I thought you’d never ask.
It was an odd tournament in some ways, because the Massachusettsians aren’t exactly like the Metropolitan New Yorkers in a variety of ways, many of them semiotic. That is, they have a different sort of tournament as their norm, and their expectations of what a tournament is and how it operates is different. CP talked about this to a degree in his last post. The thing is, if your attendees are used to a one-day tournament, thrusting them into a two-day tournament adds a layer of complexity that takes a little getting used to. If nothing else, the burdens of the host buying food for a certain number of people, which warrants the setting of fees at a specific cutoff date, is hard for people to sort out when they’re used to signing up for things at a relatively last minute. (This late signup is not so unusual, by the way. I remember in the earliest days of the MHL, there was no pre-registration at all; you just showed up and signed up, which did, of course, lend itself to a lot of starting friction, but these were pre-computer times. Even now, we shut down one-dayers only a couple of days before the event, simply to allow us to get it set up in advance to remove the starting friction; no fees or fines are set on the basis of these pre-regs.) Another concept hard for people to grasp when evolving out of a one-day environment, with perhaps one elimination round, is the need to provide judging for a series of elimination rounds, and the usual one-past-your-own-elimination burden. As the VCA knows, I have always remarked that, even in situations where people are well practiced in the business of multiple elims, there are always those people who simply must leave early, which includes getting their ballots and trophies and other paraphernalia, for the simple reason that they live the closest and therefore have the least distance to drive home. As if the rest of us wouldn’t want to go home early too, and blow off the awards ceremony where we honor our top competitors and thank our hosts for a job well done. Feh! Anyhow, in this case it’s more ignorance than asininity, so it’s theoretically forgivable, but to be honest, we didn’t let anyone go until we didn’t need them anymore. If you do have to leave a venue I’m tabbing, I’ll try to accommodate you, but as a general rule, try to live 10 hours further from there than I do, and have a few minor children and aged parents dependent on your presence to keep them from being attacked by rabid wolves, and suffer from at least two rare diseases that require immediate medical attention, and provide documentation for all of this three days in advance before I can seriously begin to entertain your request.
So, there were some perception snafus, but on the other hand, our venue in the Commonwealth meant that we attracted about 40 Pfffft teams, as compared to 6 last year. Massachusetts is a hotbed of Pfffft, for some reason. Then again, it’s not much of a hotbed of other debate, and aside from Lex, and a few late drops, it was all from outside the area. Unfortunately we lost a bunch of Jersey teams due to financial issues. Still, the numbers were pretty respectful. If you look at who won in each division, you’d be hard-pressed to suggest that these are not worthy northeast champions.
The goal remains that we must build up this event. We are getting bigger every year, and learning every year. We have some seriously good ideas for improvement, but some things will remain. Posting results of each round, and brackets for elims, proved extremely popular (and uncovered one tab error, which is the real reason I want these up there). We are focused on what we think is the perfect venue for next year, and I’ll work with JV and Catholic Charlie this weekend at our District tournament to settle some dates (when I’m not judging HI or something). We will continue to import top judging talent and make sure money is put aside for it (and we’re even thinking of feeding the judges next year, since they were, as a group, starving at the free-from-hospitality judges’ lounge, a financial necessity this year that will not recur). We will keep the all-winning-records-break approach plus the modified RR approach for any divisions that remain small. And we will have rather super trophiage (thanks to O’C, of course).
All in all, TNC continues to grow, and to thrive. I got the feeling a good time was had by all (except for the people whose heads I bit off). It is a great way to end the season. I look forward to doing it again.
Last note: The quintessential O’C bracket was the hit of the event. Now he needs to send me his filled-out version so we can all compare results.
No comments:
Post a Comment