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Many of the larger tournaments I go to usually have an apocalypse game (or 2) going on the side of the main GT but never before or after.
The big reasoning I've heard behind this is "You're either a competitive player, or you're a fun player and never the 2 shall meet."

But I'm just curious are there tournaments that have tried the pre/post apoc game and had it fail, or is this just an unwritten rule?

I know that I personally would love to play in an apocalypse game but if I'm driving some where I like to be a little more competitive rather than blow my weekend on a few apocalypse games.
I've discussed this with some of my friends and most seem to be of the same opinion that we would love to play in an Apoc game before the tournament but are not willing to sacrifice our tournament games for one.

Well, consider endurance. Most tournament structures have 3-5 games in a single sitting. Are you really wanting to pile on a full scale Apoc game onto all of that? I like 40k and WHFB plenty, but there comes a point of fatigue.

It's mostly time and endurance. If you wanted to come play Apocalypse at Wargames on the Friday before the GT, that would be doable. Similarly, you could likely get some Apoc in after the GT hours on Saturday.

Most larger events, including WGC and AdeptiCon, have a variety of things to do other than just the tournament, and they don't all compete with each other.

Since I run it, inherent data on the NOVA:

The NOVA this year has a pretty radical Narrative event in the evenings, not competing with the 40k GT. So, you can play in both. Thttp://novaopen.com

Caveat that it's less full on apocalypse, and more casual gaming driving a unique story while battling over recreations of DC's iconic monument.

Mike has some great terrain for the NOVA Narrative event and it doesn't interfere with tournament play, but he's not running big toys Apocalypse.
Adepticon's Gladiator has some of the awesome toys in a tournament format, so you can have some big toys and a tournament at the same time .
Wargames has narrative Apocalypse with lots of big toys, but not in a tournament format and it interferes with tournament participation - can't play 6+ hour games starting at 7pm and have people happy at 8am the next morning.

There simply aren't enough hours in the day to have 12+ hour tournament days, full-on multiplayer Apocalypse games, eating, sleeping, and showering. And since none of the TOs want you skipping the last part, we do force some choices on you.

What Jon said. The issue is time in the day. We have time for 3 hour 2k games in a narrative setting with badass terrain and cool add-ons/story in the evenings ... AdeptiCon has time for the short-run Gladiator event on Sunday ... WarGamesCon has time for a full on Apoc event ... but each of them has to fit in with an overarching schedule.

One of these years maybe we'll run like a "midnight run" apoc game, but people DO need to sleep, and the bigger problem becomes populating an event that fits alongside a big tournament yet also lets people sleep.

Can you do it with non-apoc / narrative / interesting / different-style play allowing IA units (but not superheavies/etc.)? Sure, and that's why all these events do.

But if you held like an 8PM - 3AM Apoc game, you wouldn't actually get that many people registered is the concern, which would nullify the value of running the event at all.

/ramble

Getting a smidge of sleep is also good for the TOs and staff.

That doesn't happen no matter what we do, seems like :(

You can sleep when you're dead and like it, Mike!

My question is what is stopping TOs from holding one on the night before. For WGC putting it on Thursday or even Friday after doubles would be good.
Railhead rumble ran an Apoc game last year on the Friday before the tournament and it was rather popular.

Add to the fact that people can break armies with Apoc rules.

Come on up to the NE USA
Many Grand Tournments here are Saturday and Sunday with a span of around 5-6 games. Most of the events do run side gaming which is typically during the nights of the events. There are typically character bases where characters fight it out. Smaller games. Team tournments. Even Friday night events for other systems.

As an example: This years Colonial GT in NJ offered
Friday: Friday nite Warmachine / Hordes. If you purchased a ticket for 40k / WFB, you could play free of cost. This was a 3 round Friday Night event.
Saturday: Games 1-3 of 40k / WFB. There were also WMHD tournments on saturday.
Sunday: Games 4-5 of 40k / WFB. Also WMHD tournments.

I personally participated in Friday night warmachine. Then Sat-Sun 40k. I'll be honest. It was a little draining. I was hyped for the warmachine games, they were great. I was ok for Games 1-3 for 40k. Game 4 was fun, by I could really feel the wear and tear. But Game 5, I think I was mentally drained out. My opponent is on here "yermom." He trounced me. Very good game played on his part, he out played me 100%. I was unfamiliar with Nids, however honestly my mind was no where sharp. Would it have been different? Honestly his list was good, he knew 40k better, probably not. But I'd probably have been more typical me: joking back and forth laughing, instead of run down and worn out. It really was a lot, I placed 2nd in WMHD, I think 8th in 40k maybe? I would happily do it again, but I defeinitely would rest up more

8 tournment scale games is pretty daunting. Lots of folks like that down time at night to participate in adult types of enteraining

A store I used to frequent tried to run a 3000pts apocalypse tournament over a weekend, unsurprisingly it was a total shambles and some games were ridiculously unbalanced, and it took us pretty much a full weekend to play 4 games, from 10 in the morning til 11 at night.

Foda_Bett wrote:My question is what is stopping TOs from holding one on the night before.

Typically a combination of hotel arrangements and a lack of staff resources to dedicate to it.

Most events are in at minimum the night before and for the larger ones a day or two in advance for onsite setup.

The more events you run, the more staff you need, and the harder you task the staff you already have.

In addition to Hank's response, the answer is also nothing.

Most of the big events are already doing narrative / apoc / fluff / etc. events during times not conflicting with GT's. Hooray!

If, on the other hand, you're trying to ask why a couple specific events NEAR you aren't running it ... any number of also now-given replies apply.