The moment I got charged for hanging out at a friend's place like I've always done before they had locals was when I decided to exit that other scene quietly and join the fgc. I heard they suffered poor commentary and stopped locals; grass did end up greener on the other side.
TO Story time with Jebailey:
Right around the start of CEO in 2010, I would host casuals at my house weekly for free in Orlando. Local community would bring over setups and I only asked that they would keep my house clean and bring their own food/drinks.
Everything was great, I saw no reason to charge my friends as we built up the Florida community together and would have 20-30 people at my place just pushing buttons. My reward is what CEO has become today but anyone that wants to charge for an event in their house or a venue has the right to do so as the players have the right to not attend.
If the money goes towards improving the event, power, more equipment then that is how you grow.
But then one day I had to cancel it because of theft in my house until somebody fessed up.
At the time, my post workout drink was Great Value Chocolate Milk (hard times back then).
When I went for my usual drink in my fridge after a game night, I was distraught, angry and felt betrayed. I went to our Facebook group to let everyone know game nights were on hiatus because someone drank my chocolate milk. We never found out who the culprit was.
Two weeks later I decided to give everyone another chance (really I needed everyone to come over and play SSF4 for me and unlock characters on all the setups) and suggested they bring chocolate milk of their own.
I duck taped my fridge shut that night to avoid anymore protein theft. However as a joke almost everyone brought me chocolate milk by the gallons and gallons. Had to open my fridge to store it all lol..
Back then that whole situation had like 300 Facebook comments which was extremely high as everyone was still using forums. It was one of the craziest and funniest stories in Florida FGC history.
Thanks for reading. Support your locals.