The Event
About the NorthEast Championship(NEC)
The Northeast Championships is a series of fighting game tournaments created by Eric “Big E” Small and held on the first weekend in December in Philadelphia, PA. NEC is always held on the first weekend of December at the Sheraton Suites Philadelphia Airport Hotel. More information about the location is available on the location page. The Northeast Championship has grown so much over the years and attendence has increased to well over 700 participants. All participants come from all over the North American region and even played host to many players from Europe.
This event, now in its twelth year, runs a variety of tournaments for fighting games. These games run from the latest and greatest games (Super Street Fighter 4 AE, Marvel vs Capcom 3) to popular cult favorites(Blaz Blue: Continuum Shift and Melty Blood: Actress Again) to fighting games that have been competitively played for nearly a decade or more (Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo). Furthermore, players even run their own side tournaments and end up running a myriad of events, no matter how obscure or bad the game is. Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Super Puzzle Fighter, TMNT Tournament Fighter, and Shaq Fu are just a few examples of games run on the side.
One of the best things about NEC(and including Winter Brawl and Summer Jam) is the multiple stream setups. Multiple streams are set up so the player has a choice in watching what they desire be it 3D fighters, 2D fighters, or even side events. For the main room streaming services, which include SSF4AE and MvC3, are handled by Team Sp00ky. The 3D fighters stream which include Soul Calibur 4, Tekken 6, Virtua Fighter 5 and Dead or Alive is handled by Jaxel of 8WayRun.com. Streams for all Mortal Kombat games are handled by UltimateMK and Test Your Might.com.
There is a $30 online venue fee($40 at the door if choosen not to register online) charged to all tournament players and $15 to non-tournament players to cover venue fees. This is on top of the fees that need to be paid to enter each tournament; tournament entry fees are on a per-game basis. The potential payouts for each tournament are also game-dependent. Entry fees can be paid either via PayPal or on-site during the event. Sign-ups for the event can be submitted online or one can opt to sign up for the event on-site.
We hope you decide to come out and join us, where the real players play.
About GVN Winter Brawl
GVN Winter Brawl is an East Coast tournament that is annualy held at the end of every february. Winter Brawl is a tournament event created by Hubbs and used to be called the East Coast Winter Brawl. Hubbs would later team up with NEC’s Big E for Winter Brawl 3.
Winter Brawl 1 started out as a 24 man Dead or Alive only tournament which quickly changed when winter brawl 2 came around. Winter Brawl 2 then incorporated 3D fighters by including not only DOA4 but also Tekken 5DR and Virtua Fighter 5. Winter Brawl 1 and 2 were held at the Virtual Rush Lan Center in Media, PA before the store was closed down. Soon after Eric and Hubbs teamed up for Winter Brawl 3 and many great changes came. Eric’s deep roots with the 2D fighting community plus connections at SRK along with the newly released Street Fighter 4 on consoles greatly increased attendence. Winter Brawl 3 was also the first tournament to be ran in the beautiful Sheraton Suites Hotel.
Winter Brawl 4 continued where WB3 left off at. Attendence increased again, despite a small snow scare, and so did the number of games for participants to compete in. Games like Guilty Gear, Blazblue CT, and Tatsunoko vs Capcom were added to the mix. Winter Brawl 5 would finally see the event etch its place as a major tournament on the east coast with the Evolution Championship Series recognizing it and allowing it to be the 2nd tournament of the year to be an Evo Qualifier.
About GVN Summer Jam
GVN Summer Jam is actually the merging of 2 tournaments, GVN Summer Bash and Summer Jam. For years Big E had ran a summer time equivilent of NEC calling it Summer Jam. Hubbs started running the GVN Summer Bash the same year winter brawl debutted. Summer Jam ran for a few years until it was discontinued by Big E. Summer Bash ran for 2 years before the merger from Big E’s and Hubbs’ new partnership back at Winter Brawl 3.
More Info about Summer Jam will be coming soon…