I’d like to direct a nice little scholastic tournament. While I’d like to make the tounament open to those from out-of-town (aren’t many players around here yet), I’m worried about an unexpectedly large turnout. The LAST thing I’d want is to have to turn away somebody. How do others handle a concern like this? Should I not even worry?
If it were an adult tournament, I’d have no concerns. A really big turn-out would be maybe 30 or 40 people. But if people are getting 300 kids in the middle of the state, Im afraid I could get a lot more than I can handle.
Around here, TDs do not allow onsite registration. At least that way you know about how many to expect.
Another idea to consider is to state the number limit of players that you will accept entries from in any advertising; i.e., something like: “limited to first 100 entries.”
Tim
“Limit to x numbers of participants.” Parent’s seems to ignore that detail.
I recently run a No entry fee scholastic tournament in our town. I specifically specify in my flyer that the room we are going to use is limited to 40 students. I asked parent’s and teachers to e-mail, call, or register in advance. There are no entry fee, so I did not think they will have a problem registering in advance. I received less than 20 entries the night before the tournament but more than 20 register on site. My participants totalled to 48 students. It’s a good thing the Library had extra tables and chairs or I will have to turn away some of the kids. I am planning to have a similar tournament next year (no entry fee, since everything was sponsored - site is free, trophies is sponsored). But next time, no onsite registration.
I would highly recommend a no onsite registration as well.
The main thing to realize is that if you don’t have adequate help, it will be chaos during the tournament, parents moving kids around, kids playing the wrong player, parents complaining because you didn’t report their kid’s score correctly (even though the kid told you the wrong thing).
The last scholastic tournament I TD’ed (I didn’t organize it), I was told there would only be 30 or so kids, and ofcourse, 170 show up.
It was a complete mess!