What is East Coast Stamina?

East Coast Stamina (ECS) is a high level competition centered around a selection of some of the most difficult custom content available for In The Groove, a four-panel dance game similar to Dance Dance Revolution. It has been an annual tournament since September 2011, eventually becoming a biannual event starting with ECS2.5. East Coast Stamina 9 is a remote event this year, but it is normally a live event.

ECS9 features an upper division and lower division; if you wish to compete in either, you'll need to have participated in the Stamina RPG 4 qualifiers, which are now over. The top 24 players on the ranking for combined TP/LP are able to enter the Upper Division for ECS9.

Current event standings can be found here:

There's also a page with a schedule and links for the Twitch streams of the various competitors (unfortunately this one isn't very mobile friendly, sorry). It is not mandatory to stream your set, or to schedule your stream-- adding yourself here totally up to you:

What is the format for ECS9?

Historically, the tournament has generally consisted of a "marathon" (a mix of songs usually roughly an hour in length), and then a timed set where players could choose songs from a preselected list, where the songs are assigned point values based on their difficulty in addition to the scores the players obtain on them. ECS4.5, ECS 5.5, ECS6.5, ECS7.5 and ECS8.5 have added team play as an aspect of the format, but the mainline ECS tournaments-- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and the upcoming ECS9-- have all focused on each individual competing against the other entrants to achieve the highest score possible on the marathon, and also to gain as many points as possible in the timed set.

More information on the format is available here:

How/when do I compete?

If you qualified, you can enter scores any time between September 4th, 2020 and 11:59 PM EST on September 20th, 2020.

More information on score submission can be found here:

Can I compete remotely?

Yes, in fact, there is no local competition this time due to the pandemic. There will only be remote competition this year. You can download what you need here:

How can I support SRPG/ECS?

Yeah, it costs a lot to run these events between paying for prizes, mailing said-prizes, paying for art, paying for music, paying for marathon syncing, paying for convention space for the live events, etc., and most of this comes out of my pocket. If you want to help out a little, an easy way is to buy shirts (or hats, or face masks, or whatever!). You can buy merch for various ECS and SRPG events (including SRPG4 and ECS9) at the Stamina Nation spreadshirt page:

If you just want to make a direct donation, you can use this link:

I really appreciate you guys helping out!

Acknowledgments

There's always a lot of people that I need to thank for helping make these events happen.

  • Teejusb has put in so much work the last two years to make the ECS theme a reality. Thanks so much for working with me on this stuff, man! Wouldn't be able to pull off this format without your help.
  • dbk2 needs some props as well for all of his great work on Simply Love and for helping to make the first iteration of the theme for this format back for ECS7. Thanks so much, sir!
  • Big ups to Rems for crafting one of his finest mixes yet! The hype levels at the premiere were off the charts, bro.
  • Thanks to Rems, ITGAlex, and Zaia for helping me step the marathon! You guys did a great job, and I'm looking forward to watching people struggle against this beast.
  • Huge thanks to Pluto for accommodating most of my art needs for ECS9 and Stamina RPG 4. The logos this year were the best yet!
  • I have to give Dom a big shoutout here too for helping with some change management issues I was having working on the ECS9 site. Thanks dude!
  • Rawinput wrote the original score automation script that we used for the last two events. I used that as a base for all the changes that were necessary to make the event remote. Thank you for always helping me and for being so supportive over the years! I couldn't ask for a better friend than you.
  • I want to thank SF EVOLVED for having me on their podcast to talk about SRPG and stamina in general-- it was great promotion for the events. Thank you!
  • Thanks to all the stepartists who created content that was used across the two divisions! You guys are the backbone of these events, and over the years I've enjoyed playing all of the charts that have been featured-- I've basically padded every single chart that I've been capable of passing, which is A LOT at this point. Thank you all!
  • I said it above, I'm highly appreciative of everyone that has donated to help ECS and SRPG. It means a lot to know that people like this stuff enough to help me pay for it all.
  • Everyone who helped with SRPG but wasn't mentioned above-- thank you! We had really successful qualifiers once again this year, and that's thanks in large part to your efforts.
  • Finally, to everyone who continues to participate in my events: Thanks for giving me the opportunity to impact your life in some small, hopefully positive way. Good luck to you all and I hope you'll be back for many more tournaments!
-- Ian