Alternate locations for ACF Nationals

[ClevelandCavaliers]

For the entirety of its existence, ACF Nationals has been held at a university. I have spoken to several esteemed members of the community, and have concluded that there is no clear rationale for this arrangement, to the extent that I suspect that it persists largely due to inertia.

The best reason I’ve received is that it costs less to host a tournament at a university than at a hotel. But these are not the only two options for tournament sites. And given the myriad problems with university hosting (some of which I will present below), I think it is time for a change.

Here are some of the problems with hosting at a university (particularly one on the East Coast):

• The hosting fees. ACF must delegate a sizeable portion of its yearly budget towards paying universities for hosting fees, some of which are quite steep.

• Significant effort must be put into setting up classrooms to be match-ready. Some of the buildings or rooms that the university provides can be inconvenient for quiz bowl gameplay or organization.

• Universities selected are often inconvenient for large swaths of the field. This year’s nationals is in Duke, and players from California must pay something on the order of $1,000 for seven-hour flights. If they do not want to miss class on Friday, they must also take a red-eye into an already grueling tournament.

• The match schedule is cramped, meaning that each player spends hours upon hours (and pays hundreds of dollars) just to fly in, play some quiz bowl, and fly out, without having the chance to experience anything else at ACF Nats. I’d be curious to see stats for retention rates following each national tournament, but I’m confident in inferring that the grueling experience of Nats (which allows for very little time to tour the campus or explore the surrounding city) makes at least some players quit.

These are just some of the many problems with hosting at universities. To combat these problems, I propose a novel solution which could have real potential to work. Outdoor facilities should be considered as sites for national tournaments, including national parks.

The logical first counter to this point is that it would be impossible for this to logistically work. Thus, I will outline what I envision for the logistics of such an event:

• There is a central command center with tournament directors, drinks and snacks for players and staff, and restrooms. This command center may be housed just outside a major building at the park.

• To accommodate each of 6 preliminary brackets, 6 sites, each a 15-minute walk from the command center, are established, in every direction. Each of these sites will then host 4 games, laid out in a square formation with each vertex of the square about a 3-5 minute walk from the next to prevent players from overhearing other rounds, while also allowing them to see all rounds so they don’t get lost.

• An opening meeting would take place for all teams, using a loudspeaker to amplify the tournament director’s voice. Everything would happen similarly to a regular tournament.

• At the start of the tournament, 6 “overall staffers” would be assigned to guide players to their playing sites. These “overall staffers” would stay at the playing site the whole time in the case of any (non-life-threatening emergency) and could ask for backup from the central command center at any point.

• Each game will be hosted on either a picnic table or perhaps on the ground (if someone cannot play on the ground, they can request that their matches take place on a picnic table or the like). Regular buzzer systems will be used, which are plugged into portable batteries. Each game has a backup portable battery (and there are spares in the central command center). During lunch breaks and the overnight break, a tournament director drives the portable batteries somewhere to charge.

• Communications would take place over Discord and email. This would entail that the park in question must have internet access, which perhaps makes some parks a no-go but which I suspect makes most (or at least many) parks workable.

• When a round concludes, the players of that round would stand up. Once all four rounds stand up, teams would proceed to their next room.

• Once the preliminary rounds conclude, players would be free to drive anywhere for lunch, and told to return to the central command center by a specific time, Then, players would be handed their schedules and led to one of now four sites for their playoff brackets, arranged in a hexagon pattern.

• At the end of the day and the end of the tournament, the buzzers and batteries would be packed up and sent back to the central command center, where they would either be charged or given back to teams.

There are several notable upsides to this arrangement:

• Hosting in a national park costs $0. ACF can use its newly cleared-up funds for other endeavors, like promoting quiz bowl or paying editors and staffers equitable fees.

• There are many national parks in the middle of the country, allowing for much easier travel arrangements that do not disadvantage certain segments of the country that must pay more and for longer flights than others.

• Players have the chance to play quiz bowl at a national park! Instead of being crammed in a room playing quiz bowl, players now have the chance to experience the great outdoors. They can play quiz bowl while watching beautiful mountains in the distance, or surrounded by birds and squirrels and other wildlife. I think this would make players have a much better experience, and would perhaps remove the grueling aspect of Nats to some extent.

• This does not seem significantly more difficult to arrange logistically; perhaps the only difference is that there is plenty of precedent to draw on when hosting at a university. But universities can sometimes be unreliable, and at least I know that players often got lost in the maze that was the MIT building last time.

• Significantly less time would be needed to set up chairs and buzzers in each room, and then put up placards and signs telling teams which room is where (and still have teams get lost). Having six set locations, with “overall staffers” there to guide teams, as well as Google Maps on hand, seems to be much better.

There are several drawbacks I’ve heard to this proposal, which I will detail below:

• The weather. We don’t want rain to damage buzzer systems and drench players, essentially. The solution to this is probably just to host in an unrainy place.

• Accessibility issues. Players who need accessibility accommodations would find it harder to play in a large open space. I think this is workable by perhaps making one of the spaces somewhat closer to the central command center, and asking teams to inform tournament directors beforehand of any issues.

• National parks can be more remote. I think this is not necessarily true; there are usually plenty of buses into national parks, as well as hotels on site. I’m not familiar with the cost of hotels, but this would not fall on the shoulders of ACF, and I suspect they are not much steeper than the cost of hotels in New York City or Durham. In addition, if food becomes an issue, then ACF can cater and ask teams to pay for the food.

Overall, I think it’s worth considering alternate venues for ACF Nationals to address the many concerns I have laid out above. Perhaps national parks are out of the question, though I would be interested to hear any counter-arguments. I think the current arrangement geographically disadvantages many teams and makes the Nats experience a bit worse.

Again, the proposal may sound absurdist at first, but I genuinely believe that there are clear problems with the current system. Something like this could be a viable solution; national parks seem the most logical to me, but regular parks or other open spaces also seem like preferable options. Even take the outdoors out of the equation if you want - does it really have to be an East Coast university?

[Cheynem]

Another huge problem you're neglecting--you really can't block off outdoor spots from noises or other people. Do you really want an ACF Nationals match having to be played at a picnic table next to another group of campers who are playing music or frisbee?

[Good Goblin Housekeeping]

what?

[Auks Ran Ova]

I have spoken to several esteemed members of the community, and have concluded that there is no clear rationale for this arrangement

Have you really?

[Dantooine is Big!]

Have you really?

I feel this is a sufficiently serious suggestion and proposal so as to necessitate more substantive criticism than just "did you really do your due diligence?" Obviously, Andrew feels he has — wouldn't it be better to explain why Andrew is wrong, if you believe so?

[Auks Ran Ova]

I feel this is a sufficiently serious suggestion and proposal

I disagree! I think it's either an extended bit or the wildest idea about ACF Nationals hosting I've heard since "can't we simply move ACF Nationals 2020 to a state with no COVID restrictions".

[ryanrosenberg]

how did you acquire leaked NHBB Nationals 2025 logistical plans

[naturalistic phallacy]

Bathroom access (not everyone can/wants to pee in the bushes)? Power access that allows questions to be read and score to be kept? Playing late in the dark? Accessible transportation for those who don't drive or have access to a car? Game spaces accessible to everyone, despite physical ability? A national park that has plenty of nearby food options?

This is patently ridiculous.

[Cheynem]

I think what also convinced Rob it was a bit is the fact that doing it in the park doesn't actually fix any of the (potentially accurate) problems noted in the beginning:

-It would take *more* set-up to create outdoor gamerooms than rearranging a few desks in a classroom.
-It would presumably be even more inconvenient for travel purposes for most people, considering most national parks are not in cities.
-It would not affect the match schedule at all.

[amundhe]

They can play quiz bowl while watching beautiful mountains in the distance, or surrounded by birds and squirrels and other wildlife.

Some years ago, being with a quizbowl party in the mountains, I returned from a solitary ramble to find everyone engaged in a ferocious metaphysical dispute. The corpus of the dispute was a group of squirrels--live squirrels supposed to be clinging to one side of a buzzer set; while over at the buzzer's opposite side a group of quizbowl players were imagined to neg. These squirrel witnesses try to steal the buzzers of the humans by surrounding them, but no matter how fast they move, the men move as fast in the opposite direction, and always keeps the buzzer set between themselves and the squirrels, so that never a glimpse of light are caught. The resultant meta-quizzical problem now is this: DO THE SQUIRRELS SURROUND THE MEN OR NOT? They go round the buzzer set, sure enough, and the men is around the buzzer set; but do they surround the men?

[Whiter Hydra]

Finally we can have that action tossup on A Winter's Tale

[Santa Claus]

I think ACF Nationals should be held in space.

Some pros:

• Equidistant from all teams, lying a short 100km flight away
• Can have rooms arbitrarily close, as sound does not travel in a hard vacuum
• Readily available Wi-fi via Starlink
• Excellent views of all of nature at once
• No chance of being rained on

Of course, there are some problems:

• Readers may struggle due to the lack of oxygen
• Hard to get chairs in place due to microgravity
• Mediocre lunch options ("freeze dried ice cream again?")

[Gene Harrogate]

It's a good proposal, but I don't think we should rule out more proven host sites for Nats, like Paul Kasinski's basement

EDIT: Just in case the post isn't a bit, I think

• my experience camping is there's basically no way to book 20 "game rooms" within walking distance of each other without significant noise bleed
• shooting out a side event in the outdoors sounds like a fun, small-scale summer event

[everdiso]

Henry's right. My basement continues to exist, and I'm sure a few hundred quizbowlers could fit on an April weekend without trouble.

This is the post of the year so far. Things had been too quiet lately, thank goodness for this thread.

[Krik? Krik?! KRIIIIK!!!]

On a serious note, ACF spends most of its year fundraising for Nationals. The vast majority of the cost isn't from reserving rooms, but rather hotels and travel costs for staffers. When we decide the Nationals site, we have internal discussions that consider the cost to ACF and to the majority of teams through things like convenience for travel, staff availability, local lodging opportunities, etc. Hotels are significantly more expensive for reserving rooms than a college campus.

One of the nice things I think there is about using campuses is that people have the opportunity to travel to new locations. I know Boston and Durham are far from California, but in 2021, the site was Northwestern, and in 2022, Minneapolis, which are slightly closer.

This is just some brief thoughts and far from a fully encompassing post. ACF is always interested in learning about what we can do better to make Nationals a more enjoyable experience for everyone, so we welcome feedback like this thread or contacting us via our emails.

On a less serious note, why a National park? I humbly submit the great Wakonda State Park of Missouri. On a good day, we could have the Nationals final in a gravel pit next to the Mississippi River. Perhaps teams could study up their Mark Twain by staying in the nearby Hannibal. Nats branded merch will have "Wakonda Forever" on it - it'll be great.

[superdooku]

Another huge problem you're neglecting--you really can't block off outdoor spots from noises or other people. Do you really want an ACF Nationals match having to be played at a picnic table next to another group of campers who are playing music or frisbee?

Ignoring every other impracticality of the original suggestion, if ACF set up all of the "game rooms" in tents, that would probably help with the noise. It would also help alleviate potential issues of buzzers and portable batteries getting damaged by rain.

[Cody]

Have you really?

I feel this is a sufficiently serious suggestion and proposal [...]

is this also a bit??

[Dantooine is Big!]

Have you really?

I feel this is a sufficiently serious suggestion and proposal [...]

is this also a bit??

I have realized I am an extremely silly individual and I apologize for everything.

[BenWeiner27]

On a less serious note, why a National park? I humbly submit the great Wakonda State Park of Missouri. On a good day, we could have the Nationals final in a gravel pit next to the Mississippi River. Perhaps teams could study up their Mark Twain by staying in the nearby Hannibal. Nats branded merch will have "Wakonda Forever" on it - it'll be great.

I see your state park and raise you the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Just imagine team 1 (all members of the team in the same canoe) pull up alongside team 2 (in a different canoe) and they temporarily attach the two canoes together with bungie cables. Then a moderator canoe comes paddling up (presumably with a battery powered buzzer set like the Judge), links up perpendicularly with the two team canoes, they play a game, and everyone goes on paddling to their next game. The canoable area in the BWCA is rather expansive so relatively sound-proof space for 48 teams should not be an issue.

Tragically the BWCA does not have as solid merchandising opportunities as Wakonda State park, but I imagine that's something we can look past for bringing about the first watercraft-based quizbowl tournament since the 2020 NHBB cruise. Furthermore getting to the BWCA is pretty much equally convenient for all non-Minnesota teams.

[Mike Bentley]

I can't speak to ACF, but a number of years ago we had this hotels vs. universities debate for the NSC. You typically don't come out ahead when going through official events reservations departments at universities. But you do come out ahead (purely on cost) if a club or faculty sponsor or whatever is able to get you game rooms for free or significantly below market cost. There are obviously a number of downsides to doing this, most notably that it often means you can't guarantee reservations until a few months before the event.

The economics of hosting at a hotel usually mean you need to be able to attract a pretty large field to make it work. More along the lines of 64 teams than 48, and a higher number is even better. I suspect ACF Nationals would have a difficult time securing a hotel bid without a big expansion in teams and a big increase in entry fee.

[ErikC]

Paul's basement (and the underrated main floor) is a fantastic, tried-and-true venue for buzzing. Simultaneously the Wembley and the "rainy day at Stoke" of quiz venues in Canada. Belongs in Canadian Quiz Bowl Heritage Minute if we had those. I encourage people to search their circuits for similar basement-like locations to have authentic quizzing moments.

[theMoMA]

The only way I could see this being even remotely plausible is if everyone had already flown into the tournament site, but the venue burned down on Friday night (or a similar catastrophe), and organizers were trying to figure out how to get the tournament played (and the weather was good and adequate space was available and the lack of electricity for buzzers could be overcome). In such circumstances, I think you'd probably want to call every school district until you found one that was willing to lend its facilities for the weekend, because that's a much more suitable space and there are a lot of schools in most large metro areas, but it would be at least worth considering a large outdoor public space.

While I'm thinking about it, there's nothing that really precludes a high school from hosting a collegiate championship, so this is perhaps worth pursuing to expand school options in a future in which university room reservation systems become harder and more expensive to deal with.

[Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock]

I’m not sure if this is serious or an elaborate troll job, but a friend sent me this and I felt compelled to respond as quizbowl’s resident “alum who actually works for the National Park Service” guy.

Two things jumped out at me right away:

1. You can’t just show up to a national park and start holding an event like this. You have to get a permit first, and I consider it highly unlikely that an NPS site would grant one in this case. Just off the top of my head, the noise of buzzers and wires running around would almost certainly be judged as substantially impairing the experience of non-participating park visitors. And don’t try to just do something like this without a permit, because you will be wasting a lot of employees’ time and resources.

2. Just because some of these sites are located in the middle of the country, broadly speaking, doesn’t mean they’re easy to get to or find accommodations at. A significant crisis is occurring now at some NPS units where underpaid seasonal employees literally cannot afford housing to work at these parks. Why? Because every livable dwelling within 90 minutes of the place has been snapped up by the wealthy as a vacation home and/or turned into an Airbnb or VRBO rental. I think it would be quite a challenge for college quizbowl teams, staffers, etc. to find lodging that doesn’t break the bank.

Obviously other folks have pointed out the other ways in which this idea is not feasible, but that’s my perspective from someone who wears the green and gray. (Note: this is my opinion only, not that of the National Park Service. If someone actually, genuinely wanted to pursue this, go through the official channels.)

[MMSANCHEZ]

I’d also like to throw my support behind a future Paul’s basement bid for ACF Nationals. It’s not until you stay at Paul’s place, (as I have) that you realize just how spacious his basement is. In all scenarios, showing up to an event at a previously untested venue is a Kierkegaardian leap of faith. University campus or not, we are taking a risk. But without risk, is it really quizbowl?

Still, if there are concerns about holding such a prestigious tournament in a smaller venue than we are accustomed to, I’d propose a co-hosting bid with the Vancouver Trivia Garage as a viable solution. Rather than gathering 48 teams in one venue, it would be more manageable to move 24 to each. After the initial 23 game round robin, teams would relocate overnight to one site for top bracket and the other for bottom bracket. For 50% of teams this would require no additional travel, and actually be more convenient than the constant ascending and descending of stairs commonplace at both nationals. Once relocated, teams will finish the tournament, and then can return home directly from whichever site they ended their event at.

People of quizbowl, let's innovate again. It's been a minute.

[Good Goblin Housekeeping]

if Paul's basement was such a good location why hasn't ACF been getting bids for it so far?

[Ndg]

Each game will be hosted on either a picnic table or perhaps on the ground

People say quiz bowl players need to touch grass, but... literally, with their butts, during ACF Nationals?

[AKKOLADE]

Each game will be hosted on either a picnic table or perhaps on the ground

People say quiz bowl players need to touch grass, but... literally, with their butts, during ACF Nationals?

I'm updating the list: quiz bowlers need belts, haircuts, and beach towels.

[Kechara]

Playing late in the dark?

Say! In the dark? Here in the dark! Would you, could you in the dark?

[The_Impaler_]

While I'm thinking about it, there's nothing that really precludes a high school from hosting a collegiate championship, so this is perhaps worth pursuing to expand school options in a future in which university room reservation systems become harder and more expensive to deal with.

Bathroom access (not everyone can/wants to pee in the bushes)? Power access that allows questions to be read and score to be kept? Playing late in the dark? Accessible transportation for those who don't drive or have access to a car? Game spaces accessible to everyone, despite physical ability? A national park that has plenty of nearby food options?

It is my strong conviction that Burnsville High School is the best place to host ACF Nationals in the foreseeable future, for the reasons listed below:

• PROVEN ability to host large tournaments - Burnsville High School has successfully hosted a 64-team tournament, showing that it has the capacity to accommodate ACF Nationals at both its current field size and at any future field expansions. This is not a one-off success either. I estimate that Burnsville High School hosts AT LEAST ONE THIRD of the quizbowl events in the Minnesota circuit. Burnsville High School also has electric (*) power, reliable wi-fi, flushable toilets, and enclosed, climate-controlled, artificially lit rooms, which remedies most of the concerns about hosting ACF Nationals in a national park.
  
  https://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/6403/

• Hosting Fees - Burnsville High School's room reservation fees will likely be significantly cheaper than a college's room fees, according to several esteemed members of the quizbowl community.

• Accessibility - Burnsville High School has an ELEVATOR AND MULTIPLE ADA RAMPS, making it easy for all people to move around the building.

• Travel - The 495 bus route provides DIRECT access to the Burnsville Transit Station from the Minneapolis-St. Paul INTERNATIONAL Airport. For those who are disappointed about the lack of opportunity to experience the great outdoors, it is a BRISK and ENJOYABLE mile-long WALK (on ADA-compliant trails and sidewalks) past the scenic and historic CEMETERY to travel between the Burnsville Transit Station and Burnsville High School.
  
  Additionally, the ORANGE Line provides direct access to Minneapolis for those who want to unwind and explore the city after a day of playing ACF Nationals.

• Food - The nearby Heart of the City neighborhood (adjacent to the Burnsville Transit Station) has many restaurants, including the Mediterranean Cruise Cafe, Jensen's Cafe, Buzz Cafe, and a delicious Que Taco FOOD TRUCK PARKED IN A GAS STATION. For those who love walkable neighborhoods, there is a BURGER KING, Dairy Queen, and Aldi within walking distance of Burnsville High School.
  
  The Burnsville Quizbowl Booster Club also sells concessions and pizza at hosted tournaments (cash-only). But what if you don't have cash? Well...

• Banking and Financial Needs - Burnsville High School has a branch of TruStone Credit Union (formerly Firefly) and ATM inside the high school.

• Hotels - Burnsville has many HOTELS.

One bonus perk of hosting ACF Nationals at Burnsville High School: because of Burnsville's strong relationship with TruStone, we could likely convince them to be the tournament's corporate sponsor. This would inject additional money into the quizbowl ecosystem. Should this occur, I propose we reciprocate their generosity by awarding them naming rights and renaming ACF Nationals to The Rigorous University Super-Test On a National Extent, or TRUSTONE for short.

[The Ununtiable Twine]

Another huge problem you're neglecting--you really can't block off outdoor spots from noises or other people. Do you really want an ACF Nationals match having to be played at a picnic table next to another group of campers who are playing music or frisbee?

To be fair, that's no worse than that time the grass was being mowed during prelim matches in 2012.

[jonpin]

Another huge problem you're neglecting--you really can't block off outdoor spots from noises or other people. Do you really want an ACF Nationals match having to be played at a picnic table next to another group of campers who are playing music or frisbee?

To be fair, that's no worse than that time the grass was being mowed during prelim matches in 2012.

And in a similar vein, there was also that one year that the Chainsmokers were playing a concert outside at Columbia while ACF Nats was going on.