exaWe would like still to run playoffs for the open part of the tournament as it seems that it is something that players would be more interested in. At the moment, we are just trying to work on a playoff structure that would work with the schedule of the venue as well as potentially seeing if we can secure more PCs on Day 2 to help with this. Once more details are finalized, that will be announced.
Could work with only 42 available pcs. One invite team will be eliminated for day 2 so the other 3 teams would take up 18 pcs. Then there are 24 remaining, this can run 2 open playoff matches at once. Swapping pcs for different teams to play isnt that hard to do since localhost isnt byoc anyways. Some playoff structures would work in the necessary time constraint and not require more than 2 concurrent matches (ex. 4 team single elim w/ bo3s). Could also do a round 1 of playoffs on day 1 to run a total 8 team bracket. Double elim would probably require lower bracket games to be bo1s to fit in schedule, or require more day 1 playoff games, so thats why i suggest single elim. Of course more pcs would give you freedom to do different structures with more teams playing on day 2 but you could still work with 42 pcs and ending before 8 pm.
The number of groups/ number of matches in group stage should also be designed to fit around the number of teams in playoff (ex. if going with 8, split into either 4 groups with bo3 round robin or 2 groups with bo1 round robin (2 groups is generally what past lans have gone with)). 3 groups doesnt really make sense for any playoff structure since even 6 team bracket is really a 4/2 split (one of the group winners/second places will be treated differently from the others and will have to make the decision by round difference or something else arbitrary)