So I'm writing a story where there is a major gaming tournament being held at some point. Lets say it's a Halo: Reach tournament. Here are some other details: -it's a 3 day tournament, taking place Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights: 32 players, double elimination, with the final being held the final day. -between the 32 players, 50+ people total that the players brought with them (coaches, friends, family), event staff (we'll say that's 20 people) and 100 spectators watching the tournament... there will be probably 200 people in the building total -there has to be a "backstage" area -spectators would watch in the "main" area and there is a giant HD screen where the "feature" match is being played, although theory in other parts of the building they could watch the other matches that take place at the same time as the feature one -the feature match is held in a giant room back stage, but there is a one way mirror, soundproofed so that fans can watch the two people playing while they play, but the players themselves can't see or hear the people outside (to prevent cheating) -said "feature match" room would probably be a level higher than the fans on the floor in order to feel more epic -it takes place in Houston, Tx (the only way I think this even matters is that there really aren't any hotel/casinos or anything like that compared to other cities) -there would have to be enough room for all of the TVs, Xboxs, lighting, cameras, etc and the ability to plug all of that stuff in I've thought of a few places where this tournament could theoretically take place. Hotel: an expensive hotel if it has one of those giant lobbys, thats the perfect size area to fit fans, and they could probably use the 1st and 2nd floor rooms to hold all the non-feature matches, and maybe this hypothetical hotel building has a conference room on the 2nd floor that overlooks the lobby that would be perfect for the feature match room Office building: seems like it would be hard to pull this off because I imagine most places would be unwilling to rent out an office building down town. But it would be for 3 weekend nights in a row (so probably no one working) and in theory the first floor of a big office building could be a giant lobby that would serve the same purpose as a hotel. And Office buildings are obviously stocked with the types of rooms they would need. And again, hypothetical conference room overlooking the lobby just like a hotel. Club: Perhaps a two story building... and again, everything is similar to the Hotel and Office building in terms of format. But I wonder if any current clubs would be willing to rent out their building on the weekend. Maybe it's abandoned? Some kind of banquet hall: I'm not too familiar with how these work, but I imagine again just some kind of building and it probably wouldn't have a "conference room" overlooking the lobby, but perhaps something could be built to achieve that effect. Convention Center: Seems like if something like this were to happen, the tournament wouldn't be taking place in the entire convention hall. The only Convention Center I've heard of in Houston is George R. Brown, and it's probably too big. But perhaps there are other smaller ones. College Campus building: I've attended college in Houston before, and the one I went to didn't have a building like what I'm thinking about, but I imagine I could use creative license to create a building that has the sort of thing I'm looking for. If anyone has any information about any of these that might make it easier to include in my story, or an idea of their own, I'd be interested in hearing about it from you.
The college campus idea is good. Alternatively, there are a number of conference centers with different set-ups from very basic to very high-tech (with costs to go with it) that might work for you. It sounds like you would need a center with an auditorium for spectators with a screen or screens that display video feeds from separate competition rooms. (The one way mirror thing is not likely to be found in these kinds of facilities unless they are a former police precinct! LOL!) An auditorium will have a stage that would normally be used for speakers and could theoretically have a "backstage" area. The set up could be more elaborate (check out event planners for details) but it is unlikely to be used for such a small group because the costs involved with setting it up would be prohibitive. If you don't like the conference center idea, I would think any place that rents out space for weddings would be something you could adapt for your purpose, but you are less likely to have the high-tech support that a conference center would more realistically provide.
Perhaps a 1-way mirror effect could be created by just having a room where the inside is lit bright, but the outside is very dim (this would be where the fans would be seated). I'm wondering if the banquet hall or conference center could end up being the best idea, because hypothetically if the ceiling was high enough... you could have everything be built to the way you want it to. Edit: I think a convention center type of building works the best. Because I was looking up virtual tours for convention centers and I saw something kind of like what I was thinking about. It was like a giant room where the ceiling was 2 stories high, but then over 1/3rd or 1/4th of the room there would be a 2nd floor with stairs leading up underneath creating a balcony of sorts (would it be called a balcony?). The space under the "balcony" could be used as the backstage area and above could be the room where feature matches are held. The only issue with this IMO is that a lot of convention centers these days are like huge multi-room places. The tournament would be held in just one of the rooms, so automatically the event doesn't really feel that epic. I wonder if there are like 1-room convention centers (maybe they are called something else) that the event could be held at.
