CFSBK's Diary: Mario Kart 64 Tournament and our Big Screen

We guess it's cool if you didn't waste hours upon hours of your life playing Mario Kart 64 during the late 90's... but we sure did. Revisiting the obsessions of one's past can sometimes be disappointing, but not in this case. Last Sunday evening, CFSBK hosted our first Mario Kart 64 Tournament (maybe the first Mario Kart 64 tournament ever hosted at a CrossFit affiliate?). We were able to pull off this event because we purchased a 180" screen and projector a couple years ago for the gym. 

As you can see in the photos, we hung the projector on some bare wall space next to our racks for wall balls and above a few lifting platforms. The projector and its installation weren’t cheap, but it was an investment that has paid for itself time and again in rewarding community-building events for our membership. We screen the CrossFit Games every year, and we also host semi-regular movie nights (my favorite of which was The Big Lebowski, when we also provided White Russians for attendees). The screen comes in handy for our in-house Erg races for our CRASH B team, for displaying heats and scores during competitions and events we host, and for screening sporting events like the USAW Nationals or an upcoming UFC PPV event. 

The most recent event was our Mario Kart tourney, inducing serious '90s nostalgia. One of our members organized brackets, which led to a final championship match, and all the courses were selected at random (by scrolling blindly).

The basic key to running these events is to find common interests among your membership, pick an ideal time, and then, really—just have a lot of fun. This event happened at the end of our usual Sunday night Open Gym session from 6-8 pm, which is usually a pretty social crowd.  We had about 20 people show up to play and hang out. Participants got a WOD in or did some Active Recovery beforehand (and during). We also had plenty of beer, which obviously helped improve all of our driving skills.

Comments

[Boz]

Ha! Awesome.