The Armored League at 3 Dollar Bill · Bushwick, October 16, 2025
600+tickets. Eight fighters
in 80-pound steel. One night, produced single-handedly.
A full-contact medieval tournament under modified international Buhurt rules, a vendor market, a costume contest, and a dance floor until 2 AM at a 1,250-capacity Brooklyn venue. I marketed it, booked and contracted the talent, negotiated the venue, built the production, directed the show, and paid everyone out that night.
The night, as the crowd posted it
Six clips from the audience's own stories. Tap a clip for sound.
Instagram stories reposted by the venue, the league, the fighters, and the crowd, October 16 and 17, 2025. A full live video crew shot the night; the archive is available on request.
What I produced
Every line below was mine, from the first contract to the last payment.
- MarketingPositioned and marketed the night: a medieval tournament and a Halloween dance party in one ticket, with Bushwick Daily as media partner.
- TalentBooked the eight fighters and negotiated their contracts.
- VenueBooked 3 Dollar Bill and negotiated the venue deal for The Yard and the main room.
- ProductionLed the production setup and oversaw the day-of build-out.
- CrewHired the first assistant director and the production assistants.
- SafetyBooked the EMT and held the safety plan for full-contact bouts in 80-pound armor.
- ShowDirected the live show: single-elimination bouts under modified international Buhurt rules, then the costume contest and the sword raffle.
- VendorsBrought in the market partners, including the Bushwick collective Kaleidoscope Studios.
- MusicBooked about $10,000 in DJ talent, including Discwoman co-founder DJ Umfang, and hired the costume-contest judge.
- VideoManaged the full live video crew and the content collection.
- CloseRan teardown, stayed to collect the venue's check, and paid every fighter, DJ, vendor, and crew member.
Why this night
Two Bushwick fighters had gone viral training in full armor around the neighborhood, and the sport had never been staged for a Brooklyn crowd. The bet was that a room built for dance parties would fill for a tournament if the tournament turned into the party. It did: a full yard for the bouts, a full floor until 2 AM, more than 600 tickets sold.
The same discipline runs the rest of my work: own the whole thing, measure it, and write down what happened. My day job is the production AI system that publishes Bushwick Daily. The write-ups are at verification-desk and agentic-newsroom-infrastructure.
"Brooklyn has never seen anything like this."Damion DiGrazia, head of The Armored League, in the Bushwick Daily preview