As we come to the end of 2019 I wanted to announce a conclusion to the "formal" STBB Monthly Beat Battle (for now anyway!).
I had been thinking about this for some time, but with the final Weekly Battle of 2019 merging with the December Monthly Battle, I figured this would be the cleanest way to end things. The winner of final Monthly battle will still host the next weekly!!
I think these battles were a lot of fun and we got even more great music from everyone involved! That being said the turnout was obviously a bit lower than the weekly - this makes sense to me as it is the weeklies are the tradition, the fast timeline helps, and with new rules/samples every week things are kept fresh! I hope that concluding these monthly battles isn't seen as anything negative or like a reaction from me
- I think it's just cool with the focus on where the demand is, the Weekly Battle 
I also think by ending the Monthly that it opens up the Side Battles section again - we haven't had one of these in some time and I've wondered if it's because of the Monthly Battle. I always thought these were a lot of fun and let the community be creative with structure/etc. I encourage anyone to try getting these going -- I'm happy to find ways to support these too, whether it be a little announcement at the top of the board or another idea I've had is creating a side-bar/logo to feature things. If you have ideas feel free to share here or shoot me a message.
Sorry for the long ramble here.. I'll finish up now haha. Thank you to everyone who participated in these! It was a lot of fun this year trying something new. I won't say that this is the end of the idea permanently, as we grow if we do get more demand for this structure I'd be happy to take this on again.
Be sure to check out the Monthly Battle Winners board which I've just updated now too!
