RESULTS: VCU Season Finale Tournament (05/05/07)
Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 7:22 pm
This is the general announcement for the VCU Season Finale Tournament, a high school academic quizbowl tournament to be held at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond on Saturday, May 5 from 8:30 AM to 3:30 PM.
This tournament will be affiliated with the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence, a national quizbowl organization which will provide the questions. This will be the last opportunity to qualify for the National Scholastics Championship, which is run by PACE and will occur at the University of Michigan on June 9 & 10. The tournament is, however, open to everyone--teams who are not interested in attending nationals, and teams who have already qualified for nationals, are welcome to participate alongside those schools attempting to qualify. Questions will be of an appropriate difficulty level to provide an entertaining experience for all teams in attendance. All schools who participate in the tournament will receive a copy of the questions on CD, for no additional charge, after the event.
LOCATION, DIRECTIONS, PARKING: The entire tournament will take place in the Hibbs Building on our Monroe Park campus (aka "Academic Campus"). Please meet in room 303 of Hibbs no later than 8:30 in order to register. Games may begin anytime after 8:30 so please do not be late.
-The nominal address of the building is "900 Park Ave, Richmond VA" if you need to put something into your map software of choice, but be aware that Hibbs does not actually face the street, so you will have to park and then walk to the area where the building is in order to find it. I suggest printing out the appropriate campus maps and bringing them along--note that Hibbs is directly across from the Cabell Library, which will probably be easier for you to find if you have not been to the VCU campus before.
-On Saturdays, parking on the street is free and available in most places around the campus. Each of the various VCU decal lots may be closed, decal-only, or free to all on Saturday; check the sign for an individual lot before parking in it. If for some reason you cannot find parking on the street or in a free-on-weekends lot, then there are several parking decks around campus, many of which are open on Saturdays and will charge you somewhere between $0 and $5 to park all day.
FORMAT: The tournament format will most likely involve teams playing seven preliminary games, which will feed into a three to four-round playoff in either pooled or single-elimination format. All teams will be guaranteed the opportunity to play a minimum of seven games to produce their playoff ranking, and consolation playoffs for teams who do not qualify for the championship bracket after the prelims will also be made available. The specific format will be determined once the final field size is known. Rounds will proceed from shortly after 8:30 until the end of the tournament at about 3:30, and there will be a 60-minute lunch break midway through the day.
REGISTRATION AND FEES:
-The fee structure is as follows:
Base fee: $55 per team (i.e., $55 if you are bringing one team, $110 if you are bringing two teams, $165 if you are bringing three teams)
Early registration discount: $5 off school's total fee for registering before April 1
Buzzer discount: $5 off school's total fee for each fully functional system (control box and eight activators all work)--no limit to # of systems you can bring
Staff discount: $10 off school's total fee. This could be a coach, parent, student who is not playing, etc. Team-provided staffers will keep score for various games not involving the team with which they are affiliated. Volunteer staffers must stay through the seven preliminary games in order to receive credit for their school. There is no limit to the number of staffers you can bring.
Minimum fee: The minimum fee is $0 (you can bring enough buzzers and staffers to eliminate your entire fee via discounts, but you cannot have a "negative fee.")
-The registration deadline is May 1 or whenever the field cap is hit, whichever comes first.
-To register, post in this thread or mail me at weinerm @ vcu dot edu with the number of teams, buzzers, and staffers you want to bring, and an email address where you can be contacted with details. Feel free to forward this announcement to any schools that you think would be interested in attending. There will be a snail mail version of this announcement going out later this week, but follow-up communication will be via email only.
FIELD SIZE: The field is capped at 24 teams, so individual schools will only be allowed to register up to three teams right off the bat. If you want to bring four or more teams, let me know and I will place your additional teams on a waitlist in the order that I am informed of them. If the field does not fill up with A, B, and C teams, or if we are able to find sufficient rooms and staff to expand the tournament size, then D and further teams will be let in based on the order of the waitlist.
TEAM & ROSTER SIZE: There may be a maximum of six players on one team's roster, though only four may play at one time. There are two substitution opportunities in each game.
-Each player may appear on only one team's roster throughout the day--no switching from the B team to the A team, etc.
-Teams may also play shorthanded with only three players. Teams consisting of one or two players may not play without my express prior permission.
FOOD: Neither breakfast nor lunch will be provided by the tournament. There are several eateries within walking distance of Hibbs and a vast cornucopia within a ten minutes' drive; maps and suggestions will be provided at the tournament.
Post here or mail me if you have any further questions. I'm looking forward to seeing a wide variety of teams from Virginia and surrounding states on May 5.
This tournament will be affiliated with the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence, a national quizbowl organization which will provide the questions. This will be the last opportunity to qualify for the National Scholastics Championship, which is run by PACE and will occur at the University of Michigan on June 9 & 10. The tournament is, however, open to everyone--teams who are not interested in attending nationals, and teams who have already qualified for nationals, are welcome to participate alongside those schools attempting to qualify. Questions will be of an appropriate difficulty level to provide an entertaining experience for all teams in attendance. All schools who participate in the tournament will receive a copy of the questions on CD, for no additional charge, after the event.
LOCATION, DIRECTIONS, PARKING: The entire tournament will take place in the Hibbs Building on our Monroe Park campus (aka "Academic Campus"). Please meet in room 303 of Hibbs no later than 8:30 in order to register. Games may begin anytime after 8:30 so please do not be late.
-The nominal address of the building is "900 Park Ave, Richmond VA" if you need to put something into your map software of choice, but be aware that Hibbs does not actually face the street, so you will have to park and then walk to the area where the building is in order to find it. I suggest printing out the appropriate campus maps and bringing them along--note that Hibbs is directly across from the Cabell Library, which will probably be easier for you to find if you have not been to the VCU campus before.
-On Saturdays, parking on the street is free and available in most places around the campus. Each of the various VCU decal lots may be closed, decal-only, or free to all on Saturday; check the sign for an individual lot before parking in it. If for some reason you cannot find parking on the street or in a free-on-weekends lot, then there are several parking decks around campus, many of which are open on Saturdays and will charge you somewhere between $0 and $5 to park all day.
FORMAT: The tournament format will most likely involve teams playing seven preliminary games, which will feed into a three to four-round playoff in either pooled or single-elimination format. All teams will be guaranteed the opportunity to play a minimum of seven games to produce their playoff ranking, and consolation playoffs for teams who do not qualify for the championship bracket after the prelims will also be made available. The specific format will be determined once the final field size is known. Rounds will proceed from shortly after 8:30 until the end of the tournament at about 3:30, and there will be a 60-minute lunch break midway through the day.
REGISTRATION AND FEES:
-The fee structure is as follows:
Base fee: $55 per team (i.e., $55 if you are bringing one team, $110 if you are bringing two teams, $165 if you are bringing three teams)
Early registration discount: $5 off school's total fee for registering before April 1
Buzzer discount: $5 off school's total fee for each fully functional system (control box and eight activators all work)--no limit to # of systems you can bring
Staff discount: $10 off school's total fee. This could be a coach, parent, student who is not playing, etc. Team-provided staffers will keep score for various games not involving the team with which they are affiliated. Volunteer staffers must stay through the seven preliminary games in order to receive credit for their school. There is no limit to the number of staffers you can bring.
Minimum fee: The minimum fee is $0 (you can bring enough buzzers and staffers to eliminate your entire fee via discounts, but you cannot have a "negative fee.")
-The registration deadline is May 1 or whenever the field cap is hit, whichever comes first.
-To register, post in this thread or mail me at weinerm @ vcu dot edu with the number of teams, buzzers, and staffers you want to bring, and an email address where you can be contacted with details. Feel free to forward this announcement to any schools that you think would be interested in attending. There will be a snail mail version of this announcement going out later this week, but follow-up communication will be via email only.
FIELD SIZE: The field is capped at 24 teams, so individual schools will only be allowed to register up to three teams right off the bat. If you want to bring four or more teams, let me know and I will place your additional teams on a waitlist in the order that I am informed of them. If the field does not fill up with A, B, and C teams, or if we are able to find sufficient rooms and staff to expand the tournament size, then D and further teams will be let in based on the order of the waitlist.
TEAM & ROSTER SIZE: There may be a maximum of six players on one team's roster, though only four may play at one time. There are two substitution opportunities in each game.
-Each player may appear on only one team's roster throughout the day--no switching from the B team to the A team, etc.
-Teams may also play shorthanded with only three players. Teams consisting of one or two players may not play without my express prior permission.
FOOD: Neither breakfast nor lunch will be provided by the tournament. There are several eateries within walking distance of Hibbs and a vast cornucopia within a ten minutes' drive; maps and suggestions will be provided at the tournament.
Post here or mail me if you have any further questions. I'm looking forward to seeing a wide variety of teams from Virginia and surrounding states on May 5.