BAM12 COSPLAY COMPETITION With Guest Judges and CrunchyRoll Expo Prizes

We are pleased to announce BAM12’s official cosplay competition! Join us in your best fighting game costume for a chance to win some awesome prizes and your very own BAM Trophy! Not only is BAM Australia’s biggest fighting game event, it’s a gaming festival, so we would like to invite everyone to appear in character!

Join our cosplay guests TJ Cosplay and AstroKerrie Cosplay on SUNDAY MAY 15 at BAM, held at MCEC. All you need to register is a Spectator Pass ($25) at smash.gg/bam12

INFO

There’s over $250 in cash and prizes for the Cosplay, Plus, TOP 4 – Passes to CrunchyRoll Expo!

Photography: On the floor of BAM, we will have a photo wall and photographer onsite, so there’ll be great shots to come from the event. We also welcome photographers to join the event!

Cosplay Changerooms: There will be a dedicated space off-floor for Cosplayers to change.

WHAT:
Battle Arena Melbourne 12 Cosplay Competition

BAM Info: www.battlearenamelbourne.com.au

When:
May 15 (Cosplay welcome all three days of event)

Cosplay registration:
Just register in person at the Registration Desk. You can also pre-fill some info for our judges by entering details on this form

Event Entry: Only a spectator pass ($25 for weekend) is required.

TIMES:

  • Registration Ends 12:30PM Sunday
  • Pre-Judging 1pm to 2pm (Marshall at Photo wall 12:45)
  • Parade: 2:30PM Sunday (Marshall at Photo wall 2:15)

Theme:
Fighting Game characters (Has appeared in a fighting game)

Where:
Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, Bays 23 & 24

Cost:
Spectator pass – $25

 

PRIZES:

TOP 4 – Pass to CrunchyRoll Expo

1st Place $125 Cash and a BAM Trophy!

2nd place $75

3rd place $50

Plus, Anime Blu-Ray and Merch!

Follow the BAM12 Facebook Event for updates

 

COSPLAY GUESTS

TJ Cosplay and AstroKerrie Cosplay

RULES

  • You must purchase a spectator pass to compete.
  • Please register for the cosplay competition at the registration desk at entrance
  • Your costume must be a character that has appeared in a fighting game.
  • Handmade and bought costumes are both acceptable, however handmade costumes will be rated higher in judging.
  • When you’re on stage, we want to see you embody the character! Be ready to answer some questions about your costume, too.
  • Most importantly, have fun!

#BANC – Battle Arena NightClub Interviews & Recap

Sunday, July 11th saw a year of pent-up competitive energy unleashed from a highly unusual venue. Inflation Nightclub and Entertainment Complex has been a party fixture on Melbourne’s King Street for decades, but they’d never seen anything quite like the crowd of 240+ FGC diehards hollering over the noise of the venue to celebrate a knockout blow. 

 

BANC2021 in full swing

With a brief window to take advantage of lowered COVID restrictions but no way to facilitate a full-sized major, an event was planned to carry on the spirit of BAM in the best available venue, and thus we got to enjoy #BANC – Battle Arena Nightclub 2021.

Read more

BAM 2021 – Postponed to 2022. New Melbourne July Event planned

To all the FGC community from the dedicated BAM team, we are announcing the postponenment of BAM 2021. After careful consideration of the COVID safety state across Australia, and discussions with the venue we have taken the difficult decision to postpone.

We are moving BAM to its traditional month of May, 2022.  In its place, for those that can attend in Melbourne on July 11th, we will have a special alternative event we dub “BANC” or Battle Arena Nightclub. More on this below

Why Postpone

Due to the Melbourne lockdown recently, with a slow rate of changes to restrictions, the scope of the event has been affected. Adding to the decision, new hotspots in NSW and QLD have diminished the ability for interstate visitors to attend our community’s national event.

In this uncertain environment we cannot guarantee an event befitting the scale and style expected of BAM.

What about my BAM registration?

Our team will remove all registrations and refunds will be issued for BAM progressively over the coming week. The event listing itself will remain so you can keep your bookmark for smash.gg/bam12

We will reopen BAM registration closer to the event.

Alternative Event: BANC

We have an alternative event planned called Battle Arena NightClub (BANC) at the nightclub venue, Inflation in the Melbourne CBD. We recognise there are attendees who would still like to travel on the BAM dates, and take the opportunity to play in a fighting game major.

Looking to make the best we can out of the situation, this event will have big pot bonuses and prizes, at a unique venue.

Registration is found here: smash.gg/banc.

This event will be in a bar/nightclub venue opening up for us through the day, making for a cool fighting club atmosphere.

Pot bonus – $500 minimum (up to $1,000)
We are announcing at BANC there will be a Community prize bonus from CouchWarriors:
$500 for each of these titles. If the registrations for each hit 64 or more we will double it to 1,000

  • SFV
  • Tekken
  • Melee
  • Ultimate
  • DBFZ
  • Guilty Gear Strive

BAM Bounties in effect at the Battle Arena NightClub

The recently announce BAM bounties – which reward the top players at the end of June’s CouchWarriors League ladder in 5 feature titles – SFV, Tekken, Melee, Ultimate and DBFZ.

Top of points in each game will receive FREE entry to BANC and a $50 Mwave voucher

However those players are TARGETED.

The first player to beat that player in the tournament for that game at BANC will win a $50 voucher also.

CouchWarriors League Recap – May 2021

The fires of competition have burned more brightly than ever before across the CouchWarriors League, as we count down the days before the long-awaited BAM12 major. The month of May set a new all-time record for most ranking points on offer, impacting the race across all five CWL games.

In the past, the league rankings have often been dominated by a handful of regional champions who can reliably scoop their local tournament every time – but 2021 is looking different. Not only have we seen a few instances of top players traveling interstate to play spoiler for one event, but almost every game and region is seeing a more even spread of winners as the months roll on. It’s been the perfect way to foreshadow the inevitable clash for bragging rights we’ll see at BAM.

Read more

BAM12 Registration Roundup!

Get hype! The biggest AusFGC news of the year is the biggest AusFGC event of the year: BAM 2021.

Battle Arena Melbourne is making its comeback in 2021. Held from July 9th-11th, #BAM12 will feature the peak of competitive play for fighting games across Australia as part of the CouchWarriors League, as well as a rare chance for our top talent to battle world-class opposition. Expanding the gaming on offer, alongside BAM will be ITZ Gaming PC LAN (more on that below)!

BAM’s status as Australia’s top Major on the official circuits brings together players and broadcasters from all sorts of games, and CouchWarriors are going in even harder on that big-tent ethos with this year’s event. Whether you count yourself among the hardcore competitors, niche game specialists, casual fans, artists, cosplayers, or game developers, #BAM12 has something to offer.

Read more

#BAMThrowback – Remembering Our Best Moments

2020 was meant to be an incredible year for our FGC, and specifically for Battle Arena Melbourne. BAM12 had an impressive list of World Tour tournaments to draw top internationals, great sponsors, the CouchWarriors League finale and increasing momentum from years of successful “big BAMs” at the MEC, ready to break all records and make news worldwide. The event is only postponed, not cancelled, so we can still look forward to our annual calendar highlight. But it’s painful to be set back after so much hard work, by a force well outside anybody’s control.

With the originally planned event dates coming and going last weekend, it would have been easy to get sucked into further disappointment. Instead, CouchWarriors took the chance to launch the #BAMThrowback hashtag, asking our community to throw up their best memories and photos from years of BAM past.

Read more

COVID-19 Update and Online Tournament Schedule

It has been a tough month or two for any community that relies on live events – our FGC included. Those following our social media accounts will know that the realities of the coronavirus pandemic have forced CouchWarriors to make a number of changes to our 2020 plans, including postponing tournaments or moving them online. To ensure an easy reference for our community over the next few months, we’re collecting those announcements in one place.

Read more

The Stories of CouchWarriors Crossup 2019

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone across the AUNZ FGC! 2019 has been a year of big tournament turnouts and big tournament performances, capped off by the year-ending mini major CouchWarriors Crossup. Full results from the event have already been reported here, but there’s so much more that goes on at any event like this than those results can really tell.

To make sure we can celebrate everything great about our community and the events we put together, this will be the first of a string of tournament recaps focusing on the best moments, images and personal achievements from those events. If you have any great moments to share or captured some good energy on camera, go ahead and send it to [email protected] so we can add them to the list!

 

THE SEASON FINALE

The BAM Path to EVO has continued to raise the stakes and bring a little continuity to tournaments in its 2nd season. Having shared leaderboards for MK11, SFV, Tekken 7 and Smash Ultimate across multiple regions has also helped spice up the interstate competition, which finally came to a head at this final event of the season. CouchWarriors sponsored travel for the Season 2 winners from interstate, who then had to run the gauntlet of local Victorian killers to make good on their titles. Read more