There are a couple of things that I feel are worth doing some serious thinking about before plans move further.
Don't shoot the messenger.
A KO in Banning is going to be a very hard sell to any contestant who will be traveling by air. LAX is approximately 100 miles away (ie, a 2-hour car ride). Transportation to and from the event is going to be the number one logistical problem. Remember that KO "4.5" (at the same venue) was essentially written off due to lack of competitors.
Issue number 2 is interest level for another live KO. I might be wrong, but my sense is that in 2018, assembling a Kong Off Row of top-score players isn't gonna be quite as easy as it was during the era when most of those scores were being set... we're talking a half-decade ago at this point. Competition and innovation on DK isn't exactly firey hot right now. We already know that the world champion won't be there unless his issue gets the resolution it deserves. We also haven't heard much lately from Dean, Hank, Vincent, Ross, Willms, Wiltshire, McCrary, et al when it comes to DK, and (aside from John and Jason) we haven't seen a rush of hungry up-and-comers filling that vacuum. And what about
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? It's probably really important, before anything has been set in stone, to actually gauge interest and establish who is going to be able and eager to make it to Banning (or New Jersey) in March. KO5 turned out great. If there's going to be a KO6, we should make sure it has a chance of being great too. We don't want to go out with a whimper.
