Earlybird
The Earlybird is a high school tournament hosted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In its history, it has been a house-write, used HSAPQ questions, and used questions from the second edition of DAFT. According to the best records available, it started in 2002, skipped a year, and then became an annual event. It often occurs in October, though the 2002 event was held November 3.
Illinois hosted a fall tournament in 1995 directed by Martin Stroup. MacArthur defeated Quincy for the Championship, and Latin defeated Niantic-Harristown for Third Place. However, that tournament is more of a forerunner of the IHSSBCA Kickoff than Earlybird.
In addition to the Earlybird hosted by the Illinois Academic Buzzer Team, an honors group called the Phi Scholars used to host a tournament on campus. Earlybird has generally followed mACF format, while Phi Scholars followed IHSA format.