The Quizbowl Resource Center

Has quizbowl produced something systematic instructing people how to host a college tournament? If so, it should be easier to find. There's one for high school tournaments on the wiki but lots of it is irrelevant for college tournaments and I don't see any relevant threads in the "Best of the Best" section.

I'm planning on writing some sort of guide while hosting UK's upcoming high school tournament; I realize this ignores your "there's currently only high school guides" point, but I think it'd probably be easily adaptable for someone to write one for college tourneys.

There's a dire need for this type of thing. I use a checklist when I host events. I'll post it in this thread when I get a chance.

I'll try to write something up on behalf of ACF, too.

I am 75% done with a Tournament Hosting Guide that's designed to be exhaustively comprehensive. It's targeted towards HS competitions, but with a few modifications it should work for college too. If I get the time, I may go back and add some more college-specific stuff too.

Please, feel free to add comments or suggest improvements. I'm sure I've forgotten some things and the discussion of scheduling in particular probably could be better. I also need to work on internal links and such (maybe adding a checklist at each step), but I think this is a good beginning.

One of the key things that I've wanted to add on to the old Berkeley Guide is a focus on contingencies--what should you do when things go wrong? What back-up plans do you need to have in case things happen? I also think PR and getting the word out to more teams needs a bit more discussion than just emailing the Yahoo quizbowl list.

Hey, here is a tournament checklist Bryn Reinecke wrote that has saved my life on several occasions. It's no substitute for a comprehensive tournament directing guide, but if it's the night before the tournament and you are trying to quickly cover your bases, you could do worse than this. Some of these things are more optional than others. Some of these things may seem like common sense, but I've seen TDs botch every one of them. Enjoy!

Tournament Direction Checklist

Pre-tournament:

Obtain contact info for teams
Have room reservations printed out
Have the number of the campus police to open the building and rooms in case they're locked
Print scoresheets
Print schedules
Print receipts
Print rules sheets
Print a restaurant guide
Bring schedules and back up situation schedules
Email the teams with time, location, and parking situation on Thursday or Friday before
Bring a printer and laptops
Get trophy and book prizes
Download SQBS
Bring flash drives
Get the questions

Morning of the tournament:

Get donuts, juice, plates, and cups
Set up the chairs in the rooms
Hang up a poster directing teams to tournament site and war room

During the tournament:

Briefly go over rules with staffers
Give out restaurant guide
Get payments
Record Payments
Give out receipts
Set up buzzers and record their locations
Assign readers to rooms and put rooms on schedules
Keep track of readers and laptops
Post stats
Give out prizes
Return buzzers

After the tournament:

Clean up rooms and return chairs to their original locations
Deposit money
Pay mirror fees
Post stats