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This year, in addition to being marked by high attendance numbers, also included a large amount of side tournaments - tournaments not included in the main EVO lineup. While there have always been side tournaments in the past, EVO organizers showed an unprecedented amount of support this year. On Friday and Saturday, almost half of the Bring Your Own Console (BYOC) area was allotted to SSBB tournaments, ran by AllisBrawl.com. Instead of allowing items, this year's tournament used the rules the community was used to. Michael “mikeHaze” Pulido, a top Marth player from Southern California, came to this tournament, despite skipping out on last year's item-inclusive tournament. “AllisBrawl is running it with our rules,” Pulido said, when describing why he came back to EVO, “We just wanted a tournament run with the community's rules.”
The other side tournaments mentioned, sponsored by official companies like Bandai Namco and AkSys Games, received a lot of help from EVO organizers as well. Instead of finishing the tournaments on Friday and Saturday, both Bandai Namco and AkSys Games saved the grand finals for their tournaments until Sunday so that it would be displayed on the big screen. Before this year, while EVO organizers supported side tournaments, such as by allowing the Guilty Gear XX Accent Core side tournament to finish up after closing time last year, they rarely dedicated screen time on Sunday for these tournaments. The grand finals for both games amazed the crowd as they saw how complicated Tekken 6 was and the fast paced fights in BlazBlue. This was a welcome addition to EVO's Top 8 Sunday and hopefully will be in the future for games that won't be in the lineup anymore, such as Guilty Gear XX Accent Core or Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike.
