When I set up the tournament, I had an idea which categories would feed into the Best Ride bracket and which ones would go into the show brackets. But then you selected Soarin' Over California for Best Simulator, and Carousel of Progress for Best Animatronic Show. Now, which one of those moves more? Which one is a ride, and which one is a show? I have to admit, I hadn't thought too hard about those specific rides, because I hadn't anticipated either one getting out of Round One.
Basically, you blew up my bracket. :^)
So I took the winners from Round One, ordered by the number of votes they'd received, and broke them into three brackets for Round Two and beyond. Initially, I'd planned on four brackets, but after looking at the line-up I decided there was no logical way to make clean fields for "live" shows and "animated" shows, as I'd planned. Too many shows blur the line between the two. So we're down to just one "Best Show" bracket.
After I made those changes, I decided to just go ahead and expand the fields so that there would be no more byes. That meant adding a couple attractions to the Best Themed Ride field and six shows to the Best Show field. Those slots went to runners-up from Round One with the highest vote totals. So, yes, Star Tours and Toy Story fans, your rides are back from the dead and live to fight at least one other day!
Here are the brackets for the rest of this year's tournament:
Best Themed Ride
1. Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey vs. 16. Carousel of Progress
2. Haunted Mansion vs. 15. Tom Sawyer Island
3. Pirates of the Caribbean vs. 14. Star Tours: The Adventures Continue
4. The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man vs. 13. Revenge of the Mummy
5. Tower of Terror vs. 12. Jungle Cruise
6. Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges vs. 11. Maharajah Jungle Trek
7. Men in Black Alien Attack vs. 10. Splash Mountain
8. Toy Story Midway Mania vs. 9. Test Track
Best Roller Coaster
1. The Voyage vs. 8. Apollo's Chariot
2. Incredible Hulk Coaster vs. 7. Top Thrill Dragster
3. Manta vs. 5. Cheetah Hunt
4. Prowler vs. 5. Montu
Best Theme Park Show
1. Waterworld vs. 16. Clyde and Seamore
2. It's Tough to Be a Bug! vs. 15. Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor
3. Lights! Motors! Action! vs. 14. MuppetVision 3D
4. Mickey's PhilharMagic vs. 13. Shrek 4D
5. Soarin' Over California vs. 12. Terminator 2: 3D
6. Fantasmic! vs. 11. Festival of the Lion King
7. Walt Disney: One Man's Dream vs. 10. Poseidon's Fury
8. Universal's Horror Make-Up Show vs. 9. Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular
And here's the match-up schedule for Round Two:
Monday, February 20: Waterworld vs. Clyde and Seamore
Tuesday, Feb. 21: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man vs. Revenge of the Mummy
Wednesday, Feb. 22: Incredible Hulk Coaster vs. Top Thrill Dragster
Thursday, Feb. 23: Soarin' Over California vs. Terminator 2: 3D
Friday, Feb. 24: Toy Story Midway Mania vs. Test Track
Monday, February 27: Mickey's PhilharMagic vs. Shrek 4D
Tuesday, Feb. 28: Haunted Mansion vs. Tom Sawyer Island
Wednesday, Feb. 29: Manta vs. Cheetah Hunt
Thursday, March 1: Lights! Motors! Action! vs. MuppetVision 3D
Friday, Mar. 2: Men in Black Alien Attack vs. Splash Mountain
Monday, March 5: Pirates of the Caribbean vs. Star Tours: The Adventures Continue and It's Tough to Be a Bug! vs. Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor
Tuesday, Mar. 6: Tower of Terror vs. Jungle Cruise and Walt Disney: One Man's Dream vs. Poseidon's Fury
Wednesday, Mar. 7: Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey vs. Carousel of Progress and The Voyage vs. Apollo's Chariot
Thursday, Mar. 8: Universal's Horror Make-Up Show vs. Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular and Prowler vs. Montu
Friday, Mar. 9: Fantasmic! vs. Festival of the Lion King and Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges vs. Maharajah Jungle Trek
And on Monday, March 12, Round Three begins. There will be no reseeding, so the 8/9 winners will face the 1/16 winners, and so forth. (In the coaster bracket, the 1/8 winner will face the 4/5 winner, and we'll have one fewer round.)
Thanks to everyone who has voted so far, and I can't wait for Monday! (When has anyone ever typed those words before?)
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Although we're just between Round 1 and 2 I want to thank you for another great year of this tournament. Work for me has been killer this month (and there is no let up in sight) and the tournament has been the bright spot for me daily.
I look forward to seeing how Round 2 shakes out considering the surprises from Round 1.
Spidey versus Mummy makes my stomach hurt. How can I pick one over the other????
Stiff test for Prowler coming up, so we'll see if the KC contingent of TPI is up to the challenge.
And I am all for CoP pulling the 16 v 1 upset!!! What a great, big, beautiful tomorrow it will be!!!
I'm not sure what your "versus" criteria was in Best Themed Ride and Themed Show, unless it was random, but it seems that you set this up with a decided outcome in mind. It would have been more "fair" if similar attractions were to compete against each other, for example, Toy Story Midway Mania vs Men in Black Alien Attack or Splash Mountain vs.Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges or Waterworld vs Indiana Jones Stunt Show. Just my 2 cents.
However, the roller coaster category seems fair.
Will
The criterion for rides versus shows was simple: Do you move? In every entrant in the ride bracket, the answer to that question is 'yes'. (There is a walk-through in there, but you still move through it.)
For all but three entrants in the show bracket, the answer is "no." And for those three: On Shrek 4D you seat shakes a little, but you don't go anywhere. On Soarin', your seat moves into position before the show and back down after but never moves during the actual performance. Since there is no movement during the performance, I sent Soarin' over to the show bracket.
Poseidon's Fury was the most troubling, since you do walk through that. (Again, this was another example of an attraction I thought for sure wouldn't make it into Round Two - silly me.) But I didn't want to bump a higher-scoring ride out of the Best Ride bracket (which would have been Star Tours, FWIW) to move Poseidon over there, so I left it in the show bracket.
As for the seedings, I just listed the attractions in the order of votes they received in Round One. That's the seeding you see above. Harry Potter got the top seed as a result of its opening round bye. Shrek and Muppets were tied, so I coin-flipped them. Other than that, there were no judgment calls there - that was the easiest part of the whole tournament, because you made all those decisions with your votes!
Finally, there are 16 attractions in the Best Show bracket because I gave up trying to separate them into the planned "Live" and "Animated" brackets, which would have had eight entries each, just like the coaster bracket.
That's quite an achievement...don't you think James Rao from "Near Worlds Of Fun" Missouri? :)
As for my little home town park pulling the huge upset victory over The Beast, I just have one thing to say to all those with sour grapes: GOTV!!!
(I learned from the best, eh, Derek?)
I've never ridden Prowler, but I've ridden a lot of GCI coasters, and any one of them has a lot more business being in this field than Cheetah Hunt does, or Dragster for that matter. As a matter of fact, I'll vote for it...if for no other reason than because people should realize that the theme/amusement park universe doesn't start and stop with Florida.
Here's to the little guy that gets no respect...vote for Prowler.
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Some of them are downright funny -- FJ vs. Carousel?? But pitting MIB against Splash is just downright mean. I may have to resort to coin-flipping for that one.....
Dom should be happy as TSM should have things pretty easy against Test Track :-)
Can't wait for the next round to start!!