v4extreme
Smash Journeyman
In this thread, I would like to share some realizations I had in my experience as a TO. When I started the Midstate Massacre tournament series, my goal was for it to grow into a large event. Starting with a small local scene, I wanted to attract the top in state players as well as notable out of state attendance. The first two tournaments I ran were fairly small, around 50 unique entrants, and we finished 5 events before 9pm. The third event I hosted was after Evo 2013 and the release of the documentary. The local scene and the popularity of Project M had exploded, resulting in an unexpectedly large turnout for my third event that I was not expecting and was thoroughly unprepared for. The opportunity to achieve my goal of hosting a large event was dropped on top of me, and I was not equipped to handle it at all. Midstate Massace 3 was a disaster ridden with organizational errors. Many people who paid were entered into the wrong game or not entered at all, and the mistakes were not realized until the bracket was too far along to do anything about it. We finished most events extremely late and were not able to finish Project M.
I am still running tournaments. I took note of the errors that caused this tournament to fail, and have been taking them into account as I strive to improve my series. In this thread I have attempted to describe processes I have implemented as a result of learning from my mistakes. Hopefully this will allow others to learn from my mistakes as well rather than making those mistakes themselves, and allow the community to run more successful events and prevent events from failing.
Accessing your resources to determine how big your tournament can be
SETUPS: How many setups will you and your local community be able to provide? If you’re running multiple games that can be run on one console (such as Melee and PM), how many setups that can run both will be dedicated to either game at a time? When will you switch them over?
VENUE: How much space do you have? How many outlets, tables, and chairs? Once the room is filled with setups, how many people can the space comfortably accommodate?
TIME: How many total hours do you have to complete the tournament? Estimate how many entrants you can accommodate based on the number of setups you have and approximately how long it takes to play a set.
STAFF: If you are running multiple events, it is helpful to have a dedicated person to handle the bracket for each event (generally this is only feasible if each TO has their own laptop). If multiple events are going on simultaneously with one person managing all the brackets, that person can get overwhelmed, which will hinder the efficiency of reporting results and calling matches. If you were planning to be the sole TO of your event, I highly recommend getting a friend involved if you can.
Using these factors, you must determine entry caps for your events. It doesn’t matter how small you expect your event to be relative to the resources you have. Figure out the maximum number of entrants you can accommodate per game and state that from the beginning. Midstate Massacre 3 was the result of more participants coming than the TO was expecting or able to handle. Do not allow this to happen. You determine the size of your event, not the participants. It doesn’t matter how small you expect the event to be; there’s no reason not to cap entry. Having these rules in place will ensure your series continues to succeed as it grows and more people show up. Additionally, the good organization will give your tournament a good reputation.
Preregistration
Having an online preregistration, in my opinion, is a must. Done correctly, this can not only have a massive reduction on the time it takes to create a bracket and start calling matches, it also increases your awareness of tournament attendees and resources ahead of time. I recommend using a google form. Here are some considerations:
INCENTIVE: My experience suggests an incentive to preregister is crucial. There was a preregistration form for Midstate Massacre 3. Very few of the attendees bothered with it, obviously not enough for me to realize how large the turnout would be. Until MSM3, I never charged a venue fee because the venue doesn’t cost me. Now, I charge one solely as an incentive for prereg and to bring setups.
CUTOFF: Specify the cutoff time for preregistration very early in advance and close the form at this time. This could be anywhere from the day before the tournament to a couple of weeks before. You don’t want people showing up at the tournament who “preregistered” the morning of the tournament after you stopped checking the form- this doesn’t help you.
ONLINE PAYMENT: Personally I think this is a hassle, and I don’t really think it increases efficiency. Just have the people who filled out the form hand you cash at check in. The advantage this does have is that it increases the credibility of registration (if someone hasn’t paid its easy for them to fill out the form and then decide not to show up), but I find this pretty negligible.
FORM QUESTIONS:
-Real name
-Tag
-What events they’re entering
-Doubles partner
-Region, perhaps even carpool: make sure people don’t play their training partner first round
-What setups they are brining
SEEDING AND BRACKET CREATION: Do not wait until the day of the tournament to begin seeding and creating the brackets. Most of the information you need to do so is right in front of you in the prereg form. Create a participants list in challonge and seed people as they register. The bracket creation process will be 90% complete even before the day of the tournament. This is a huge time saver.
CHECK IN PROCESS: Create a spreadsheet of preregistered participants. When they arrive, check them off/highlight them. Confirm they brought the setups they said they would, charge venue fee accordingly. When it’s cutoff time for registration and check in, delete any preregistered players from challonge.
If possible, have one TO run check in for preregistered players and another TO run day of registration. That was two separate lines can be formed and speed up the process. This is doable with one laptop if you print off the spreadsheet of preregistered players.
Importance of Clearly Establishing Rules and Schedule Ahead of Time
A tentative schedule is not good enough. Ambiguity is your enemy. If registration and check in runs late, your earlier resource assessment of how much time you have is now inaccurate. Put a specific schedule in your thread. Repeatedly draw attention to cutoff times leading up the event. Do not deviate from your schedule. If someone has not checked in after the cutoff time, they aren’t in bracket. Don’t sacrifice the tournament experience of those who followed the rules and showed up on time for the sake of those who didn’t.
Efficiency/Process of Running the Tournament
CALLING MATCHES: This is where you need to be aware of the number of setups you have and make sure those setups are always fully utilized. If you do not have an excess number of setups, make it clear that no friendlies are to be played. If you do have more setups than you need, specify which are for friendlies/warm ups and which are for tournament. Figure out how many setups you have for a game and call that many matches. It’s also helpful to call “on deck” matches once the setups are full- this means announcing the next wave, to be played as soon as a setup becomes available.
KEEPING THE BRACKET EVEN: This is important to prevent some players from waiting an unreasonable amount of time between games. If someone is eliminated late in winners but losers is held up, they could have to wait for hours in a large bracket. Two strategies are available here: alternate calling a round of winners and a round of losers, or call straight through winners before calling any losers. Alternating winners and losers keeps the time between matches for all players mostly constant; calling winners first means that after a players first loss, they know they have time to take a break. Make sure they know this.
DISQUALIFICATIONS: Make DQ times (i.e., 10 minutes after match is called) known in the thread and via announcement when the event starts. Call a wave of matches, start a timer. If a player isn’t present when timer is up, they forfeit the match. Make sure to communicate clearly- it’s only fair to DQ a player if they didn’t show up of their own fault.
MANAGING CROSSOVER ENTRY FOR SIMULTANEOUS EVENTS: If your event is large enough that this is going to be a problem, you really need to have a dedicated TO for each game, as mentioned above. Each TO has a laptop, which makes it easy to communicate about which players are currently in a match. A google doc or something similar can be used to identify when a player is in a match. I recommend creating a list of only players who are in multiple events, and having the TO highlight the players when they call their match. Make sure two events are not calling a wave of matches at the same time, and check the google doc to make sure a player is available before calling their match.
FEEDING COMPETITORS FROM ONE GAME TO ANOTHER AFTER ELIMINATION: This is a strategy you might use to overlap events without having players participate in both at the same time. For instance, many players do not like switching between doubles and singles. You may want to accommodate this, but don’t want to wait until the conclusion of doubles to start singles. If your registration and check in cutoff time for both events was before either of them started, that’s no problem. Create a list of players who are in both games, just as you do in the crossover management method described above, and highlight players when they are eliminated from the first event. As matches in the second event involving only players eliminated from the first event become available, call them.
I am still running tournaments. I took note of the errors that caused this tournament to fail, and have been taking them into account as I strive to improve my series. In this thread I have attempted to describe processes I have implemented as a result of learning from my mistakes. Hopefully this will allow others to learn from my mistakes as well rather than making those mistakes themselves, and allow the community to run more successful events and prevent events from failing.
Accessing your resources to determine how big your tournament can be
SETUPS: How many setups will you and your local community be able to provide? If you’re running multiple games that can be run on one console (such as Melee and PM), how many setups that can run both will be dedicated to either game at a time? When will you switch them over?
VENUE: How much space do you have? How many outlets, tables, and chairs? Once the room is filled with setups, how many people can the space comfortably accommodate?
TIME: How many total hours do you have to complete the tournament? Estimate how many entrants you can accommodate based on the number of setups you have and approximately how long it takes to play a set.
STAFF: If you are running multiple events, it is helpful to have a dedicated person to handle the bracket for each event (generally this is only feasible if each TO has their own laptop). If multiple events are going on simultaneously with one person managing all the brackets, that person can get overwhelmed, which will hinder the efficiency of reporting results and calling matches. If you were planning to be the sole TO of your event, I highly recommend getting a friend involved if you can.
Using these factors, you must determine entry caps for your events. It doesn’t matter how small you expect your event to be relative to the resources you have. Figure out the maximum number of entrants you can accommodate per game and state that from the beginning. Midstate Massacre 3 was the result of more participants coming than the TO was expecting or able to handle. Do not allow this to happen. You determine the size of your event, not the participants. It doesn’t matter how small you expect the event to be; there’s no reason not to cap entry. Having these rules in place will ensure your series continues to succeed as it grows and more people show up. Additionally, the good organization will give your tournament a good reputation.
Preregistration
Having an online preregistration, in my opinion, is a must. Done correctly, this can not only have a massive reduction on the time it takes to create a bracket and start calling matches, it also increases your awareness of tournament attendees and resources ahead of time. I recommend using a google form. Here are some considerations:
INCENTIVE: My experience suggests an incentive to preregister is crucial. There was a preregistration form for Midstate Massacre 3. Very few of the attendees bothered with it, obviously not enough for me to realize how large the turnout would be. Until MSM3, I never charged a venue fee because the venue doesn’t cost me. Now, I charge one solely as an incentive for prereg and to bring setups.
CUTOFF: Specify the cutoff time for preregistration very early in advance and close the form at this time. This could be anywhere from the day before the tournament to a couple of weeks before. You don’t want people showing up at the tournament who “preregistered” the morning of the tournament after you stopped checking the form- this doesn’t help you.
ONLINE PAYMENT: Personally I think this is a hassle, and I don’t really think it increases efficiency. Just have the people who filled out the form hand you cash at check in. The advantage this does have is that it increases the credibility of registration (if someone hasn’t paid its easy for them to fill out the form and then decide not to show up), but I find this pretty negligible.
FORM QUESTIONS:
-Real name
-Tag
-What events they’re entering
-Doubles partner
-Region, perhaps even carpool: make sure people don’t play their training partner first round
-What setups they are brining
SEEDING AND BRACKET CREATION: Do not wait until the day of the tournament to begin seeding and creating the brackets. Most of the information you need to do so is right in front of you in the prereg form. Create a participants list in challonge and seed people as they register. The bracket creation process will be 90% complete even before the day of the tournament. This is a huge time saver.
CHECK IN PROCESS: Create a spreadsheet of preregistered participants. When they arrive, check them off/highlight them. Confirm they brought the setups they said they would, charge venue fee accordingly. When it’s cutoff time for registration and check in, delete any preregistered players from challonge.
If possible, have one TO run check in for preregistered players and another TO run day of registration. That was two separate lines can be formed and speed up the process. This is doable with one laptop if you print off the spreadsheet of preregistered players.
Importance of Clearly Establishing Rules and Schedule Ahead of Time
A tentative schedule is not good enough. Ambiguity is your enemy. If registration and check in runs late, your earlier resource assessment of how much time you have is now inaccurate. Put a specific schedule in your thread. Repeatedly draw attention to cutoff times leading up the event. Do not deviate from your schedule. If someone has not checked in after the cutoff time, they aren’t in bracket. Don’t sacrifice the tournament experience of those who followed the rules and showed up on time for the sake of those who didn’t.
Efficiency/Process of Running the Tournament
CALLING MATCHES: This is where you need to be aware of the number of setups you have and make sure those setups are always fully utilized. If you do not have an excess number of setups, make it clear that no friendlies are to be played. If you do have more setups than you need, specify which are for friendlies/warm ups and which are for tournament. Figure out how many setups you have for a game and call that many matches. It’s also helpful to call “on deck” matches once the setups are full- this means announcing the next wave, to be played as soon as a setup becomes available.
KEEPING THE BRACKET EVEN: This is important to prevent some players from waiting an unreasonable amount of time between games. If someone is eliminated late in winners but losers is held up, they could have to wait for hours in a large bracket. Two strategies are available here: alternate calling a round of winners and a round of losers, or call straight through winners before calling any losers. Alternating winners and losers keeps the time between matches for all players mostly constant; calling winners first means that after a players first loss, they know they have time to take a break. Make sure they know this.
DISQUALIFICATIONS: Make DQ times (i.e., 10 minutes after match is called) known in the thread and via announcement when the event starts. Call a wave of matches, start a timer. If a player isn’t present when timer is up, they forfeit the match. Make sure to communicate clearly- it’s only fair to DQ a player if they didn’t show up of their own fault.
MANAGING CROSSOVER ENTRY FOR SIMULTANEOUS EVENTS: If your event is large enough that this is going to be a problem, you really need to have a dedicated TO for each game, as mentioned above. Each TO has a laptop, which makes it easy to communicate about which players are currently in a match. A google doc or something similar can be used to identify when a player is in a match. I recommend creating a list of only players who are in multiple events, and having the TO highlight the players when they call their match. Make sure two events are not calling a wave of matches at the same time, and check the google doc to make sure a player is available before calling their match.
FEEDING COMPETITORS FROM ONE GAME TO ANOTHER AFTER ELIMINATION: This is a strategy you might use to overlap events without having players participate in both at the same time. For instance, many players do not like switching between doubles and singles. You may want to accommodate this, but don’t want to wait until the conclusion of doubles to start singles. If your registration and check in cutoff time for both events was before either of them started, that’s no problem. Create a list of players who are in both games, just as you do in the crossover management method described above, and highlight players when they are eliminated from the first event. As matches in the second event involving only players eliminated from the first event become available, call them.
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