First, in response to your questions: 1. I cannot think of something like that held before. 2. I think the quiz bowl community is trustworthy and could be expected to comply with bringing volunteers and not manipulating it. However, I do not think the idea is practical. Even though you would only need t/2 game officials at minimum, where t is the number of teams, most players wish to play and not spend their time moderating, especially after driving several hours in one direction. Thus, if a volunteer is a requirement, teams are not going to bite on the idea. 3. I have no interest. Another note: most teams run tournaments to make money. If you run the tournament without an entry fee, you will probably lose several hundred dollars. The relationship between tournament fees and teams attending a tournament is inelastic. If your product promises to be decent, and the cost is not too high, teams will consume it. There is very little difference between an entry fee of $20 and $60 in that regard, so do not feel obligated to run a free tournament just for the sake of running a tournament. More than your idea for such a tournament, something else in your message took my attention: Virtually all the tournaments I've seen announced > in our travel range are ACF. We have a different problem at Clemson: > our budget is ample, but we have a young program with very little > interest in ACF and a lack of volunteers. Why does your program have very little interest in ACF? I know, I am starting something that has been rehashed on this board many, many, many, many times. Yes, ACF has a reputation for difficulty, but getting yourself educated about ACF will resolve that issue. If you had been to ACF Fall tournament, you would have discovered a good set of questions right in the range of your inexperienced, and experienced, players. Yes, ACF is packet submission, but if you have a young program, you can probably negotiate with tournament directors to get a waiver from writing. You may need to pay an extra fee to play without writing, but your ample budget can cover that. Not every ACF-style tournament is packet submission. I believe Georgia Tech is hosting an ACF-type tournament January 11th; they are writing all questions in-house. Many other people on this board can add many other reasons to give ACF a try. Hopefully you will take their words to heart and we will see Clemson at some more tournaments soon. Daniel Greenstein MAQT
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