Friday Frenzy Tournament

Occasionally I am asked how I got started traveling to laser tag arenas all across the country and the short version of the answer is that it began with my interest in tournaments and seeking out more competitive opportunities because there weren’t all that many happening close to my home. So, on this particular weekend I planned my trip around two events happening on back to back nights, the first being the Friday Frenzy Tournament going on at EZ Air in Reno, NV.

This was a nice, casual kind of event for the players who came out for their AYCP night. Throughout the course of the evening the top five individual high scores were continuously tracked and updated on a white dry erase board and anytime someone beat an existing score their name would be added and bump the scores on the list accordingly.

This is really a very smart way to turn a typical weekend night into something more. The evening started out slowly with only a handful of players competing in the beginning, but by the later hours groups ranging from 16-20 players participated. This meant not only the variety of participants changing throughout the event, but also an increased chance for a higher score as the night went on due to larger numbers of players in the arena.

I have played at EZ Air in the past. They use Cyber Blast equipment and have a good number of additional targets scattered throughout the single level, space-themed arena.

I have learned in the past that those targets mean BIG extra points so I try to never circle through an area without aiming for them and of course taking the base three times is a priority too.

Between rounds game master Braden showed me the variety of game formats they have available at EZ Air. Some of these I am familiar with from previous Cyber Blast sites, however others appear to have been customized (or at least re-named) for this site, such as Rare Air named for their Saturday night AYCP…or maybe it’s the other way around!

I enjoyed revisiting a few of these formats, particularly Domination. Even though I’ve played it on just about every other laser tag system at this point, I really enjoy how uniquely different the game plays with Cyber Blast. In fact, I am told one of their regular players, Steven, comes in during quiet hours just to play it by himself for good exercise in the arena!

But as for this night’s event, when it came down to it the highest scores understandably came out of the most populated games, so those who played in the final few rounds bounced a few of the early scores off the board and made a difference. Those were also the games where the margin between the top and bottom scores seemed to be the widest. For the majority of the event my scores bounced around the 14-15,000 range but by the final hour I was able to bump that up to 19,200 which secured my first place position for the night.

I appreciated the bag of tag swag I was awarded for winning…you know that tag swag goodies are always my favorite souvenirs to bring back! Congratulations also to the others who made it onto the top five leaderboard.

The timing of this event could not have been more perfect because as soon as everything was done I changed my clothes and headed right back to the airport to catch a flight just after midnight to take me off to Denver for another unique laser tag event. I’m so glad that EZ Air hosted this contest on a weekend where it worked out for me to return to Reno. Many thanks for another great experience and a lot of fun!

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Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com