If anyone wants my thoughts on it, and I'm sure you all do, despite the fact that I'm pretty much not in the scene at the moment, is that the entry fee is fine. Honestly, there shouldn't even be payouts, beyond maybe first place getting some money, because you fucks need to realize running this shit costs money. It costs money to run the stream, it costs superarcade money to let us use their internet, it costs them money to let us hog most of the arcade with our smelly anime BO, and it costs a lot of people a lot of time. So the fact that isn't a 50% payout to 1st place and the rest of the proceeds going to people not taking as big a loss is something people need to appreciate.
If you want free Persona entry, then do a single elim tournament before the main tournament. If that cuts into other game times, try to start earlier, or not feature as many games on stream every two weeks. There are a multitude of things you can do to fix this particular problem. Not enough setups to do these things? Bring your own goddamn setups then.
SoCal anime scene is, quite frankly, the shittiest good scene. Maybe it's due to distance traveling, or other things, but East Coast and other coasts seem to have more actual fun playing the games than we do. I personally do not love Persona, despite my initial stance on it. I also know that I'm a huge fuckhead. If I've ever made anyone feel bad or uncomfortable, I'm sorry. I'll be nicer/better/whatever you guys want. But you all need to have more fun. Talk some shit, make small rivalries, do something to add a bit of fun to your games. You're all pretty boring sometimes when it comes to certain things.
Finally, I have no idea how well or poorly TlocCPU is running these things. I have no clue. I haven't heard anyone rioting, so I'm guessing he's doing decent job. If you have some constructive criticism, then you should give it to him. He hasn't been doing this very long. And becoming a leader means that Tloc will put aside any sort of ego or anything like that and listen, as long as you're not a douche about it.