Here's my take, but first a little background about myself. I have never attended a tournament so I am both green and pure. Green because I don't know how things work at tourneys and pure because my mind is completely open because I've never been to one.

With that said I love the idea of a convention that has tourneys for all styles. However, Jimbo and Corey raise excellent points which all speak to the logistics of such an event. A whole lot will have to go into an event like this in order for it to be successful. Not just from the planning comittees but from participants as well. I mean headz will really have to come together to work. We've talked alot about it on the chat page and I'm even talking now, but none of this means anything until it is actually put into action.

Here are a few ideas to think about that generally address some of the concerns that have been raised. Remember, I'm just brainstorming. Hopefully these will get folks' minds working and thinking about different ways to accomplish this...If we REALLY want to accomplish this. The first order of business is to decide if we want it, every coach needs to personally give this some thought. Anyway, here are some ideas.

Single Elimination - Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe most tourneys are set up so coaches are guaranteed a few games before the elimination rounds. If we played single elimination we could get done faster. This could give coaches incentive to play more styles, and they could pick up "Guaranteed games" that way.

Running Clocks - Each round could be timed on the same running clock. For instance, when I played IM basketball there would be 5 games at a time all on the same clock. Every game had halftime at the same time. This allowed all of the games to be completed on schedule. This would also allow all PA announcements to apply to all games at any given time.

Marshall Requirement - Every coach who entered one tournament would have to "Marshall" for another tournament. If you entered two or more tournamants the requirement would still only be to marshall one. Marshalling would include helping to run that tourney. For instance, a Marshall might be assigned an area of the room to over see those game tables. He would settle any disputes. He would make sure that his game tables had all of the necessary equipment, e.g., yard markers, strategy divider, action box, etc. He would be required to take the game results to a designated area so that they can be entered into the main bracket which could be projected on a wall with an lcd projector from a laptop. This way results could be typed in immediatley. He would make sure that coaches playing in his designated area had all of the latest pertinent info pertaining to the tournament.

Just some ideas, it would be good to see what some of you have in mind that could help make this work with out us losing too much. I guess we all have to weigh what we want out of this versus what we think we would get and work from there.

Holla!

DMC