How Do You Book?

[takuan]

I'm curious to know the thoughts and philosophies of the different people who run efeds. Not so much in terms of broad strategies, like building storylines, or booking champions, but for an individual show. What kind of thought process go into things like how many matches to have?  Who to pair up? How often to use people? How many tag matches? When to include title defenses? All the minute details of booking an individual show that I never really see discussed. 

[Hal]

I book 6 matches and use tags matches a lot with one singles matches (rookie vs old guy) or battle royals starting the show sometimes. Sometimes I give out special single matches.

Bigger shows have 8 to 9 matches and are more single match heavy.

I only have some angles and don't do backstage skits and I use faction wars. My actual championship I use I book like the old IWGP title league thing, meaning edits have to win a League then beat the guy who's holding that title. I use leagues and tournaments for tags and singles divisions to give wrestlers some shine and accomplishments. I never really used titles much until FirePro world.

[Senator Phillips]

I'll just bullet point this, as I often do:

-Smaller house shows are typically four matches, maybe one multi person tag, short enough I can get through it without any hassle, but with at least one good featured match.

-For standard "broadcast" shows, five to seven matches can fill the card, with a clear main event, an exciting opener, and I'll make sure to space my tag matches out between faster singles stuff.

-Again, it's essential to create solid pacing by not stacking up longer tag matches or heaven forbid, battle royales back to back. Doing that will slow a show down to a crawl.

-If I'm doing a tournament, as generally happens with All Time Boxing, I'll run the tourny matches first, throw some filler in, and then run the finals.

-Big time events go from eight to ten matches, with the rules above applying for the most part.

-I'll often run a quick boxing match during my preshow to pass the time if I start early, and will often run a canon bonus match after the show, to feature new edits I've worked on as of late.

-For the most part, title defenses/ranking matches are held on the big events, or are set up through several regular broadcasts.

[joshthejerseyboy]

I book like Herb Abrams on coke. I usually try to keep my world champ from defending each week (theres a shit ton of times the title bounces off of someone week to week) but my IC Champion is a fighting champ and I prefer it stays like that. I'm starting to book tags and 6 mans as a way to break up the monotony

[Lord Worm]

I'm not that creative.

I'll usually load up a league with everyone in that promotion our class.

The top 4 or 8 go on to another league or tournament. Winner faces the champ.

I used to have extensive spreadsheets but I don't use a pc at the moment

[Zealot]

I prefer either paperback or tablet.

[LankyLefty17]

I run two types of shows:

House Shows

These are typically 3-4 matches, specifically booked to advance storyines or set up new ones.  I tape these, and do writeups around them that include promo's and between match shenanigans.  Because the size of my roster is small, these shows will have 1 tag team match max, rounded out with singles stuff.

Monthly Events

I run one "big" show a month that has titles contested, and storyline match payoffs.  These are typically 5-7 matches with 5 main show matches and pre-show filler.  I mainly book singles and tag (again, small roster).  I will generally book this show ahead of time, and use the house shows as build up to what I want to run- but since I dont book finishes, sometimes I'll have to adjust on the fly.

I typically hold to a small number of matches per card for time/burnout reasons.  I like working up to big even matches, and trying to manage 3-4 storylines is about as many as I can do without getting overwhelmed.  I also assume that anyone consuming my fed is more likely to stick around if the weekly consumption isn't a huge time drain.

[Aris]

Oct 30, 2018 14:02:34 GMT takuan said:

I'm curious to know the thoughts and philosophies of the different people who run efeds. Not so much in terms of broad strategies, like building storylines, or booking champions, but for an individual show. What kind of thought process go into things like how many matches to have?  Who to pair up? How often to use people? How many tag matches? When to include title defenses? All the minute details of booking an individual show that I never really see discussed. 

I mostly do 5 or 6 shows for a normal show, with PPVs split into Tiers, Tier 1 PPVs have 7 matches, and Tier 2 PPVs have 8 or 9. I pair people in the same faction, and the factionless with other factionless. Not counting Tag Team title defenses, PPVs only have one Tag Team match, which is a 4v4 faction match which leads into the next PPV's main event. For example of this, let's say at the next PPV Faction Leader A is challenging for a title against Faction Leader B. Faction A and Faction B would have a match at THIS PPV to lead into their match at the NEXT PPV. Title defenses rarely happen on normal shows, but titles are split into Title Sets, which is why the one tag match occurs. 

[LunchBox]

I run 3 month long seasonal leagues. Round robin. Top 2 face off for the winner’s rights.
Win your league=title shot for your division.
I also use relegation. If you finish dead last in the Big Title group you go down to the Secondary Title group. Finish last there? You go to the no title league. Bottom out there, and your Only way back in is to win a battle royale.
For the tag division the bottom team gets sat for one cycle minimum then are eligible to complete again.

I also use anniversary shows to give title shots to guys who had the best record in league play over the course of the year. I also do a battle royale tournament in lieu of a royal rumble to determine a contender for a special show.

Generally my champions only have to defend 6 times a year, per belt. Special extra challenges occasionally spring up when the league winner goes to a draw with the champ, that’ll automatically set up a rematch. If they draw again, it’s settled with a 2/3 falls match. Should that end in a draw, and this scenario hasn’t happened to me yet but should it, the champion advantage would come into play and the series would be over. Challenger would go back into league play to try and earn another shot.

[Pandakid]

I've got a bigger roster so I usually book 8 matches on a show, I try to evenly distribute matches between each division and the main event is always a title match, if there are no title matches it's a number one contender match if there are no number one contender matches it goes to an active feud.

[eskiman]

I've been having some issues with my booking lately. I've been running a version of NXT for a trial just to get back into fire pro after 4-5 months of not playing much.

My booking and promotion generally I am happy with - its a NXT alumni promotion, so its got most current guys plus the seth rollins, wyatt familya, balora and nakamuras etc. My first month of 4 tv shows and a ppv was fun, and Adam Cole ended up winning the main title at the ppv. All good in practice.

The thing that got me a bit confused was across the tv tapings, I got a match average of 91% - most matches were going 20+ minutes and getting good ratings, I had 4 matches on each tv taping and 5 got 95% or more.. so > 25% of the tv matches got insane ratings. Then at the ppv things changed, I ran 6 matches and got a match average of 81%, and only the main event was over 90%. The main event was the only match to go anywhere near 20 minutes (it ended up over 30)

I used the same ref, and same venue (SCS Stadium) and same CPU level of 8... so in theory my matches shouldn't drop in quality from that perspective. I also booked fairly big matches for the ppv, and used a similar style in how I paired guys for matches

Does anyone have any suggestions for why the quality dropped off? I'd like the opposite really - I'd like lower quality tv tapings and mad ppvs - much like NXT gives us on Wednesday nights!

[Pandakid]

Nov 3, 2018 20:09:20 GMT eskiman said:

I've been having some issues with my booking lately. I've been running a version of NXT for a trial just to get back into fire pro after 4-5 months of not playing much.

My booking and promotion generally I am happy with - its a NXT alumni promotion, so its got most current guys plus the seth rollins, wyatt familya, balora and nakamuras etc. My first month of 4 tv shows and a ppv was fun, and Adam Cole ended up winning the main title at the ppv. All good in practice.

The thing that got me a bit confused was across the tv tapings, I got a match average of 91% - most matches were going 20+ minutes and getting good ratings, I had 4 matches on each tv taping and 5 got 95% or more.. so > 25% of the tv matches got insane ratings. Then at the ppv things changed, I ran 6 matches and got a match average of 81%, and only the main event was over 90%. The main event was the only match to go anywhere near 20 minutes (it ended up over 30)

I used the same ref, and same venue (SCS Stadium) and same CPU level of 8... so in theory my matches shouldn't drop in quality from that perspective. I also booked fairly big matches for the ppv, and used a similar style in how I paired guys for matches

Does anyone have any suggestions for why the quality dropped off? I'd like the opposite really - I'd like lower quality tv tapings and mad ppvs - much like NXT gives us on Wednesday nights!

are they taunting and brawling on the outside? things like that incorporate the crowd and will boost the rating a bit

[eskiman]

Nov 3, 2018 20:24:32 GMT Pandakid said:

are they taunting and brawling on the outside? things like that incorporate the crowd and will boost the rating a bit

There’s the odd action on the outside, can’t hugely remember much taunting but I may be wrong. Just really weird for such a steep drop off I match quality

[Spunk]

Think of your show as a three act story.

It has a beginning, a middle and an end.

This doesn't have to be strict, like the same story in three distinct sections, although it doesn't hurt if you have something as your main event to build it throughout your show, but instead think of the ebb and flow of the show.

As for length, it depends on how you're delivering the show and how long you want to go. SCFL has been two and a half hours for a long time now, which has been anywhere from 10 - 12 matches a week. You want to do an hour instead, how long are your matches generally going? 20 minutes? If so, that's ten minutes of real time or so, plus whatever you have to space out your matches in between. So five, maybe six matches would be optimal?

[fukuro]

Oct 30, 2018 17:43:07 GMT Zealot said:

I prefer either paperback or tablet.

Cheeky.

Well, I usually prefer to book my shows in a puro style. I run small tours over the year, usually full of tag team or 6 men tag team matches saving single matches for the bigger events or tournaments.