What makes a great tournament?

[terryl965]

I was just curious to what each and everyone of you would do if you was putting on a tournament? We all have complained about almost every tournament so if you was in charge what would you do to make it so outstanding that every single competitor would want to come back year after year?

 

[mango.man]

Follow the Jimmy Kim Invitational model:

• Well trained referees
• Matted rings of at least 7X7
• Electronic Scoring
• Preassigned rings and match numbers
• Online Registration that once registered will allow you to see all other registrants either by school or by weight division
• Plenty of seating above floor level so that everyone can see everything they need to see from the stands and not have to go right against ringside to block everyone else's view
• Consistent enforcement of the rules (at least in the same ring, preferably in all rings)
• No long drawn out opening ceremony with speeches, introductions, demonstrations etc. If there is an opening ceremony, keep it under 5 minutes. "Hey everyone, thanks for coming. Good luck to all. Let's fight". If you want to hand out trophies etc to masters and grand masters do so while fights are happening.
• A decent sound system is a must, preferably with someone that speaks a recognizable form of english on the other side of the mic. I hate hearing announcements all day long that I am not able to understand either because the person making the announcement cant speak the language or the system being used was bought for $3.98 at the local Radio Shack the night before.
• No lunch that brings EVERYTHING TO A STOP for at least an hour. If you have 8-10 rings setup, no more than 2-3 should be closed for a break at a time.
• Decent food options for the fighters and spectators or allow them to bring their own food in. I hate being told I can't bring my own food in and the only options I have when buying food inside is hot dogs or pizza.
• Have an established, padded area for athletes to warm up in.

These are just a few things that are done at The JKI that make it a great tournament that draws competitors not just from all over the country but all over the world year after year.

Last year, although there were some glitches, The JKI used twitter to keep people informed both leading up to the competition as well as during the competition. I thought is was a pretty cool use of the technology to send out tweets like "Color belts in group 200 should report to Ring 5" etc.

 

[Bones]

If i recall correctly, JKI also projected numbers on the wall so competitiors could really see who was up next, etc. Anything keeping people from waiting in the holding area for 3/4 of a day is nice.

 

[ATC]

Well not sure what I would do, but the JKI and Stanford both are about as good as you can get. Both look for new ways to make things better and better each year. Both use technology to keep advancing.

The one thing that I really like about Stanford is that they use a modified double elimination system. So if you lose your first fight you just don't go home. You still have a chance and you get at least 2 matches. Another reason the system is pretty cool is that you don't have the top people eliminating each other right off the bat. You can have the top two people get matched up first but the loser still has a chance as he will fight in the loser bracket having a change to meet the person that beat him again.

It is just a really cool system that Stanford uses

 

[Gorilla]

I think that mango man hits it on the head.

For TDT we like all those things but we will go to any tournament no matter how disorganized or poorly run if we can be assured of strong competition.

The most important thing to us is knowing who is going to fight and will our fighter have strong competition.


Great fights nothing else matters. Will show up to fight in your back yard if the opponents are good!!!!!!!

If you have National Level fighters coming to your tournament publicize it. For us Jimmy Kim is a must. The BB division its is as competitive as Nationals.

 

[StudentCarl]

Amen to projection, and the same goes for holding. At USAT J.O.s/Nationals, the lack of visuals (whether whiteboard or projected) made everyone more confused and reliant on the PA system.

Well-thought-out holding area process complements what should be done correctly in and around the rings.