In the summer of 2007, Mike “ElvenShadow” Boczar left Chicago and moved to Japan.  When he returned to visit Chicago for the 2007-2008 winter holidays, he was disappointed by the lack of gaming events or tournaments during that time and found it difficult to make time to get together with most of the Chicago and Midwest FGC.  So, for the 2008-2009 holiday season, he decided to announce his own original event in Chicago! It all starting with some grassroots community planning on the SRK forums.  A very small ballroom was rented at a local hotel, everyone was asked to bring as many CRT TVs and consoles as they could, some tournaments were decided on, and the place was packed with gamers and hype!  Being primarily a Guilty Gear player, Guilty Gear was always considered the main event at every Frosty Faustings.

 

Each year, ElvenShadow returned for the holiday season and held the event again, and each year the event grew larger and larger!  Frosty Faustings II was held at the same venue but with an extended ballroom space. Frosty Faustings III – V was held at the classic Chicagoland arcade, Nickel City.  Frosty Faustings VI was held at the former gaming lounge, Game Pazzo. With Frosty Faustings VII & VIII, the event expanded into the Crowne Plaza Chicago-Northbrook (former venue of UFGT8) which helped our small tournament grow to almost 700 attendees! The past venues were nice places but the event had clearly outgrown them. In 2017, Frosty Faustings moved to a new venue, the Clarion Inn & Waterford Conference Center in Elmhurst, IL. 2017 saw over 1000 attendees, 1400 attendees in 2018, and 1700 attendees in 2019!

 

After outgrowing the Clarion, Frostys moved to the Westin Chicago North Shore in Wheeling, IL for their largest event in 2020 with over 1400 competitors and 800 spectators! Due to availability issues, we had planned to move to the Westin in Lombard, IL for FFXIII but COVID-19 prevented us from hosting an offline event in 2021. Since it wouldn’t be January without a Frostys, we decided to run an online tournament with 12 games and 1432 competitors! It wasn’t what we expected FFXIII to look like but it was great to see everyone again, even if only virtually.

 

This year, we are returning to our offline format and will be hosting FFXIV at the Westin in Lombard, IL on January 28-29, 2022! With over 45,000 sqft of space, this year is going to be our biggest year ever. We are taking extra safety precautions by requiring all guests to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and wear masks at all times, unless eating or drinking. It’s been a difficult 18 months but we’re excited to be back and hope to see you there!