The "Southeast MI Regional Dart Tournament" was created in 2010 by Frank Benning. It had over 300 players in it's inagural year, and close to 400 last year. 2012 ALREADY looks to be larger, and the entries JUST went out. That history, and the explanation of the event is just below.
This tournament involved setting up almost 30 boards in the banquet room, with another 10 in the lounge and, for the first time ever, we blocked off lanes 1 - 16 and placed another 16 boards on the approaches. 56 boards in all. In it's innaugural year, the SE MI Regional Championships was either the largest, or 2nd largest soft tip dart tournament in the state. 2011 saw the tournament grow (lanes 1 - 18 were used), and people came forom other states to participate. This tournament starts with a Luck of the Draw Tournament Thursday night. Then starting at 9:00am Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the major competitions start. You have to know that many of these shooters are here until 3:00 or 4:00am Saturday and Sunday morning, depending on the number of events that they enter. The finals - and best shooters -- are here on Sunday. This year, the finals did not finish until almost midnight. We are talking about approximately 300 - 400 dart players competing over the 4 day period - most from out of the area. They needed to get rooms, eat at reastuarants in the area, by gasoline and generally, spend a lot of money in Waterford. This tournament, specifically, makes Waterford a destination point!
Soft Tip Darts in Waterford
2010 saw the statewide implementation of an indoor smoking ban. Airway was able to tarp off part of the large deck, and heat it with deck heaters, to give its patrons some degree of comfort from the extremes of the winter.
In the Spring of 2011, I was appalled by all of the cigarette butts that people threw into the planter areas, where we had piled up the snow. I had to hire a young kid to pick them up - one by one - until they were (almost) gone. There is no easy way to do it. They are too small to spear, and they can't be raked or vacuumed because they are in a mulch area. The discovery of all of the "butts" prompted me to install 2 dozen #10 cans, on plant hooks, all along the front of the building, the deck railing, and around the volleyball & horseshoe areas. I also installed an additional 7 "Butt Towers" in all of these areas. Hopefully, the spring of '12 will see a much cleaner area. Also, when the winter ended and it was time to take down the tarps on the deck, the odor of the cigarettes was stunning - even to smokers. We had to power wash the entire area to make it livable. For those of you that do smoke -- I have one word for you -- "Lungs". In the Fall of 2011, we installed removable walls where we previously had the tarps, and a 20 infrared deck heater. That heater throws off so much heat that I started calling that area the "tanning booth". We also coated the inside wood surfaces with semi-solid stain to make the power washing easier in the spring.
