Laser Memories from 2022

Laser Memories from 2022

While playing my last few laser tag games of 2022, I contemplated how many amazing laser tag experiences I had this past year. 

As we look forward to ringing in 2023, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on my top 10 favorite laser tag experiences of 2022.

1. Being on the Laser Tag Day poster

Getting asked to be the 2022 Laser Tag Day poster model definitely takes the cake! It was as much an honor to be the poster girl as it was to actually wear the rare Pulsar pack, which was sent over from the U.K. for my photo session before it was eventually forwarded on for inclusion in the Laser Tag Museum’s collection.

2. Speaking at the Laser Tag Convention

It was a privilege to be able to talk about how Exceptional Arenas Make A Lasting Impression to a group of laser tag industry professionals in Las Vegas. I am delighted to say I will be returning to the convention as a speaker in 2023 as well.

3. My 400th laser tag arena

For months in advance I had planned to mark this milestone number by playing at Kynytyx. Although there were a few timing challenges to overcome in making it happen, the way it all came together makes it even more special to say that this new business on Long Island was officially my 400th arena played.

4.  Playing in the U.S. Zone Nationals

This was quite an experience and an adventure all around! As a player without a proper Zone site anywhere nearby for practice, I pretty much rely on tournaments as my sole opportunity for this kind of competitive experience. It was great to be adopted onto a team to be able to enjoy being part of a national tournament level competition.

5. The return of Armageddon

After a two year hiatus following the COVID-19 pandemic, Armageddon returned and our team reunited and expanded. It was great to be playing together again and this event was definitely memorable!

6. Laser Unfocused Tag Talk

I’ve been talking about doing a laser tag podcast for a while and this year I finally made the leap and got it started. This year I recorded and released my first 12 episodes and you can hear new episodes every first and third Friday on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

7. Interviewing the industry leaders

During IAAPA in Orlando I spent several days interviewing the laser tag industry leaders from every major manufacturer in attendance. I thank them all for taking the time to share their latest innovations and knowledge about the future for the laser tag industry.

8. Laser Tag Day

I started Laser Tag Day being interviewed on several of central New York’s top radio stations before bringing Tag 4 A Cause to a local arena where I signed autographs on the Laser Tag Day poster. Talk about the celebrity treatment!

9. Touring Battle Company HQ

I’ve been fortunate get to visit several laser tag manufacturer’s home office locations. This year I got both a tour of the Battle Company headquarters and an opportunity to tag at their on-site arena with their staff while I was passing through Wisconsin.

10. The story behind the Tivia avatar

Technically the Tivia avatar was released by Laserforce at the end of 2021, but I didn’t hear the full story until I sat down with Rohan Kelly during IAAPA 2022 where he confirmed on the record that this avatar was in fact actually designed with me in mind. As a side note, just last night I played laser tag and a younger player asked me “why does the picture on your screen look like you?” I am so pleased that THIS is the answer to that question.

So as we say goodbye to 2022, I am so thankful for all the amazing opportunities that I have had in the world of laser tag. I already have a few big plans for 2023, so stick around and let’s see what cool adventures the new year brings!

Comments or Questions? 

Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com 

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Hit Me with a Megabase

There are so many game formats available (true on many systems) that hardly ever get trotted out during public games. However, the day after Christmas was unusual at my local arena. First, it was open on a Monday (to accommodate the vacation week) with a decent amount of players of all ages. Second, we were offered some unusual game choices including one I could not recall having played before…Megabase.

So let me explain the game, including a few key points that were inadvertently overlooked during the briefing (ahem…Boxes, Felt). First, every target in the arena became a base. That includes standard bases, wall targets and beacons. For some reason only 11 (out of a possible 13) seemed to be active, but that is still a lot of targets to hit.

Here’s the first thing that Boxes overlooked when explaining the rules. He said each base was worth 1001 points. In actuality, they were worth 5001 points.

The other thing Boxes failed to mention (he says he did, but you believe whoever you think is the more credible source) is that you can deactivate all the bases more than once. Well…that’s how THIS happened.

I enjoyed Megabase and am surprised it hasn’t come up more often because people love to rack up high scores and with a proper explanation lots of players could walk out with a nice, high score.

Comments or Questions? 

Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com 

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Santa Plays Laser Tag

SANTA, WHERE DID YOU GO?

NOBODY HAS SEEN YA,

HE’S PROBABLY LASER TAGGING

AT THE NORTH POLE ARENA

HE WANTED TO WARM UP

FROM THE CHILL OF THE SNOW

AND HE WALKED IN TO FIND

ALL THE PHASERS AGLOW

SO HE PICKED UP THE PACK

THAT FIT OVER HIS BELLY

AND RACKED UP A SCORE

THAT MADE THE OTHER PLAYERS JELLY

WITH A TWINKLE IN HIS EYE

AND A SMILE ON HIS FACE

SANTA DEACTIVATED

EVERY LAST BASE

AND AFTER HE TAGGED

ALL THE RED AND GREEN LIGHTS

HE YELLED “HOPE THIS CHRISTMAS YOU ALL

HAVE A HAPPY, ZAPPY NIGHT!”

Comments or Questions? 

Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com 

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Let’s Talk LASERTRON - New Podcast Episode Featuring Brad Paquin

On this week’s episode of the Laser Unfocused Tag Talk podcast, let’s talk LASERTRON as Brad Paquin shares his experience and advice. Check out what he has to say!

ON SPOTIFY:

https://open.spotify.com/show/0xzXT3aqGa2edIlXpcaJBS

ON APPLE PODCASTS:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/laser-unfocused-tag-talk-with-tivia/id1632442213

ON YOUTUBE:

https://youtu.be/kDuhLin2LA4

Comments or Questions? 

Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com 

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

A Holiday Tradition

The media company I work for has been conducting central New York’s largest holiday toy drive for the past 15 years. 

My own personal holiday tradition is to add some laser tag toys to the effort so that on Christmas morning somewhere a child is going to be able to experience laser tag at home, perhaps for the first time. 

What you see here is the cumulative result of weeks of our team and our partners doing toy collections during radio broadcasts, special events, school challenges and more and this week we are distributing the toys to over 30 local charities who will get them out to families in need to make the holiday season a little merrier for over 8000 local children. 

For size perspective, that dot you see in the upper left corner against the yellow wall is me standing on a ladder next to the mountain of toys.

My thanks to everyone who donated to make this toy drive such a tremendous success once again!

Comments or Questions? 

Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com 

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Interviews at IAAPA on the Podcast

I recently had an opportunity to talk with laser tag industry professionals in attendance at the IAAPA Expo 2022 trade show to learn what they are most excited to share, what cool things they have seen at the show and what they predict for the future of the laser tag industry in the coming year. Hear what they had to say on this week’s episode of the Laser Unfocused Tag Talk podcast.

ON SPOTIFY:

https://open.spotify.com/show/0xzXT3aqGa2edIlXpcaJBS

ON APPLE PODCASTS:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/laser-unfocused-tag-talk-with-tivia/id1632442213

ON YOUTUBE:

https://youtu.be/vKsNoOg_Q8k

Comments or Questions? 

Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com 

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

The 12 Phasers of Christmas

It’s the 12 Phasers of Christmas! Here is a Tag 4 A Cause holiday incentive as I invite you to help us finish the quarter strong, raising donations for a charitable cause I believe in very much. Starting today the first 12 donations made to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline during the month of December 2022 which mention Tag 4 A Cause in their dedication will receive a special bonus thank you gift from me for supporting this cause…a phaser-shaped holiday ornament!

Here’s how to participate:

 

1. Go to https://www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com/tag-4-988-suicide-and-crisis-lifeline and follow the directions/link to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline donation page to make your donation directly to the cause.
2. Check the “dedicate my donation” box and type “Tag 4 A Cause” as the honoree name. Then add Tivia@TiviachickLovesLaserTag.com under “notify this person by email”.
3. FINAL STEP - return to the Tag 4 A Cause page and fill in the purple “Claim Your Achievement Medal” form. I will contact the first 12 donors who complete this form to ask which style phaser ornament you want to receive as a thank you gift and I will send it to you by mail (U.S. and Canadian addresses only please). When all 12 ornaments have been claimed it will be announced on the Tag 4 A Cause page.

 

Thank you to everyone who has participated and plans to participate in Tag 4 A Cause by making a donation to help the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Learn more at:

https://www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com/tag-4-988-suicide-and-crisis-lifeline 

 

Comments or Questions?

Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Darklight Tournament Over Thanksgiving

The night before Thanksgiving while some people are preparing their houses and cooking food, I went a different way. I’m the type of person who decides to hop in my car and drive to New Jersey for a laser tag tournament instead! What amazes me is that’s I was not alone in this decision and there were eight full teams ready to go at the start of this awesome event playing Darklight at Laser One in Wantage, NJ.

I met up with my team, Pyrus Uprising, and greeted the returning core group of players I have played with before and I also met our alternates as we prepared for a full night of Darklight. 

After a couple of past experiences, my teammate Devin had learned the value of having an alternate on deck and had actually arranged for three! This was smart because we did in fact need to utilize our alternates, but I’m getting ahead of myself. 

 

We began the event rostering eight players including Chaim7 (Chaim), me, Storm Taker (Devin), IDK (Jack), Derpykitten315 (Sammy), Emerald (Andrew), Arcturus (Chris) and Maximum Sneaky (Jane).

 

The event began with eight teams numbered on the schedule as follows:

 

1.       Hooked

2.       Panyee PF

3.       Team Bean

4.       Pyrus Uprising

5.       A is for Arson

6.       Really Cool Team name

7.       Lift Dawgs

8.       Bulldogs

 

The schedule was based on eight teams of six with four teams going in at a time, all doing two rounds in each of five game formats. However, the Bulldogs dropped out after the first round, bringing it down to seven teams, which in turn leads to some interesting scenarios based on the subsequent math. 

 

Owner Jim Mainardi gave thorough briefings prior to each game format beginning.

 

First, I want to acknowledge my teammates for putting up a hard-fought battle. We won a majority of our games. Tournament scoring was based on 5 points for each first place win, 3 for second, 2 for third and 1 for fourth, so even a couple of games could have made things sway. The games often had very close margins. For example, although we didn’t win our first game, there was a reasonably small difference in score between 1st place and 2nd, but look at just how incredibly close it was between 2nd and 3rd place.

 

A scant 14 points was the difference here! That is nearly negligible…except that 14 points are still 14 points and all points do matter.

 

We won our next game of Team Basic as we maneuvered throughout the impressive (and slightly convoluted) map of this large, multi-level arena.

 

We dominated our games of Team Blasters, taking first in both rounds.

 

However, it was at this point that we lost Sammy due to back issues, so it was good that we were prepared and had Andrew and Jane rotate as alternates for the remainder of the tournament, so we could proceed without missing a beat.

 

We strategized over pizza about how we were going to proceed in The Rush. 

 

We pulled second by a very slim margin for the first game and took first place in the second game of The Rush. Then we prepared for what we perceived to be the biggest challenge (or more accurately, biggest roll of the dice), which is Pink Panther format. We couldn’t manage a first place here. In both rounds we faced the defending champions, Lift Dawgs, and they took the necessary points to secure the tournament win at this point. However, we were not far behind and were pretty sure we would pull second place for the overall event.

 

Just an interesting observation…our team appeared to be the most consistently solid as far as total player contributions. The Panyee team had Top Hat pulling the top scores every time and KC was arguably the strongest player for the Lift Dawgs, and nearly all the other players from those teams ended up pulling significantly lower points. I was pleased with my team’s consistency as evidenced that we all made solid contributions that kept us cohesively competitive here, even if it ended with a second place result.

 

Regardless, I dislike this format because it is so consistently out of balance compared to the other games.

 

The fact that Lift Dawgs had two games of Borg Acquisition and we only had one (as a mathematical outcome of the Bulldogs dropping out after the first round) meant there was no coming back even though we did win our one and only game of Borg Acquisition, which was the final game of the event.

 

At least we went out on a high note! Chaim high-fived me so hard after that game he actually knocked my bracelet right off my wrist! Good event guys…group hug!

 

Final standings looked like this:

 

My thanks to Laser One for hosting a really enjoyable tournament event. Everyone had a great time! Also, my congratulations to the Lift Dawgs on their victory. It’s always great to play competitive laser tag and I very rarely have the chance to play Darklight, so this was well worth the time to drive to New Jersey. Thankfully, I was able to return home to NY on Thanksgiving Day just in time for turkey! It’s a good day to give thanks for many things, including thanks for an opportunity to play some laser tag at Laser One.

Comments or Questions? 

Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com 

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com