It has always been one of our intentions to use this blog as a way to interface with and lift up the HEMA community, and so what better way to do that than to offer our space to a guest columnist from time to time? Plus, this also allows us to discuss things about which none of us at our club are actually conversant, thereby increasing the knowledge we get to spread around. In this, our first guest column, we asked a club friend and favorite to discuss getting a tournament off the ground.
Patrick McCaffrey is the Close Quarters instructor for L'Arte Della Bellica, focusing primarily on Grappling, Dagger, and Armored Longsword in the Fiore Tradition. He has been training for over three years with L'Arte Della Bellica. Along with Brian Miller, the has been interpreting the words and pictures of Fiore's works into martial action. He uses modern and traditional approaches to teach basics and conditioning for the physically strenuous arts of close combat, and regularly holds extended classes to teach the entirety of Fiore's Dagger material. When he is not running classes or competing, Patrick also hosts and produces the HEMA-Cast, a HEMA focused podcast. He is often found interviewing members of the HEMA community for the podcast at events in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Patrick has also helped run FlowerPoint, an open Longsword tournament, for two years, and most recently the Mid-Atlantic Rookie Tournament: Fighty McFightface, a tournament specifically for new fighters.
 |
| Patrick McCaffrey |
Scott asked me a little while back if I'd be willing to write a guest article for him, and I asked him this week if there was anything specific he'd like me to write about. Scott suggested I write something along the lines of running a successful tournament. I just finished up with the Mid-Atlantic Rookie Tournament: Fighty McFightFace, and have 2 years of running FlowerPoint under my belt. So, I guess that means that I can say something about this. I guess.
Why?
First, if you're thinking about running a tournament. Don't. Run away. Far, far away. And when you don't listen to that advice, I have important questions for you. Why do you want to run a tournament? Is someone asking you to run a tournament? Are you fulfilling a need in the community with this tournament? Are you giving people something new or interesting with this tournament? And do you have the support you need to run a tournament?
For FlowerPoint, we started because we were asked if we could host a Longpoint Historical Fencing League Event. We were fulfilling a need of the community in 2017 when there were 4 or 5 tournaments besides Longpoint. We came up with a ruleset that was unique, wherein we counted times you got hit, and the fewer times you got hit, the better your overall score. And we had the support of everyone in the club, and members of other clubs to help us test the ruleset, give feedback, and help run the event itself, which led to its success. For MART: FMcFF, we wanted to run a rookie tournament because the community is growing quickly, and we wanted to give a venue for newer fighters without tournament experience to gain that experience. We got more support with HEMA Scorecard, but we didn't do much of anything "new" or "unique" with the ruleset.
Answering those questions will give you a lot of feedback about what kind of reaction you can expect for your first tournament. But you will need to give yourself some really honest answers about why you want to run a tournament. Do you want to run a tournament because you want to fight more? To give your club a chance to make a name for itself? To drive exposure of HEMA as a whole to people who wouldn't otherwise get a chance to learn about it?
Other questions you can ask yourself are: Is there space in the calendar for another tournament? Do I have enough support to run something myself? Is there another group I could join up with to run a tournament, or even a set of tournaments?
I know, I'm asking a lot of questions to start. But it's an important foundation to running any successful event. And while I don't remember consciously asking most of those questions, there were a couple that we definitely asked, and it really came down to "What are we hoping to accomplish with this tournament?" and "Can we really do this?" If you can answer those questions, then we can get to the nuts and bolts of running a tournament.
“Location, Location, Location”
If you want to run a tournament, you need space to do so. Do you have an indoor sports arena you can rent? Will it be outside, and if so, what will you do about the weather? Can you use a gymnasium? What about a hotel ballroom/conference room? The availability of the location will determine a lot of things for your tournament, including price, time, amenities, and if you can even run the event at all. One of the best things about the FlowerPoint venue is that it was very cheap for us because we were sponsored by the Kutztown University Medieval Renaissance Club. But that meant that it was dependent on the rules, regulations, and timing of the Student Rec Center. It also meant that we had to talk to a large number of people, including Public Safety, Advisors, Students, Coordinators, etc. And that meant that we told many people, in very specific terms, what we were trying to do, and what we were doing it with. This might mean that some venues will be closed to you. A Jiu-Jitsu club might not want to have your metal swords going into their mats. A YMCA might not want to have the liability of your event on their heads. The indoor sports arena might be all for it; after all, it's not like it's that much more dangerous than lacrosse or hockey equipment, but then you'll have to pay for the whole day...you see where this is going.
After you have your location, you must then choose when you want to run your event by going over to the HEMA Alliance Event Calendar and trying to avoid a weekend where most of your audience is going to be busy. There are lots and lots of events going on every year, choose your weekend, confirm it with your venue, and then claim it and register it on the alliance event calendar, even if you're not part of the alliance. The calendar is open for everyone to use!
Now that the hard part is over, and you've decided why you want to run an event, as well as when and where it will be, you can worry about details like rulesets, equipment, schedules, pools, registration, marketing, getting people to commit to coming, and so on, and so forth. That will be as easy or as hard as you make it on yourself. My suggestion is to delegate to people you trust, and verify that things are taken care of.
From the point that you've announced your tournament and opened registration, to the week before you have your event, there's not much for you do to except prepare (which is admittedly a lot). But the week of your event there are a lot of things that will happen.
People will drop. This is expected. Between 5 and 10% of your tournament attendance will change the week before your tournament. People get injured, life has this nasty habit of things happening, and all of a sudden you have to work, or a family emergency comes up, or someone just completely forgets that they registered. No really. They'll forget about it. This is okay. This is why you'd be well prepared to have a wait-list if you hit your tournament cap, or have people you can tap to fill in for a missing fighter, class/workshop, or Judge/Director/Table Staff.
People will want to know if it's too late. Too late for what? Anything. Registering, getting lunch, getting swag, getting a refund, transferring their registration to someone else, having a spectator come (btw, is your venue open to the public?), to borrow gear, or any number of other things that they've waited until the last minute for. Again, this is expected. It happens. And telling people "It's too late" is a very valid answer. Don't be afraid to tell people that it is too late.
The week before your event you're going to make your pools/brackets/however you want your tournament to compete. Then you'll remake them because you forgot someone. Then you'll move people around because Fighter A is your Director, and they can't fight and direct at the same time. Then you'll move people because someone dropped and your waitlist fighter is in the same club as someone else in their pool, and you want to give them someone else to fight. Then you'll stop worrying about that and accidentally create a death pool (Sorry, not sorry FP'17 death pool fighters). And in the end, it'll all be fine, because everyone who's coming is coming to fight whoever they get to fight. There will be tears and anxiety the week leading up to your event. And the night before your event you'll realize that you either still have things to do and you'll lose sleep working on getting them done; you'll realize the things that you wanted to do don't really matter, and let them go; or you'll realize that you have done everything you can do and now it's time for the tournament itself to happen.
The Tournament!
Alright, it's the day of your tournament, and you think you know all of the things that you need to be worrying about as the tournament organizer. You'll watch the fights like a hawk, right? Wrong. The things you need to worry about as the tournament organizer the day of the event are all of the things that if they're done right make the day go smoothly. You need to worry about making sure the tables are staffed, and everyone knows what they're responsible for. Making sure the pools get started quickly with little space in between pools with as little downtime as possible. If you've chosen your directors and table staff well, the pools will run themselves. You'll only have to worry about answering questions, and putting out small fires, like, "this person didn't show up" --grab one of the people you have on a list for last minute replacements-- "They don't have all of their gear" --ask other fighters if they're willing to loan gear, they are willing-- "So-and-so got injured" –the medic is over there (You have a medic, right?)-- "What can I help with?" --setting up rings, tables, chairs, help with judging, ring boss, coach/squire someone, watch your club-mate's kids, I'll let you know when I think of something...
Besides taking care of everyone else, don't forget to take care of yourself during the event. Stop, breath, get something to eat. There will be things that happen that you won't be able to control, and are nearly impossible to prepare for. Take care of what you need to when it happens, and trust the people you're working with to let them take care of the things they're responsible for.
Whew! We did it! We're Done! . . . Almost
After your tournament is over, take a couple days, pat yourself on the back, and relax. Then start looking at the after event surveys, and bring your team back together to talk, honestly, about the event. Were we successful? How? What went right? What went wrong? What could have been better? What could you have prevented? What should you have done differently? What should you do exactly the same way? What did other tournaments do differently? Why did you do things the way you did? Is there any reason you can't do something differently? This is where you look at your event and answer the question "Should we do this again?" and "Do we want to do this again?" Be prepared to say "NOPE! I'm out!" You are under no obligation to put on a tournament. HEMA is full of volunteers. We all do this because we want to. We are teachers, students, coaches, organizers, busybodies, etc because we asked if we could do this, or because someone else asked us to do this.
Addendum
I totally glossed over a bunch of things, like how to choose your directors, or finding a medic for your tournament. There's a lot of things that I missed, or haven't done, like applying for event support for HEMA Alliance Affiliates, or if you should have classes at your tournament. These are things that you'll have to look into and decide for yourself, with the help of the greater HEMA community. There are some great events that are JUST a tournament (I like to think of MART:FMcFF as one of those). There are amazing events that are tournaments with classes (IGX Iron Gate Exhibition comes to mind). There are awesome events that have a tournament but are more about the classes (Swordsquatch anyone?). And there are wonderful events that don't have a tournament at all! They just have classes or free-sparring (Springeck, AutumnFect, and Klopfterfect are good examples). There is no one right way to do an event, but if you're honest with yourself, you can find the right way for you.
Comments
Post a Comment