Today was abnormally warm and I was already sweating profusely, my shirt sticking to me, as I entered the thankfully air-conditioned interior of the Oregon Convention Center. I was looking for Vince Clemente, one of the CTWC organizers. He was the person who I had been talking to about my documentary project. Once he knew the broad strokes of what I wanted to do, he granted me free rein.
I was growing increasingly more nervous with every step I took towards Hall E. As an introvert, putting myself out there isn't a natural skill and with the COVID restrictions banning gatherings, this was my first major event in two years. Never mind the fact that I was jumping into the deep end, that I hadn't thought to refresh my Tetris lexicon before coming and that I was a veritable outsider to the community . . .
These nagging thoughts were quickly set aside as I found Vince in the far corner of Hall E, a small-ish space (although bigger than any space previously allocated to them) cordoned off from the rest of the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. After some initial introductions, he introduced me to a small group of volunteers and players who had travelled from around the world to both compete and help out with various aspects of the event.
Not really sure on how to introduce myself, I said I was a photographer who came down from Canada and wanted to do a photoessay. And that was all that needed to be said.
As Lok, the social media manager for Classic Tetris Monthly, would later say to me, "You came down from Canada to document us. You're as much part of the community as anyone else."
Looking across the somewhat dark and messy space, it was obvious that a lot of work had already been completed . . . but there was a lot of work left to do.
Sixty stations needed to be set up for qualifiers and casual play throughout the weekend. Each station consisted of a CRT TV, an original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and a Tetris NES cartridge modified for scores higher than 999,999 and for identical piece sequences between two players.
Chris Higgins (first picture) and his crew were in charge of the audiovisual equipment at CTWC, which meant he had to set up the cameras, lighting and audio. There were a total of three stages at CTWC; the Main Stage at the front, another smaller front stage to the right of the main stage and one stage towards the back. The front stages had huge backdrops to project the action; these stages were used to show qualifiers of the top players and the entirety of the Gold Bracket (i.e. top 48 seeds after qualification). The back stage was used mainly for the Tetris Effect tournament and for the Silver Bracket (Seeds 49 - 80) of CTWC.
With each stage accommodating 4 players, optimizing the camera, lighting and audio equipment for both streaming and in-person competitors was a complex and time-consuming endeavour. The main stage had a total of seven cameras and the remaining two stages each had four cameras. With all of the potential permutations, focus was placed on ensuring that set-ups didn't have to change significantly in between competitors, accounting for differences in height and playstyle.
Finally, projectors were placed and settings fiddled with to ensure optimal viewing experience for those attending in-person.
Adam Cornelius, one of the organizers of CTWC, was in charge of the Classic Tetris streams and Chris' team would work in tandem with Adam to lock it in for each station to their mutual satisfaction.
CRT TVs and NES are . . . for lack of a more eloquent word, old. And with all of this old tech, some of it was bound to break. CTWC hired Wren to be their on-site technician for the duration of the tournament. When I first met him, he was switching out the power cord of a CRT TV for a longer one. Throughout the weekend, he was always running around and proactively troubleshooting, trying to get ahead of any issues that could occur.
The merchandise section was located in a prime spot; towards the back of the CTWC's allocated space but right by the intersection with the rest of the Retro Gaming Expo. Anyone curious about CTWC would have to pass by the merchandise tables.
Ro (second picture) and Christine (first picture) were in charge of the official CTWC merchandise table and busy unpacking boxes and organizing the tables for the weekend. Steve Deluca, owner of TotalRadNES and inventor of the Goofyfoot mod, allowing for the directional pad to be on the right side of the NES controller, had driven up from California and was setting up his merchandise space as well. Every piece of merchandise was a love letter to the Classic Tetris community in some way or form:
Ecstasy of Order, a documentary that follows the lives of several competitors as they gear up to compete in the inaugural CTWC in 2010. It is directed by Adam Cornelius, one of the co-organizers of the CTWC.
The CTWC 2022 T-shirt where the main goal was to cram as many CTWC references as possible into the shirt design.
Tetris Power Gummies, fruit snacks made in the shape of Tetris pieces, thanks to a sponsorship from PowerBears. Surprisingly, a lot of the reviews over the weekend would rank these gummies pretty highly.
Numerous promotional materials related to Best of Five, a five episode documentary series written and produced by Chris Higgins, dedicated to Classic Tetris champions competing at the CTWC.
And when all of the above was done? Testing, testing and more testing. The organizers knew that the CRT TVs had a tendency to flake out but it only seemed to occur after some time had passed. So volunteers had to sit down and play a game of Tetris on each station to confirm that the entire set up worked.
Once the testing of the qualifying stations were done, attention pivoted to the stations on the stages and verifying the quality of the streams. While Chris's team had set up the stage equipment, they needed people to play games to tweak the venue and stream set ups even further. Some of the volunteers who were planning to compete took to the stage to get a few practice games before the actual event.
No doubt it was busy . . . but that didn't mean it was all work. A steady stream of people who had flown in early would come into the venue to say hi. Some of these people had known each other for years online but hadn't yet met each other in person.
I left the venue at 5PM to check into my hotel, but others would remain on-site until midnight to ensure that everything was set up correctly.
In the lead-up to CTWC, I knew that I wanted to document it but I wasn't sure how or what exactly. But as the days continued, I found my purpose. I was here to document this slice in time of Classic Tetris.
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