Running Tournaments

Star System 2000
This is Jim Hanson's very helpful tournament director documents. You'll find checklists, ballots, handouts, and so much! You customize these MS Word documents to work for your tournament!

NOTE: SEE THE BALLOTS PAGE FOR THE LATEST VERSION OF THE BALLOTS TO UPDATE THE STAR SYSTEM! Click here for the Ballots page

Key things to think about when you setup your tournament

1. MAKE SURE YOU SPACE OUT ROUNDS IN YOUR SCHEDULE. If you don't, you will not run on schedule. Here's some time minimums:

HS: 2 hours per policy debate; 1.25 hours per parliamentary/public debate; 1 hour per LD debate; 10 minutes per IE speaker in an IE round (so, if you have one hour for an IE, you can have 6 speakers maximum)

COLLEGE: 2.5 hours per policy debate; 1.25 hours per parliamentary/public debate; 1 hour per LD debate; 12 minutes per IE speaker in an IE round 

SPACING: You need at least 45 minutes to power match a debate round. I recommend having IE rounds between each of the last three to five debate rounds. You need at least 90 minutes to pick and pair the elimination participants for debate and IE final rounds.

SPACING BEFORE AWARDS: You need at least 60 minutes after IE final rounds (and usually 90 minutes) before you are ready to announce winners in the awards assembly--have a debate elim round before the awards assembly.

SPACING ELIM ROUNDS: Remember--after the round is over, you will need at least 30 minutes to pair the next elim round, especially after octas and quarters where there are a lot of competitors. If you have awards between each elimination round, that takes 15 to 30 additional minutes of time. Schedule for it!

HEY--AND DON'T FORGET TO LET PEOPLE SLEEP. Consider later starting times, earlier ending times. Don't exhaust people--give them a break.

2. WILL PEOPLE HAVE TIME AND ACCESS TO FOOD? If not, take action to make it happen.

Consider having food available: snacks (try to offer healthy ones--vegetables, fruits, juices, water in addition to the almost obligatory coffee and doughnuts); some tournaments provide full meals to participants (bring in pizza; have your school's catering do it up).

Look at your schedule: are people going to have time to drive and eat? will some competitors/judges who are in multiple events be cut out of eating?

More tips forthcoming.