OK, for what it's worth, here are my thoughts on some of the suggestions and comments. Be warned, this may turn into a long post
Big Scores debate-
I for one am not someone who will play against a "weaker" player and use the opportunity to run the table out basically twice. I know there are a few on here, both from opens and local league games, who can vouch for this.
This will not happen in group games and i use an example from the Kent Open a few years ago. I played Dawn Jordan in my first game and ran the table out for about 21k. Then, when Dawn missed on about 2k, i then finished the rest of the clock for 17k. The reason for this, is that aggregate score may count to qualify. As it happened, this is exactly how i topped my group with three of us on equal wins. If ihad not done that to Dawn in my first game, i would not have qualified. I apologised to Dawn straight away and told her why it happened.
So having group games is ok to have more games but because of how they are, it is not necessary that you will get more table time. It might work out you get less. What happends if Cliff Slade gets drawn into a group with KT, Curt, Nigel? How is he going to get anymore table time?
Just my thoughts about that particular issue.
Publicity-
All the AEBBA & Open competitions are advertised on here. If people are interested in playing bar billiard competitions, then they know about this site and will know where to look. As Joe has mentioned about sending the information/entry forms to local league players via the league secretaries, why cant the league secretaries just point them to this site? It will achieve the exact same outcome?
Open Formats-
Having a "Multiple Plate" competition for first round losers would be a total nightmare to organise. You would need to wait until all the first round games have been played to allocate each player their respective competition. This could be as late as the last 16 if there are byes and no shows. Also need to take into consideration the additional cost of the trophies.
I would prefer the option of running a "Minnows" tournament as i know Kent did a few years ago but as has been said before, how many people would enter? As Notts have quite a lot of new and enthusiastic players, they are quite a distance from any other county, so would they have 10+ players willing to travel down to say Oxford to compete? How about Sudbury players as they only enter 4 pin tournaments, would they play in a competition like this? If these would be a yes, then i would consider doing this tournament if it meant more numbers.WBBA-
Now this has caused quite a stir among players with a lot of differing views! I presonally think that Lorin done a fantastic job as AE Secretary and to get sponsorship to give prize money at all the AE events was incredible. It was a shame that the minority didnt see the benefits and it showed from the event a couple of weeks ago that offering something completely different to the normal formats was well received. Would it have been just as successful if the prize money wasn't so good? we don't know but everyone i spoke to, certainly enjoyed the weekend.
Finances-
Now, this leads me onto finances. As we all know, finances are being stretched all over the country in the current climate. Now, altough the WBBA was a bit more to enter, there were no restrictions on staying in the very nice, but pricey venue.
We have Bournemouth in a couple of weeks and everyone knows my views on this and i am not going to go into that debate again.
I know the hotel do a lot for the competition and give sponsorship etc. but im sure that is no different to Jersey/Guernsey who have no restrictions in place. Having said that, you have to realise that you are forced to stay at the venue and also this year, the one night option was not available, so you now have to stay for two nights, even more cost. Has this put people off playing in this event because of this additional cost to be incurred? You also have players from leagues very close who have not entered the competition since the mandatory occupancy has been introduced. Why should you be forced to stay at the venue when you live 20/30 minutes away?
Anyway i think that is enough from me by now. I look forward to the responses!