Hello Everyone,

I know that we have all been waiting for the finalized 2019 schedule (I know I certainly have) and now that it’s finally here I wanted to discuss some changes that our CFB Events team have implemented for 2019. For simplicity's sake I will refer to Grand Prix past, present and future as MagicFest.

Leadership CORE
Our Leadership CORE program has already gone through changes over the last year and we will continue innovating the program in 2019. The CORE program has been great at drawing together some of the best leaders in the MagicFest staffing community, but it has also caused certain restraints on how we can staff events. One of the issues that CORE staffing has raised is the overabundance of leads staffed on a daily basis at events. In order to help remedy that, we have changed the CORE model so that CORE Leadership selections will now have two days of Lead and one day as a regular floor judge, rather than the previous three days of Lead. The other major restraint that CORE had was trying to maximize the number of applicants with four CORE events while minimizing the number with three to avoid “feel bads” for missing the CORE four. To that end we have raised the overall daily rates for those selected for CORE (the Lead days and Floor Judge day are above current rates), while eliminating the CORE bonus. Our hope is that this will allow us to continue to draw the strong leadership applications we have been receiving, but also allow us to provide more opportunities to a diverse group of judges that would like to work Leadership positions at MagicFest. Moving forward our plan is to accept approximately ten CORE judges per event and have these CORE applications be the sole sources for staffing Leads, to that end there will no longer be an opportunity to apply as a Lead for an individual event, so please take the CORE Leadership application opportunity to apply for any events that you wish to be a Lead at. We are also increasing the number of events for each CORE application to include all of the events in the first six months of the year.

You can find the Leadership CORE application here:
Leadership CORE Application

Operations CORE
We have received a lot of feedback regarding team members who work on the Operations side of MagicFest. Thus far, there has not been a way to apply as an member of one of the Operations Teams (Registrations, Customer Service, Prize Wall and Back of the House) in advance of the individual event JudgeApp. Starting in 2019 we will be trying out an Operations Core that will allow those interested in working on an Operations Team to apply and gain early acceptance. Similar to the Leadership CORE application, this will cover events for the first six months of the year.

You can find the Operations CORE application here:
Operations CORE Application

Side Event Scorekeeper Applications
Throughout 2018 we have used a separate application for Side Event Scorekeepers at MagicFest and we will continue to do so in 2019. Similar to both CORE applications, the Scorekeeper applications will be for a six month period and all staffing of Scorekeepers will be through the Scorekeeper Application; there will not be an opportunity to apply as a Scorekeeper through individual JudgeApps.

You can find the MagicFest Side Event Scorekeeper application here:
Side Event Scorekeeper Application

Compensation Changes
Finally, you will notice that there have been some major changes to compensation for 2019. We are offering an increase in boxes, however there is also an option to receive all of your compensation in monetary form (via PayPal or Check). We have also changed the CORE Leadership compensation to be based on US Dollars only, resulting in an increase for the European CORE Leadership rate as CORE Leadership rates have been standardized globally.

I know that these constitute a lot of changes to staffing at MagicFest and that many of you will have questions. I strongly encourage you to reach out directly to me at mashi@cfbevents.com with any questions or feedback you have regarding these changes.

Thank you very much and I look forward to working with everyone to build an amazing MagicFest
experience for staff and player alike in 2019!

-Mashi