Scar, sorry if this has been asked before, but what exactly is the point of the survey in the OP? Will that download straight to programs like tio? It seems like we could streamline the process and just integrate the feature into TO programs.
Amateur Bracket is overrated. It's a concept that works for big money events like the old MLGs and stuff, but again, at the local level, it leads to bull**** where you can make more from missing the bracket than making it.
It depends on how you run the amateur bracket. In the tournaments I've run with them, I have received overwhelmingly positive feedback. The amateur bracket doesn't take any money out of the pot and is mostly for pride. I've been able to provide prizes out of pocket (box of Thin Mints and an OG NES stick) that are like participation awards, but much much cooler. For smaller tournament of 20-30 people, I have pools and use those results to seed the regular and the amateur bracket. We've been able to attract more players and it keeps new players engaged instead of just getting ***** like most people at their first tourney.
This thread is amazing.
How can I ensure pools finish on time?
^this. I was wondering about bets practices in terms of schedulnig. If you do doubles and singles and only have say 10 hours, which would you do first or would you mix them inbetween eachother. I'm asking anybody on ow the usually run the events.
Also, just wanted to bring attention to the ssbpd.com smash database. Save your tio files and upload them to the site, there's a threa din melee discussion about itan dhtye'r elooking to take in tournament results and rank players and archive results.
I'll preface with saying I'm a new TO for Smash, but am very familiar with running events in general. I have only run 3 tournaments so far, but every single one of them ran exactly on schedule (by schedule, I don't mean the posted schedule, but my adjusted schedule to account for Smasher-time. So when I say singles starts at 1pm, I know they'll start at 2pm).
Your number one weapon is your own responsibleness and conscientiousness. This means YOU know what time it is and when matches should be happening. I've seen a lot of TOs just hanging out playing friendlies and giving no ****s. You need to make sure that when you expect a match to be played out, you follow up and call it out and actually get a response from the related parties. You CANNOT count on smashers to be responsible for their matches and actually check the bracket. **** no.
Your second weapon is your designated assistants. People you trust to help you call matches, follow up on sets, enforce the rules. For pools, this means a pool leader - not necessarily the number 1 seed in the pool, but the one you know will record the sets and deliver them to you. This also means making your expectations clear to your pool leaders (none of this, "durr, I thought you were going to come up and take my pool sheet, that's why we've been playing friendlies for the last hour, hurr durr"). And even after all that, you can still only rely on YOU. Go around to check on the status of pools every half hour to hour. You can't trust anyone.
Scheduling: I have been setting the following schedule for 20-30 man tournies:
1 hour for when venue opens and friendlies
30 min for registration
2 hours for doubles
30 min for last minute singles reg (to be started during finals of doubles)
1.5 hours for pools
30 min designated food break
3-4 hours for singles
Using this framework, the schedule I posted was (venue closed at 9:00pm, so I had to start things early):
Schedule:
11:00AM Doubles registration and friendlies
12:00PM Doubles start
2:30PM Singles registration
3:00PM Singles Start
Hope this helps.
I have seen a lot of really good ideas posted. On the venue fees, I usually do basically enough to cover the electricity etc. $1 for online pre-reg and $3 at the door. I try to offer a little incentive to pre-register online so I can have some kind of headcount. Then there is the fee to enter the event, usually about $7 that goes directly to the player prize pot which I do a 60/30/10 split per event. I get the lucky job of hosting tourneys for whatever game I have enough people interested in playing. I just ran my 1st tourney using the unity ruleset and smashboards in November. I was asked to host another. I have set it up for April. 
