We made a big bowl of popcorn and settled into the couch to watch the live stream, and, after the popcorn had been eaten, I took out my sewing, and we happily sat on the couch for hours as the tournament played out before us on the big screen, with active comments and discussion by our hosts. It was delightful.
They did occasionally had technical difficulties, and/or pauses in the tournament (including one when they moved everything into the shelter of a building, as it had begun to rain very heavily), during which they played slideshow of cards for each of the individual champions and consorts, with a photo, their arms, and saying for whom they are fighting (or whom they are inspiring that day). There was a lot of delightful heraldry on display during these intermissions.
The commentators for the livestream spent a bit of time early on discussing how delightful it is that the rapier community in the East is so diverse, and that there were quite a few entrants where both the fighter and the consort share a gender, that there are nonbinary entrants, and that there were people who entered despite needing accommodations, such as one fighting from a wheelchair.
This discussion prompted Keldor to start watching for people who were wearing badges or colours from one or more of the groups in the Pride community, and he happily spotted a number of them during the course of the event. The example he most enjoyed was Master Robert Tytes (called ”Bobby Tytes” on the list tree that they showed later in the day), who was wearing one knee high rainbow-horizontal-striped sock on one leg, and a yellow and orange vertical-striped sock on the other, and knee length breeches, with one orange leg, and the other yellow, so there was no missing the one rainbow sock.
Note that ”Bobby” was also really fun to watch fighting, with plenty of hopping and visible joy in combat, and clearly, plenty of skill.
The other fashion statement that Keldor truly loved is the clothing of Ryoukojin, Sovereign of the East, who was wearing a glorious purple and gold over robe, which, when the camera came close, was revealed to be a print of purple flowers and gold skulls. Keldor wants some of that fabric!
The tournament was run first as a round robin list of 8 fields, which meant that there were 11 fighters on each field (assuming no one had to drop out due to illness), so I assume that everyone got in plenty of fighting.