2015-16 Schedule, Discussion

[AKKOLADE]

I agree with Sarah's most recent post. I'll add that, in the rare situations in which a tournament is picking up the mantle of an existing event, I think that people should try to extend the courtesy of contacting the previous editors/writers of that event to see if they plan to return. (For example, even though it's been a while since the last CO trash, I contacted David Seal to make sure he had no plans for a glorious return before announcing the 2016 version.) Obviously, VCU folks were under the impression that Matt Weiner had in fact secured the blessings of the previous writers of fall college novice events before pressing ahead, which was not the case.

Considering that the last time you mentioned anything to do with EACN was when you put it on hiatus on 7/22/14 and you never indicated any kind of possibility of it coming back at any point in time, taking offense over someone else writing a novice event is really silly. Making statements along the lines of Matt Weiner setting it up as some kind of EVIL NOVICE CONSPIRACY BY BIG ViRGINIA is especially silly.

[Rococo A Go Go]

Has there been any progress on exactly when tournaments are happening this fall? I know Novice is set for September and Penn Bowl for 10/24 (and I'm guessing 10/17 in some cases), but I don't think I've seen dates officially set for ACF Fall, the NAQT-style open tournament, or any other potential tournaments.

[1992 in spaceflight]

Has there been any progress on exactly when tournaments are happening this fall? I know Novice is set for September and Penn Bowl for 10/24 (and I'm guessing 10/17 in some cases), but I don't think I've seen dates officially set for ACF Fall, the NAQT-style open tournament, or any other potential tournaments.

The NAQT-style open tournament is announced here: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewto ... =8&t=17474

[sonstige]

As a personal side project, I've been quietly chipping away at what I'm considering a revival of Ahmad Ragab's Sun n Fun, that I'm calling "Citronaut" (after the lovably bizarre former UCF mascot).

The intended difficulty will be "regionals"-esque, but what I'm trying the most to do is create (mostly*) reasonable answerlines with deep clues. Questions are tending to be 8 +/- 0.5 lines, but are pretty dense and pyramidal in terms of content. The subject distribution is modeled after the general ACF guidelines. I've playtested most of what's written with Chris Borglum, Sean Platzer, and UCF's Virginia Ruiz; I've left the rest of UCF out of it, as I'm assuming most of them will end up playing this thing eventually.

* I say mostly, since I'm intending each round to average towards regionals-difficulty, but will have a handful of topics that skew on either side of this per round.

Since I'm going at this thing solo and in my spare time, it's taking a while but I'm roughly 2/3 done with the TUs; at this pace, I'd optimistically target somewhere in early Spring to have the set (12 rounds, 21/21) finished.

I've been hesitant to announce this, since I'm not holding myself to any committed completion date --- but at least to get it on the radar, I thought it would be appropriate to mention it here. On the bright side, since I am under no real time or pressure constraints, I have more opportunity to revise and improve the set.

What this won't be is what Sun n Fun turned into (i.e. a set of vanity topics that are largely inaccessible to the masses). I'm fully aware of the local audience who will likely end up playing this, however this is not Delta Burke either. I want this to be relevant and interesting to a larger set of teams beyond central Florida.

Eventually, as the writing nears completion I'll make a more formal announcement on here.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

For scheduling purposes, I should make it clear: we're trying to have Missouri Open run after Penn Bowl, in the early to mid November slot, though we're open to the idea of a late-October mirror as well. Historically, the November slot has worked out well for open tournaments (as DEES ended up being, and as Minnesota Open was). We plan on having the set complete by early October to allow time for playtesting and review, and also to provide flexibility in case a November time slot is not ideal for some regions.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

Now that we've got three regular-difficulty tournaments announced, plus SCT and ACF Regionals, I think there's some room in the calendar for some events of other difficulties to be announced. Does anybody have plans for another fall or spring tournament, besides Stanford's planned CRR/Minnesota Open style event? There definitely seems to be room for another MUT-type event, as people have repeatedly emphasized.

[Urech hydantoin synthesis]

Now that we've got three regular-difficulty tournaments announced, plus SCT and ACF Regionals, I think there's some room in the calendar for some events of other difficulties to be announced. Does anybody have plans for another fall or spring tournament, besides Stanford's planned CRR/Minnesota Open style event? There definitely seems to be room for another MUT-type event, as people have repeatedly emphasized.

I got word from Eric that like Penn Bowl 2014, Penn Bowl 2015 will be a bit harder than regular collegiate difficulty. And given that MLK was announced to be similar to Penn Bowl 2014 in difficulty, I believe that we have exactly one non-SCT/Regs regular-difficulty event the entire year, and which is not mACF in style.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

I suppose that's correct. My general point is that the year's schedule could probably reasonably fit one easier-ish event, or at least another regular-difficulty tournament that's consciously aiming at a difficulty mark ala MAGNI/DRAGOON/PADAWAN (which is our general intention with MO, for what it's worth). Overshoot has been a real problem for tournaments in the past two years and having a consciously lower difficulty event could be one way to fix that.

[Auroni]

And given that MLK was announced to be similar to Penn Bowl 2014 in difficulty

MLK should be thought of as a regular difficulty tournament. There will be fewer tossups on hard answers and easier easy parts than there was in Penn Bowl 2014, but that set is a good starting point of reference.

[vinteuil]

Maryland and Yale are planning a Spring regular-difficulty tournament, and not on the regular-+ side of the bell curve.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

It's been a month and there haven't been any major updates on the tournament schedule. I guess we should wait for VCU Open to happen to discuss this more in depth, but are there any plans for some sort of fourth fall tournament? Maybe one that utilizes packet submission?

[Galadedrid Damodred]

Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with NAQT, ACF, or NHBB, and this post doesn't represent the opinion of the Stanford club either, just some thoughts that formed in my mind after looking at the schedule as it stands.

With ICT being a week later this year, and MLK happening in January, it appears to me that the way to clutter up the spring schedule the least is to move ACF Regionals to its pre-2015 February slot and hold ACF Nationals the last weekend of April (where it was in 2009 and 2013). Holding both national tournaments on consecutive weekends just doesn't seem like a great logistical idea, plus with the qualification system, it's better to give teams more time after Regionals to write their packets (and the editors more time to edit them!). And NHBB is on the 23rd, which I imagine a lot of Nats participants and organizers will be staffing. Then the spring schedule could look like this:

January 16/23 MLK
February 7 NAQT SCT
February 21 ACF Regionals
March 5/12 Stanford's As-Yet Untitled Open
March 19/26 STIIMPY
April 9 NAQT ICT
April 30&May 1 ACF Nationals
March-April MUT

In my opinion, this is a nice, spread-out schedule that doesn't pile tournaments on top of each other. If ACF has already decided otherwise or there are other factors to make this a bad idea that I'm not aware of, then this post is mostly meaningless. But at least it's out there for public discussion now.

[Fado Alexandrino]

I'm also not speaking for anything other than my mind - I'm not sure what NAQT's staffing situation would be like if a well run ~50 team ACF Nationals tournament were to happen concurrently.

The 2016 SSNCT will be held at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare on the weekend of April 29–May 1.

[Ewan MacAulay]

It's very possible that we'll be able to offer Oxford Open as a regular-minus set for the early December slot this year. The target difficulty is around that of WIT 2013/MUT 2015 if people would be interested in mirroring that.

[Edmund]

It's very possible that we'll be able to offer Oxford Open as a regular-minus set for the early December slot this year. The target difficulty is around that of WIT 2013/MUT 2015 if people would be interested in mirroring that.

On the basis of last year's experience I think you should be careful about trying to wedge this tournament into the US winter schedule, or trying to carve two sets out of one tournament. With this plan you are in effect forcing yourself to write large amounts of editors' content without sight of the submitted packets, and I worry that you may put yourself in a position where you compromise both the quality of what you can offer to a US mirror and what turns up at the main site of this tournament some weeks later.

[1992 in spaceflight]

Since ACF Fall has been announced, this reminds me: Are we going to have the dates for ACF Regionals, SCT, ICT and ACF Nationals announced soon?

EDIT: Ninja'd by other people, but I found the NAQT dates on their website. Oops.

[Aaron's Rod]

Since ACF Fall has been announced, this reminds me: Are we going to have the dates for ACF Regionals, SCT, ICT and ACF Nationals announced soon?

ICT is April 9.

[Important Bird Area]

And SCT is February 6th (as is posted in the calendar at the top of this thread).

[t-bar]

ACF Regionals will be held on Saturday, January 30. ACF Nationals will be held on the weekend of April 16-17. My understanding is that the weekends of April 23-24 and April 30-May 1 are infeasible for Nationals primarily due to conflicts with high school national tournaments, and with that date locked in we have to move ACF Regionals earlier to allow teams to make travel plans and give sufficient time for set production.

[Rococo A Go Go]

I'm not sure how successful "Scheduling reform" has been, but I'm guessing that having a full half of the season's regular difficulty schedule confined to a four-week period in the winter, is the kind of unfortunate scheduling quirk that most people in the community were hoping to avoid.

[Florida Gateway]

Is there a thread for the VCU novice? The proposed date on the window starts in about 6 weeks?

[Blackboard Monitor Vimes]

Is there a thread for the VCU novice? The proposed date on the window starts in about 6 weeks?

The announcement should be up sometime in the next few days.

[Cody]

I have updated the calendar to include everything mentioned in this thread; drop me a line if I missed anything. I've also noted difficulty in the OP.

Now's the time to start setting firm plans.

[Victor Prieto]

Is there any reason why no announcements or details about bidding processes/host calls have gone up for either ACF Regionals or NAQT Sectionals? Last year's ACF Regionals was announced in late September, and the SCT host call was up in June and sites finalized by early November (ignoring all the subsequent clamor prompting the creation of additional sites). I ask partially because our deadline for funding requests is an absurd amount of time in advance, but mainly, because these are quite major events of the season that should be announced now.

Note: ACF has their discount/penalty schedule up on the website, but no up-to-date information regarding hosting.

[Important Bird Area]

We've changed the SCT hosting process this year and are reaching out to target particular experienced hosts in designated locations. As such, there is no open host call, but we expect a complete range of sites to be announced in early November.

[Rococo A Go Go]

We've changed the SCT hosting process this year and are reaching out to target particular experienced hosts in designated locations. As such, there is no open host call, but we expect a complete range of sites to be announced in early November.

Seeing as how it's mid-to-late November now, is there an update coming soon?

[Important Bird Area]

Yes; we're working on confirming the last few sites and hope to post a complete list in the next week.

[1992 in spaceflight]

So when most people see this post, it will have been 2 weeks since we were told it was a week before we would get an update.

This is ridiculous. It is DECEMBER, and we have yet to hear about any sites for Sectionals. How on earth are teams supposed to budget for what is easily the most-attended tournament of the year?

[The Favourite]

So when most people see this post, it will have been 2 weeks since we were told it was a week before we would get an update.

This is ridiculous. It is DECEMBER, and we have yet to hear about any sites for Sectionals. How on earth are teams supposed to budget for what is easily the most-attended tournament of the year?

I agree with everything Jacob said. It would have been nice to at least see the sites that have been confirmed, so that I could be working on a budget and have it approved by mid January, but without knowing travel expenses, I am in a black hole of sorts.

[Important Bird Area]

Our apologies for the delay. The announcement is going up now and registration will be open this evening.