2014 PACE NSC Logistics Discussion

[Mike Bentley]

Thanks everyone for attending the 2013-2014 NSC. We'd like to thank all of the teams, coaches, parents and staffers who attended.

If you have any feedback about how the tournament was run, please use this thread to discuss it. Please use the other thread to discuss the content of the questions.

If you'd like to share your feedback over e-mail, feel free to e-mail me at [email protected].

[Quantum Mushroom Billiard Hat]

From my perspective as a staffer, it seemed like this tournament ran very smoothly for such a large event. I really liked the location, since it was easy to reach the hotel from the airport and there was a lot of food in easy walking distance. If that neighborhood ever gets connected to the subway lines, I think the location would be just about ideal.

It felt a bit weird to have packets distributed in the hallway as teams were moving from room to room, though I don't think it caused any problems. Including scoresheets in the stapled packets (instead of just on top) would also help save some effort and potential for misplaced papers, as well as making it harder for any answer lines to be visible to any teams in the hallway. Those are both very minor points, and I think the organizers did an outstanding job.

[Reesefulgenzi]

Everything ran well during the morning, but the delay after lunch caused our last round to finish right around 7 (instead of 6).
Overall, I was very happy with how well the tournament ran!

Reese

[Invisible Rail]

Apart from the long break following lunch which pushed back the end time almost an hour, I was really impressed by the smoothness with which the tournament was run. The only comment I have is that one of the rooms we were playing in, I think it was called the "tech foyer", was actually just a hallway with a small divider put up to separate the table of the rest of the hallway - this did cause some noise issues when teams were coming in and out of the nearby tech foyer, but this was overall a really minor complaint among a tournament that was otherwise extremely well-run.

Albemarle had a lot of fun at this tournament, and we were pleasantly surprised by how smoothly things ran, even in the later rounds which seemed logistically more complicated. Great job, and thank you, to all the staffers that made this possible!

[Blackboard Monitor Vimes]

We'd originally planned to have physical control rooms and not to use the converted hallways; Grand Ballroom D was supposed to be 3 rooms, and Regency A and B were each intended as 2. Unfortunately, we discovered that these options were not soundproof, so we moved to the remaining spaces at that point. That will definitely be fixed for next year by adding a few more converted bedrooms.

The delay after lunch was caused by assuming two people could enter 48 scoresheets a round (24 each) much faster than is in fact possible; next year we will have 3 or 4 people entering stats.

[Irreligion in Bangladesh]

We'd originally planned to have physical control rooms and not to use the converted hallways; Grand Ballroom D was supposed to be 3 rooms, and Regency A and B were each intended as 2. Unfortunately, we discovered that these options were not soundproof, so we moved to the remaining spaces at that point. That will definitely be fixed for next year by adding a few more converted bedrooms.

The delay after lunch was caused by assuming two people could each enter 48 scoresheets a round much faster than is in fact possible; next year we will have 3 or 4 people entering stats.

Why that few? I'd think you'd want, just for comfort's sake, enough statskeepers to divide it up to 16-20 sheets per round (or fewer if possible). Bouncebacks alone would warrant going with more stats crew than NAQT would run for a similarly sized event.

[Blackboard Monitor Vimes]

We'd originally planned to have physical control rooms and not to use the converted hallways; Grand Ballroom D was supposed to be 3 rooms, and Regency A and B were each intended as 2. Unfortunately, we discovered that these options were not soundproof, so we moved to the remaining spaces at that point. That will definitely be fixed for next year by adding a few more converted bedrooms.

The delay after lunch was caused by assuming two people could each enter 48 scoresheets a round much faster than is in fact possible; next year we will have 3 or 4 people entering stats.

Why that few? I'd think you'd want, just for comfort's sake, enough statskeepers to divide it up to 16-20 sheets per round (or fewer if possible). Bouncebacks alone would warrant going with more stats crew than NAQT would run for a similarly sized event.

At least 3-4, that is, with an additional dedicated person or two for performing the bounceback calculations. I don't mean to commit us to an exact number right now; the best way to do this is still under discussion. At this point I just mean to assure people that we've realized we need to add more people to the stats crew and that it will be taken care of.

[jonpin]

We'd originally planned to have physical control rooms and not to use the converted hallways; Grand Ballroom D was supposed to be 3 rooms, and Regency A and B were each intended as 2. Unfortunately, we discovered that these options were not soundproof, so we moved to the remaining spaces at that point. That will definitely be fixed for next year by adding a few more converted bedrooms.

The delay after lunch was caused by assuming two people could each enter 48 scoresheets a round much faster than is in fact possible; next year we will have 3 or 4 people entering stats.

Why that few? I'd think you'd want, just for comfort's sake, enough statskeepers to divide it up to 16-20 sheets per round (or fewer if possible). Bouncebacks alone would warrant going with more stats crew than NAQT would run for a similarly sized event.

Slight correction to what Sarah said above: The two of us had to enter a total of 48 scoresheets; each of us had 24 to enter. With a crew of 3 people on computers (entering 16 games per round) plus a 4th with a pen, plus the TD and ATD (who can in those rare dull moments help with the written calculations), my expectation is things would run a whole lot smoother.

[Blackboard Monitor Vimes]

We'd originally planned to have physical control rooms and not to use the converted hallways; Grand Ballroom D was supposed to be 3 rooms, and Regency A and B were each intended as 2. Unfortunately, we discovered that these options were not soundproof, so we moved to the remaining spaces at that point. That will definitely be fixed for next year by adding a few more converted bedrooms.

The delay after lunch was caused by assuming two people could each enter 48 scoresheets a round much faster than is in fact possible; next year we will have 3 or 4 people entering stats.

Why that few? I'd think you'd want, just for comfort's sake, enough statskeepers to divide it up to 16-20 sheets per round (or fewer if possible). Bouncebacks alone would warrant going with more stats crew than NAQT would run for a similarly sized event.

Slight correction to what Sarah said above: The two of us had to enter a total of 48 scoresheets; each of us had 24 to enter. With a crew of 3 people on computers (entering 16 games per round) plus a 4th with a pen, plus the TD and ATD (who can in those rare dull moments help with the written calculations), my expectation is things would run a whole lot smoother.

This is why Jon handles the numbers...apologies for any confusion.

[heterodyne]

The delay after lunch was caused by assuming two people could enter 48 scoresheets a round (24 each) much faster than is in fact possible; next year we will have 3 or 4 people entering stats.

Our team at least was not bothered by the delay. We had time to go get kebabs and play a bit of Imaginary Landscape, and it didn't lead to a ridiculous finish time, especially since we didn't have far to go.

[the return of AHAN]

We'd originally planned to have physical control rooms and not to use the converted hallways; Grand Ballroom D was supposed to be 3 rooms, and Regency A and B were each intended as 2. Unfortunately, we discovered that these options were not soundproof, so we moved to the remaining spaces at that point. That will definitely be fixed for next year by adding a few more converted bedrooms.

The delay after lunch was caused by assuming two people could each enter 48 scoresheets a round much faster than is in fact possible; next year we will have 3 or 4 people entering stats.

Why that few? I'd think you'd want, just for comfort's sake, enough statskeepers to divide it up to 16-20 sheets per round (or fewer if possible). Bouncebacks alone would warrant going with more stats crew than NAQT would run for a similarly sized event.

I ran a 52-team middle school tournament with bouncebacks this year and employed 3 statisticians.