2019 miss the details?  Ball of spray members even if they just register and never post have to represent what the top .1% of people with interest in the sport?  We're not talking about marketing to people who walked into a Tractor Supply Co. and looked at a Kayak.  Those are people waterski could sell to obviously they're interested in being on rivers and lakes so you could try to sell that person who bought a kayak a waterski.  And you could go to walmart and put a sticker in every worm refrigerator back in the fishing department to advertise KOD.  But you've not targeted an audience with that of people buying worms at walmart very few of those people would go to KOD particularly if its in Florida.

What I was trying to say is that someone who has bothered to register on BOS and make 1 2 or 3 posts and the user wasn't created today and that person is on the east coast and that person didn't know there was slalom and was interested.  Well he's not so wrong.

 

Its not a complaint at all about the work people did its an observation that the reach of the advertisement missed by someone who is a target audience and that deserves inspection.  That's all.  But I don't know anything about marketing.

 

 

 

Edited May 12, 2023 by BraceMaker

[dave2ball]

@BraceMaker I have no idea how far out the marketing went. Ithe marketing was way above my pay grade. People do subscribe to the web cast so they will get notifications.  You cannot target the whole nation for one event marketing wise other then what was done  with FB instagram so forth.  If 7k viewers were watching the word or marketing got out some how. You can’t please everyone. If this event was in this persons area and he did not hear about it then yes shame on the event organizers.  If a person was somewhere other then Florida he really has no reason to throw negativity towards an event targeted for central Florida. 

[Horton]

This whole argument about marketing misses the point.  Yes, a tournament organizer can always spend more money on promotion but within reasonable budgets, you can not reach everyone who might be interested. We are a tiny sport if you want to know about something specific sometimes you have to dig. It is what it is.

This thread is a perfect example of how hard it is. This thread was started by BallOfSpray readers who chose to ignore a whole section of this forum where I had already posted the YouTube links and URLs. It is part of my mission to amplify the marketing messages of event organizers but I can not personally beat each and every one of you over the head with those messages.

Could event organizers do a better marketing job? Yes for sure. At the end of the day is it the highest priority? No.

@SkiRVA did you see https://www.kingofdarkness.org/skiers.  Scroll down the page and the slalom skiers invited are all there.

[BraceMaker]

Sorry my whole point was that @SkiRVA cannot be "so wrong" in feeling that he wasn't reached by marketing.  I'm not sure how someone can be so wrong about that.  

[dave2ball]

@BraceMaker yes he can be so wrong. He lives in the Carolina’s VA area. He cannot expect the sponsors to reach that far out of their targeted area.   It was put on this website.  He really has no bitch about how this was marketed.  The web cast was an added bonus for everyone.  
so what is next is he going to complain about the LA Jam night jump because there are no promotions in his area?   Let’s just to agree to disagree on the topic of marketing when it comes to KOD.  

Edited May 15, 2023 by dave2ball

[Andre]

Just subscribe to TWBC Youtube channel and you'll get notifications of all events webcast.

Except for the Masters.

But who cares about the Masters,Freddie is not there...

[BraceMaker]

@dave2ball sure we can agree to disagree.  He didn't get hit, you hit all your shots.  I wonder who missed... but only one side was shooting.  Take it as you will but the target is going "hit me hit me"

Edited May 16, 2023 by BraceMaker

[SkiRVA]

@dave2ball my message was certainly not an attack. However, I think it is OK to acknowledge that despite the sport being small, in an age with ample social media, I found it surprising I couldn't find enough info to make a confident decision about traveling or not 3-4 weeks out. I acknowledge I could be in the wrong, but it prompted me to post when others pointed out that parts of the site were out of date too. 

I wasn't looking for local ads in VA or NC.... simply looking for a schedule button that worked. Especially one that it appears sponsors were putting money toward?

I love the sport like everyone here. I may not be a judge or super competitive, but I enjoy supporting it and growing it locally. 

Again, super thankful for TWBC. It was a fun tournament to watch. I wish I was there.