Burger Bowl 2018 – a virgin Tournament Organiser’s perspective.
As this was my first tournament as TO I decided to keep a “diary” of the experience and when I read it through realised it was a useful aid for me on the do’s and don’ts for future tournaments I might organise:
At the beginning of the year Ant Purdie who had created Burger Bowl and run it for 4 years in the RAF Club decided to focus on his role as Captain of the Scottish Eurobowl team with the objective of bringing the Eurobowl to Scotland and handed the organisation of Burger Bowl 2018 onto me. In parallel to this the RAF Club closed down and a new venue had to be found quickly.
I wanted the first tournament I organised to be as good as it could be for a maximum of £25 per head including a nice meal both days, a bar and access for under 18s. So finding the right location within budget was a challenge which surprisingly my wife agreed to help me with. Having visited over a dozen places all of which had advantages I settled on Akva as it seemed to tick more boxes than any other venue I had seen.
As Akva had never hosted anything remotely like a Blood Bowl tournament before Ant and I had a series of meetings with them discussing what it was we were looking for and what they had that could improve the tournament. We agreed that £15 out of the £25 entry fee would go towards lunch on the Saturday and Sunday and that with 30-40 attendees there would be no additional hire fee for the venue.
Prizes – On the Friday afternoon in Nottingham before the NAFC, I spent some time with other Scottish Coaches discussing what they wanted in the way of prizes. Unpainted teams/models were considered less desirable instead a Scottish themed painted team was the ideal first prize but also there was a lot of support for prize tokens in addition to the trophies normally given out, tokens that could be used in future games of Blood Bowl. Hence the Scotling team and painted NAF trophy for 1st place but also painted figures for 2nd place, 3rd place, Stunty, Top Rookie, Wooden Spoon and Best Painted.
On top of this I approached several suppliers whose products I used / liked and asked for their sponsorship. Tritex, Two Drunk Flings and KR Cases all stepped up to the mark.
Best Painted Trophy - So this is an idea I have stolen shamelessly from Geordie Bowl: Each year the winner of the Best Painted Team will paint the next year's trophy. Obviously we will need a trophy to "prime the pump" so I have used an old NAFC Duel entry of mine (not the one I won the 2017 NAFC Duel painting competition with :wink: ).
Free NAF membership for new members – to encourage more coaches to join the fun of the Blood Bowl tournament scene. Burger Bowl was NAF ranked and to tempt new coaches into the tournament scene the entry fee included NAF membership for those who were not already members (but not membership renewal). New to tournament coaches are far less likely to win prizes (other than the Top Rookie Award) so it seemed fair that they shouldn’t pay more than the regular tournament goers.
Top Rookie Award – instigated to give first time and younger coaches something to strive for. Top Rookie is open to anybody who has not played a NAF ranked match before Burger Bowl 2018 and also anyone under 18 whether or not they have played NAF ranked matches previously. It is not just all about the top experienced coaches!
Registration of Rosters - I also put quite a lot of thought into this and decided to reward early submission so as to get a flying start on loading Score etc. Initially I was going to give everybody who registered a week before the tournament 5 free Fan Factor however it was pointed out that this rather detracts from those rosters which already have purchased FF so considered Brendan’s “golden re-roll” but eventually decided on a free Assistant Coach and Cheerleader. It worked and I was able to send all the information to Brendan Spencelayh who kindly loaded it onto Score for me a full week before the tournament. Score behaved impeccably during the tournament and within an hour of the tournament finishing, Brendan had loaded all the results onto the NAF ranking database.
Pre-ordering for the Saturday lunch was a necessary evil (Sunday lunch was generic) however agreeing to organise a meal out on the Saturday night that also needed pre-ordered was a massive ball ache with lots of moaning and will not be done again!
Gavin Wilshaw asked if he could bring a Blood Bowl 7s pitch to play if anybody finished early, I was delighted to say yes as I want this tournament to have a buzz with loads going on. This is why when a Cosplay Girl approached me about coming along to watch and entertain, I also said yes, unfortunately she was double booked, maybe next year!
It required a little bit of preparation but the “Coach Name” personalised Results Slips Booklet made capturing all the results easy with the exception of the inevitable Geordie losing their booklet. Each booklet had 6 numbered round slips and a Best Painted voting slip, I mandated that you couldn’t vote for yourself in the Best Painted category and having your coach name on your voting slip ensured this.
I allowed everybody to choose where they sat and played rather than mandating table numbers.
There were 38 coaches registered but unfortunately one called off the night before meaning that as both TO and Spare Man I had to play Round 1, it quickly became apparent that I was not going to be able to play and run the tournament to the standard I wanted. This was for 2 reasons: 1) I should have played a fun team I didn’t care about rather than one I was proficient with; 2) I was not feeling 100% (it turned out later that I had a rip roaring chest infection). Luckily (God bless Schmee) the situation resolved itself and I did not need to play Rounds 2 through 6. The lesson learned was that you need a TO and a separate Spare Man for larger tournaments or if that is not possible / practical then bring a fun team you don’t care about and whatever you do don’t be ill!
The tournament itself went smoothly. The prior close liaison with Bar Akva ensured there were no surprises on the day. Access was as agreed; the right number of large enough tables were available; a projector for my laptop allowed clear dissemination of the pairings in each round, the leader board, timings and eventually the prizes; Chess Clocks kindly provided by Brendan Spencelayh kept everybody to time; and wireless microphones would have made announcements easy if I hadn’t already lost my voice.
The pre-ordered lunches in Akva were excellent and having them in the same venue as the tournament meant that 45 minutes was more than enough for lunch allowing me to have a timetable (with 2.5 hour rounds) that started at 9:30am and was finished by 6:15pm both days.
In addition to Bren’s excellent Burger Bowl 2018 tournament report
www.talkfantasyfootball.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=44809&start=45 also check out Ant Purdie’s Burger Bowl 2018 Tournament Report on the NAF website:
www.thenaf.net/welcome/stories/tournament-director-blog-july-18/