Sunday, 16 February 2020

So you want to be a Tournament Organiser?


Why?

This is actually quite a good fundamental question to ask yourself. Why do you want to be a Tournament Organiser?
The scene builder answers are along the lines of:
  • There is no Tournament scene in my local area
  • Increase Kings of War games in my local area/region
The more selfish ones are:
  • I enjoy playing Kings of War and want to host a Tournament
  • I enjoy organising things, so why not a Kings of War Tournament
  • I want to play in more tournaments local to me
None are bad answers, but if you have a few answers and none are from the top two,, next question would be: is your region/area over saturated with Tournaments?
People get Tournament fatigue, and if there are too many locally then everyone will struggle to find players.

But OK, how do I put on a Tournament?

1st find a Venue

Your Friendly Local Gaming Store

If you are blessed with a local FLGS that has enough tables to host a tournament, vola, pick and book a date, pay the booking cost.
Advantage of a FLGS is they will typically have all the Tables, Chairs, Mats and Terrain. Some will even have screens where results, who is on what table can appear, and possibly a rig to enable you to live stream and/or podcast from.

Club hall

If you belong to a club, you can possibly hire the club hall out.
Advantage, you know if the hall will have enough tables, chairs, access to Club Mats, Terrain.

Any other hall

You can always just book a hall at any venue.

Your home

Yes, if you have a large enough home, or space you can self host.

What size venue

Depends….
How many people are you hoping to attend, remember for the Tournament to be ranking minmum player/team count is 10, you can go lower and not be ranked (results can still be submitted) or higher.
How many tables that can make up 6x4 playing area, or 4x4 if less than 1500 points being played, does the venue have. Is there room for more tables?

Mats and Terrain

Does the venue have enough mats to cover all the tables?
Does the venue have enough terrain to sufficiently cover all the tables (on a 6x4 table you are looking for about 10-12 pieces of terrain)
If it does not you will either have to find another venue or provide the missing parts.

Food

Will you be providing Food?
Will you be providing refreshments?
Will you be providing snacks?
Are there food venues close by?
Nothing worse than being isolated with no way of getting food in the lunch break.

Parking

Where is the nearest parking?
Is it free or not?

So you have found a venue and have a date, what next?

Name of the Tournament

Give your tournament a name, a brand, this is quite important, as people will remember the name of the tournament and if they remember the name, they may come and play.

Price

How much will it cost players to participate?
You will need to cover the hall/venue costs, and any other costs involved (Food, Trophies, Prizes, etc)

Point size

What point size will your tournament be? 1000pts to 3000pts and anything inbetween
If wanting to reduce duplicates, 1495, 1995, 2995 are the key markers restricting you to 1, 2 or 3 duplicates.

Rounds

How many rounds will the tournament be?
Minimum for ranked is 3 rounds for 1 day and 5 for 2 day, but you can have 4 or 5 rounds in a day, 6 or more over 2 days

Special Character

Will your tournament have a special Character? You don’t have to, some tournaments do, some don’t.

Advertise

Submit your tournament to www.KoWMasters.com if you are UK based
Create a FB event with details of the tournament.
Share the event to Kings of War Groups to attract players
If on other social media, advertise via that

Sponsors

If you can and want to you can try and get various companies to sponsor prizes, or be a sponsor and provide you a reduced cost of buying mats/terrain.

All set, not quite

What Scoring system will you be using?

There are a variety of scoring systems, all with their pros and cons
The key for all the systems is separating between the various players with the same number of Wins/Draws/Losses, so they can be ranked for each round for Swiss Pairing.

What is this Swiss Pairing

Swiss Pairing basically sets for each round 1st vs 2nd, 3rd vs 4th, 5th vs 6th, etc
For rounds 2 and second to last round, you can look to switch some pairings up or down to try to avoid players playing each other twice.

Computer

Yep have a computer with your scoring system done in it, so it is easier to update and keep track.
Excel or warscore are the kings in this

Tournament Pack

Yep that thing that everyone never reads, but has the key information in. Write it.
Details to include:
  • Tournament name
  • Points size for the Tournament
  • Number of Days the Tournament will go on for
  • Number of rounds to be played
  • Venue Location
  • Date of Tournament
  • Scoring system being used
  • If Chess Clocks are being used
  • Time for each Game
  • Time for each Round
  • Any Special Character details
  • Parking arrangements
  • For 2 dayers especially local hotels
  • If food is included
  • If own food/drink is permitted on the premises
  • If alcohol is permitted on the premises
  • When list submission is needed by
  • What Awards will be given
  • Table etiquette
  • What is a cocked dice (yep I know, but if its written, no one can complain if pulled on it)
  • Rules on symbolled dice (basically either no symbolled dice, or symbols on a single facing only)
  • Refund policy

I must be done now?

Nope, not yet

List checking

When the list arrive you need to check them for validity

Print outs

What will you be printing out for the tournament?

  • Round Result recorders
  • Scenarios (esp if you customise them)
  • Voting slips for best army/character/sportsman/etc

On Day of Tournament

  1. Get to venue early
  2. Set up the Tables
  3. Set up the Matts and terrain
  4. Have a coffee
  5. Greet Rusty (lets face it he is bound to be at it)
  6. Greet the other players
  7. Run through the flight attendant speech (in case of a holy crap moment, exits are here here and here)
  8. Run through housekeeping and scoring sheet
  9. Assign players to their tables
  10. Have another coffee
  11. Enjoy the day and record the results for each round

Checklist reminder thingy

  1. Locate Venue
  2. Arrange Date
  3. Target Player count
  4. Game size (Point size)
  5. Number of Rounds
  6. Number of Days
  7. Price
  8. Enough Tables
  9. Enough Matts
  10. Enough Terrain
  11. Food/Drink
  12. Parking
  13. Hotels
  14. Name of the Tournament
  15. Awards – Trophies/Prizes
  16. Special Character
  17. Submitted to www.KoWMasters.com if you are UK based
  18. FB event created and shared
  19. Sponsors
  20. Scoring system identified
  21. Computer for round tracking
  22. Scoring system created in Excel or warscore
  23. Tournament Pack
  24. Lists Checked
  25. Print outs done
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