Running A Tournament

So, you want to run a tournament eh? What are you crazy!?! Did anyone hear you volunteer for this lunacy? Can you get out of it? The stress, the hassle, the people angry at every decision you make, quick just run!

Still here? So, you’re serious then? Ok then this playbook is indeed for you.

Organising a tournament is a hard but rewarding task which takes up a lot of both time and effort. You can do it all yourself but I’d recommend getting at least one other person to help you coral the players, act as a sounding board and be around on the day. My recommendation is that every event have at least two people on the Team, certainly for events over 20 people and then an extra one for every 50 players.

Don’t forget to seek help and support from elsewhere too, your local NAF rep, local store, other tournament organisers, there’s no shame in it and we have a great community.

The following roles are suggestions, you may think not all are required and you may want to add more, that’s all good too. It’s possible to do one of the roles and play in the tournament but wherever possible, don’t. It’s also possible for people to do more than one role too, it’s your show and your team, you know what they are capable of, the smaller the event the easier it is to do multiple roles.

The main person in charge of the event. This person defines and delegates the other roles and crucially is the person with the final say on any and all decisions. This doesn’t mean that they have to literally pick the drape colours as trusting your team is a big part of leading this event, but the important decisions for big picture will need someone to take responsibility. It’s important that whoever is the Head Honcho, they have an excellent number 2 who can step up and replace them if things get too much or if they can’t make it for whatever reason.

They are responsible for all communication prior to and during the tournament itself. They handle the communication for all the sites regularly used by the different communities. Since most of us don’t speak all languages, the PR should ideally have contacts with all the languages and groups. They should also be skilled in the use of social media. If you choose to have a media person, they should be the only voice the community hears so things are consistent.

Someone responsible for the upkeep and content of your website, app, roster sheet and tournament software. Should work closely and well with your media person

This is the modern age and people around the world who can’t make It to your event will want to check out what’s going on and cheer on their team. A streaming person or team will be required to broadcast as many games as possible. If you have a local podcaster or streamer they’re a good one to tap up.

Plans the budget, keeps a tight rein on the money and makes sure people get paid when they need to. They should not be the only person listed on the account however for security and practicality reasons.

Is the go between for the team and the hotels, venue, caterer, AV team, suppliers, trade people etc. They may also need to do site inspections, be aware of fire safety regulations, health and safety, legal requirements and many more as defined by your country.

Experienced coaches willing to give up their time and effort. An in-depth knowledge of the rules is obviously essential, but they will also need to be able to operate your tournament software and be able to make decisions that affect serious games with opinionated coaches so confidence, diplomacy and an authoritative air is also important.

People won’t show up, have to polish their cat, fall ill, or have personal issues which mean they are forced to leave. It’s important that you have people ready to step in to ensure the tournament keeps running at even numbers.

Be clear with people what their role is and what you expect from them. Line up replacements for the roles too as it’s a long road from first planning to the end of the tournament.

Once you’ve got an idea of what you want to do you need to decide whether you’re going for a one day event or two day event. Have a look on the NAF site to see if there are any other events being run on the same weekend you’re looking to host yours. As a general rule, if there’s a tournament on the same weekend within 100 miles then you will struggle for NAF approval.

Once you’ve got the team (or the start of your team) sorted you can begin to plan your event. Before you get into the nitty gritty, it’s worth speaking to people locally and across the community to discuss their needs and what they want from you and your event. Speak to lots of people but ultimately this is your event, just like with this playbook, feel free to take or leave any and all advice received.

If you can, review the feedback from previous events to see what people thought about them. Also, if an option is available speak to the organisers of other events and see if you can be a ref at someone else’s tournament. It’s a great way to see behind the scenes and gives you experience running something.

Firstly, think about how many players you could get and also how many do you want. In theory lots and lots but space and cost will be factors in this. Once you’ve established a figure for the amount of people you’re expecting you can then start to plan where to put them all. In an ideal world you’ll want to put all players in one room. Nothing adds to the atmosphere of your event like lots of players in one room.

If you’re running a massive event, this may not be possible in your city within a reasonable budget so also look for places with multiple rooms but think about how the rooms will interact and how to get people from one to the other but also how to make everyone included.

Accommodation may also be something to consider if people will be travelling all over. You don’t need to do a package holiday but knowing a good, reasonably priced hotel nearby is very helpful.

Some venue things to consider:

• Can you get an offer with all included (catering, audio visual etc)
• Visit them to make sure you know what you’re getting
• Make sure you have enough room for all people
• Can your venue provide lunch? Can they do I quickly and are there vouchers or queues or do things need to be preordered?
• What about vegetarian options, vegans, allergies?
• Is the venue large enough for all the players and can there be some last minute changes to increase the number?
• How many power outlets, tables and chairs are available?
• Are they included or will the venue need to hire more? Who pays for them? Get that agreed and in writing
• Where can you get more?
• Where are the emergency exits?
• Are the things in the venue that affect the positioning of the tables that can’t be removed? Like pillars, flowerpots, stages etc.
• Are their enough lights, how do they work etc.
• Is there space for trade stands?
• GET EVERYTHING AGREED AND IN WRITING!

When planning your event, plan your playing space. This is an example for how much space two players need for one game, you may decide more is required but I certainly wouldn’t go less:

Table space

If its a team event, how many players per team and how many teams per row or table is also important to factor in as teams will obviously want to play together. You may also need to add space between the rows for fire safety or some other reason too.

Most importantly, Blood Bowlers are a thirsty bunch, make sure your venue has enough bars and that those bars have enough beer!

All decisions about the rules should be made at the very beginning. Make sure you check with the NAF on what you want to do and what not. Once this is done announce it through your PR as soon as you can before the event. Be sure to make a rules pack to easily accessible to every player whether that’s a physical copy, stored on your website, on TFF or as part of your app.

The rulebook should contain:

• Timetable
• What to do in case of being late or not showing up
• Address of the venue
• Points system and tiebreakers
• Rules for team creation, tiers, inducements, skills, stars, etc.
• General tournament conventions i.e. what constitutes a cocked dice etc.
• Make sure your judges know all the rules!!

Consult people on your ruleset to sense check it but be aware, this will be the most contentious part of your event. Whatever you decide as part of your ruleset, people are going to be unhappy with it and they will not be shy about telling you. Unless you have something seriously wrong with your rules, once they’ve been announced, be confident with your decisions and don’t change them.

PayPal is the main payment method used for Blood Bowl so id recommend setting up a dedicated tournament email address and link it to a dedicated PayPal account. Let a certain (small) number of people have access to both accounts. If something happens to one person your organisation can still function.

Don’t accept the use of cheques as this brings an extra cost and hassle with it. When you make active use of PayPal, verify the account from the beginning or your funds could be blocked for up to a month.

All transfers should be labelled with name of the players, team name and NAF name to avoid any confusion. This will cost you a lot of work if it isn’t done. I would recommend that you accept 1 payment per team on team events to limit the work required.

Put the deadline of payment before the invoices start to arrive. The biggest amount will be the use of the venue/hotel, followed by the caterer. Have your Accountant check all invoices for possible mistakes or inaccuracies.

If you’re requiring non NAF members to pay to play, make sure you have a mechanism to track and get them registered.

Have a register of players to keep track of who’s interested and where they told you (i.e. TFF, Facebook etc so you can track them down), who’s signed up, who’s paid, rosters received, food requirements and whatever else you need to track.

Have a clearly defined process for rosters whether that’s players checking their own, submission on Tourplay or a full submission process and review by you. Remember while excel is obviously very common, not everyone has it. If you are collecting them beforehand, you’ll need a checking process and also a place to store them. People also like to review other people’s rosters before and after the event so consider if and how you want to make them public.

Before starting all this up, do some research as to what your legal liabilities and responsibilities may be. Do you need to create a legal entity for the event? Do you need event insurance? Public liability?

We are also in the age of GDPR so make sure you are familiar with what this means to an event like this and how to stay within the rules.

Nothing will ruin your tournament quicker and harder than software issues so use the best program available for the job. This can be Score, Tourplay, Excel or something else.

Before the event have a few test runs with the people responsible for putting in the results. Try to anticipate on problems and make sure that the people know how to work with the program. Also make sure that all tiebreakers can be implemented in calculating the score.

When you make up the timetable be sure to have some extra time. If you use the 4-minute rule you have 128 minutes for a game. Even going up to 135 minutes (2 hours & 15 mins) for a game can have some games go over time. You may even want to go to 2 hours 30 mins per round.

Be very clear in your rules pack and at the start of every day or even game if need be, what the procedure is if games are slow and when and how games will be called. No matter how long you give people, you are going to need to call a game sooner or later.

Announce time after an hour and place players on a timeclock early on if you see it’s going too slow. Make regular announcements towards the end of the round.

When making the timetable, check with your caterer if there is room for delay. You should add an hour extra each day by adding some time between games.

Below is a possible example of a schedule.

08-45 – 09-45 Registration

09.45 – 12.00 Game 1

12.00 – 13.00 Lunch

13.00 – 15.15 Game 2

15.30 – 17.45 Game 3

You can have players play on through lunch but be aware that this has an impact on your Referee team. Do not announce this before the round. But when you let them play on, tell them that it’s at the cost of dinnertime and be sure to end the round 15 minutes before the start of round 2.

Let the staff go in two or three groups to lunch ideally ahead of everyone else and have this sorted out with the caterer before the start of the tournament.

When you run an event everything is decided by the budget. Long before recieving any payment you should have offers for all necessary things. This means venue, catering, tables, chairs, software, possible goodies, printing materials (rulebook, results sheet, leaflets etc), prizes, costs for legal issues. Add another 10% to all these costs to have a margin for error.

Decide whether you want to keep costs to bare minimum or offer give aways and souveniers. Ultimately, how much you charge for your tournament will depend on your location as some are more expensive than others.

Do not take the sponsors in the budget unless you already recieved the money before anouncing the cost. Finding sponsors that will effectively give you money is nearly non-existing. A lot a small miniature compagnies will want to give you teams, figures etc which always a bonus, but you can’t pay a venue in minis. Most sponsors will require you to buy things from them and offer you a discount.

Be sure to regurarly update your budget when the invoices start to arrive. Remember that you do may not need any money to start with, but you need the money to pay the bills afterwards. The NAF are able to loan money to tournaments to pay things like deposits in advance so if this is a requirement or you’re going to need help you can contact them. They will expect a full budgeted plan and a timeline to repay them.

Unless you’re using software like Tourplay where it’s all online, a special form for people to enter their results is definitely advisable in a tournament. In an ideal world and especially in a team tournament, have the teams and names filled out on the sheet before you give them out and make sure the order matches your tournament software. This will allow you to enter the results quickly and smoothly.

When you get them in, I’d recommend a two person team for entry, one person collects the sheets and puts them in order (game 1, 2, 3 etc), they read them to the second person who enters them onto the system.

Blood Bowlers love talking about their games and how they made a glorious 6 up long bomb or failed a crucial rush over the line, this will just get in the way of your team entering results so keep them away!

Once all of the results are in and entered, go through them all and check them again. Make sure you’re accurate as an extra 15 min check is much easier than stopping games and doing a redraw.

How will people get to you? How will they get around once they do? It’s really helpful to make a travel pack on hand to help people. Include public transport links, local parking, and restrictions etc. that will be relevant.

Have a clear plan about what information you are going to release and when. Use it to build anticipation for your event and release information about what people are going to get especially while people are able to sign up, to give them an extra reason to do so.

Don’t forget to keep that going all the way up to the day to keep people informed and excited. Aim for one announcement a month leading up to the event but you may feel more is required or less depending on how much information you need to give people.

While you are trying to organise your event, other people will be trying to organise their own. There’s plenty of Blood Bowl to go around of course but building the hype for one event while others are building hype for another can distract people from both. Be mindful of other events and their announcements.

Once you have your plans set, you need to apply for NAF approval. There are guidelines to be found by following this link: https://www.thenaf.net/tournaments/nafdocs/

NAF reps are a friendly, helpful bunch so don’t hesitate to reach out to them if you need any help or guidance. Once the tournament is done, you’ll need to get the results submitted to the NAF too. Again there’s guidance on the NAF site and reps available to help.

As has been said, seek lots of advice and things like this playbook but ultimately this is your event so take or leave what you think is appropriate. Don’t forget to enjoy it yourself, walk around on the day and take it all in.

Running a tournament can seem like a thankless task and people will see what happens on the day and know nothing of the problems or stresses that you’ve had leading up to the day or even behind the scenes on the day. Those who know, will know and will tell you.