The Big House won’t be running an in-person event in 2021 following venue complications and the continued uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, the tournament organizer announced today.
The original venue that the team planned to host the event at was asking for a commitment to host The Big House’s 2021 iteration in person back in February, according to the tournament organizer. At the time, the team felt it was too early to do so, and thus, relinquished its hold on the venue.
After several months of continued exploration for other, potential in-person options, the team has decided that it’s not feasible to host a proper The Big House-style event for the Super Smash Bros. community this year.
“In February, we were forced to either commit to or relinquish our venue, due to the lead time required by large-scale convention centers,” The Big House said. “With the health and well-being of our community in mind, it was too early to commit to a date with the uncertain trajectory of COVID-19 and vaccinations at that time. Because of this, we’ve canceled tentative plans for 2021.”
The team didn’t share any updates on potentially bringing The Big House Online back during 2021, either. Instead, the TOs have asked that players “continue to follow us and the other amazing events happening in the meantime,” with plans to return in 2022.
It’s unclear if this means there are no plans ongoing or if the team is just not ready to mention a potential online event. But because of last year’s situation where Nintendo levied a cease and desist to The Big House Online, forcing the tournament organizers to shut down the event and saying they no longer had the rights to stream or host the event, the team might have decided not to try and run it again.
The original reason given was that Robin “Juggleguy” Harn and his team refused to not use an online mod, Slippi, to help run the Super Smash Bros. Melee portion of the event. This could lead to another Ludwig Ahgren Championship Series being hosted in place of The Big House, but this does mean we likely will go another year without seeing one of Smash’s biggest tournament series in any iteration due to COVID.
