If I hosted a PVP event, it would be well illustrated beforehand that it was exactly what it was going to be. The combat would take place in an off-island scene (I'd rather someone not get caught up in the action unawares) and people would be encouraged to only use characters they absolutely do not care about losing. (So there would be no reason to complain.) But, here are the major problems i'd like to point out, and get input on how we'd prevent.
1. Powergaming. A good number of roleplayers think that the point in rp fighting is to win. This is a terrible way to go through rp scenes and is only going to lead to dissatisfaction for everyone involved. So how will we avoid this?
2. Drama - Loss of character in particular, here. No matter how much I warn people not to bring characters they don't want to lose, somebody will. How do we avoid drama from character death?
And, finally, and most difficult -
3. Time. People will be stubborn about wanting to win, and believe me, this will make the event take FOREVER. How are we going to avoid the event taking up a painful amount of time?
I'd rather avoid a tournament type fight. The point in this event would be to bring about serious, high risk pc vs pc combat - Tournaments and sparring are not something that particularly requires an EC to handle.