2023 Registration Details and Pricing changes

Registration on Melee.gg

For 2023, HBM has chosen to partner with Melee.gg for both our registration system and tournament software. Melee has been very generous and is supporting the event by waiving their normal application fee for us. We’re very excited to work with the new software, which will provide more integrated registration and tournament information, decklist submission, online pairings, and other event information.

You can register for events now on our melee event hub.

Pricing

As you may have noticed from our announcement or the registration page, HBM has decided to increase our event prices across the board for 2023.

In an effort to maintain transparency, I wanted to acknowledge the change with our fans and supporters and let them know the reasoning behind it.

First off, more than most other industries, running events has become significantly more expensive over the past few years. I love our venue in Hurst, and I know that all of our attendees think its very high quality, especially with the excellent attached hotel. Our venue costs for have increased by a large percentage since 2019, and that’s now reflected in our event prices.

Additionally, HBM features all-star staff who volunteer their time to help make the event amazing. We provide hotel, meals and goodies for our staff, as well as a travel sponsorship budget for judges and staff making their way to the event from far away. As many of you know from planning travel, those costs have gone up as well.

Finally, Magic booster pack product costs have increased. HBM does have very generous sponsors who provide various items and products for running our events and our prize wall, but in the end, we have to cover the cost of a lot of booster packs that Magic players want to open for drafts, or as prizes when they do well in our events.

Given that, I have decided to increase our Main Event entry fee to $80 for 2023. This price is in line with similar events, or even a discount compared to some organizers. I think that most of our attendees will view our event as good value while still supporting the cause.

Our side events will also be increasing in price, to $30 for our scheduled events.

Fees

HBM Regulars will recall a $1 fee for each ticket on our previous registration, webconnex. With the move to Melee, we have rolled those fees into individual event prices. We still have to pay the usual approximately 3% processing fee on credit card transactions, the additional $1-2 helps pay for part of those fees.

Prizes

With an increase to our price, its only reasonable that we bump our prizes as well to appropriately reward the players who succeed in events.

The 2023 HBMO Main Event now features $15,000 in prizes, including paying $100 down to 48th place.

Side events will also have their prize payouts appropriately scaled up.