Very Preliminary Announcement: West Coast Invitational

[cvdwightw]

The West Coast Invitational will happen sometime in March or April at a Southern California university campus to be decided. This will be a joint venture between the quizbowl clubs of (at least) UCLA, UC Irvine, and UCSD (if there are any other SoCal college clubs that read the boards here and want to join on, e-mail me).

We are planning to use the Weekend of Quizbowl-style format of one longer tournament on Saturday, some sort of activity on Saturday night, and a shorter tournament on Sunday. We hope that the promise of two tournaments in one weekend will lure teams from a variety of Western circuits and perhaps some teams from other areas interested in checking out the best teams the West has to offer this year.

A full announcement including dates, location, packet sets, fee structure, and who to contact about this invitational will be posted on the boards in early or mid-December. For now, please use this thread for questions and comments about the venture, or e-mail me at dpwynne at gmail dot com if you have questions or comments you do not wish to make publicly. While we are obviously not accepting registrations at this time, we would be very glad to hear interest (either by posting in this thread or by e-mailing me), especially from teams outside the Southern California area.

[gyre and gimble]

Have it at UCSD. That would be very cool.

[yjna4006]

MSJ would be willing to come to this.

By the way, Is there a better way of getting down to SoCal than Greyhound?

[Golran]

There is the airport. If it's held at UCLA, I know I would be willing to let people stay in my dorm room (though it is kind of small, probably only fit 2-3 people, 4 if you don't mind being close together), and there is a bus from LAX to UCLA that runs every hour or half hour (not sure which) for $5 per person. Otherwise there is a combination of bus and train through Amtrak.

[Tanay]

Bellarmine is thinking of coming down to playing this tournament. For now, we're very interested, but very, very tentative.

[Tanay]

Any new details on this?

[Tanay]

Have any further announcements been made about this?

[cvdwightw]

Have any further announcements been made about this?

We've obviously missed our set deadline for when we hoped to have an announcement by; we hope to have a full announcement made very soon. At this point we are looking at hosting on one of the two weekends open in SoCal (March 20 or March 27) at a college in the LA area. We anticipate using a HSAPQ Tournament Set on Saturday and the NAQT Division II set on Sunday, but we have yet to confirm and order those sets. We are also exploring the possibility of using the NASAT Tryout Package on Saturday night.

[Tanay]

Bellarmine can only go on the weekend of the 27th.

[Joe Romersa]

Can we get specifics?

[cvdwightw]

Can we get specifics?

We're doing our best to find a date that works for a couple of out-of-area teams and if we can find such a weekend then we'll send out an announcement as soon as possible. If we can't find one, then we'll probably end up cancelling the tournament; I apologize to all the seniors if this does end up happening and we'll have better organization on this next year. This event was plagued from the beginning by the fact that I was pretty much the only driving force behind it and I've been continually putting this on the back burner as new quizbowl-related deadlines keep appearing (I've got two such deadlines right now).

[gyre and gimble]

We are also exploring the possibility of using the NASAT Tryout Package on Saturday night.

So if this doesn't happen at West Coast Invitational, then will it happen at all? And what happens if somebody can't make it?

[cvdwightw]

Even-more-updated update: we're almost certainly going to do this on March 27-28 at UCLA, assuming we can find staff. Details to be finalized soon.

[cvdwightw]

We are also exploring the possibility of using the NASAT Tryout Package on Saturday night.

So if this doesn't happen at West Coast Invitational, then will it happen at all? And what happens if somebody can't make it?

Right now I don't even know whether we'll be able to field such a NASAT team (I for one have no idea how anyone is planning on paying for the registration fee and hotels; players/chaperones would probably need to pay their own airfare; I personally am more concerned with things like directing the NASAT itself than getting a California team there, though I suppose I would be okay acting as the team "chaperone" as long as parents were aware and okay with the fact that I'm a 24-year-old that wouldn't be with the team most of the time). Also, I have other commitments that would preclude me from personally running the tryout on the night of March 27, so organizing that would be up to one of the other college people.

If there ends up being interest from a bunch of people who can't make it on March 27, then one of us college people can always try to set up something via IRC so that both SoCal and NorCal people get a chance to try out on somewhat equal footing.

[Auroni]

Also, I have other commitments that would preclude me from personally running the tryout on the night of March 27, so organizing that would be up to one of the other college people.

I'll head this effort, then, if we still have access to the rooms on this night.

[vinayak.vsv]

How large is the expected competition pool? Has a cap been set yet, and if so, what is it?

Will this draw teams not just from California but also around the nation? Is it expected to?


Vinay V. Bellarmine A

[cvdwightw]

How large is the expected competition pool? Has a cap been set yet, and if so, what is it?

Will this draw teams not just from California but also around the nation? Is it expected to?

We're trying to get every team within a reasonable driving distance that is the best in its area, right now that means a couple of top NorCal teams, Brophy from Arizona, and the top SoCal teams; plus other SoCal teams to round out the field. We don't anticipate more than about 20 teams this year. At one point we were going to try to invite the Clark County Varsity Quiz champion but I think that fell through the cracks (though if one of the other SoCal college people sees this and wants to go find who that is and invite them, be my guest).

Obviously this is just a trial right now to make sure we can pull anything like this off, and once we have our feet wet with figuring everything out we can start planning better to try to make it a more national competition next year.

[Golran]

Someone from my floor played in Clark County Varsity Quiz last year. I'll see if he has any connections/knowledge of who it was. Also, how many rooms should I reserve?

[STPickrell]

How large is the expected competition pool? Has a cap been set yet, and if so, what is it?

Will this draw teams not just from California but also around the nation? Is it expected to?

We're trying to get every team within a reasonable driving distance that is the best in its area, right now that means a couple of top NorCal teams, Brophy from Arizona, and the top SoCal teams; plus other SoCal teams to round out the field. We don't anticipate more than about 20 teams this year. At one point we were going to try to invite the Clark County Varsity Quiz champion but I think that fell through the cracks (though if one of the other SoCal college people sees this and wants to go find who that is and invite them, be my guest).

Obviously this is just a trial right now to make sure we can pull anything like this off, and once we have our feet wet with figuring everything out we can start planning better to try to make it a more national competition next year.

Would inviting some of the teams that show up at the Utah and/or New Mexico NAQT tournaments be appropriate? The Montana folks seem to have stumbled across us (but that might be too far of a drive).

[gyre and gimble]

They don't necessarily have to drive. Planes totally exist, you know.

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

They don't necessarily have to drive. Planes totally exist, you know.

Not for non-rich public schools who get no funding!

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

Yeah, if you are planning on going to nationals, planes are not really a viable option for your regular season if you don't have a bunch of built up tournament money or school support.

[Mechanical Beasts]

Yeah, if you are planning on going to nationals, planes are not really a viable option for your regular season if you don't have a bunch of built up tournament money or school support.

This is the only reason we did the TV show when we were in high school; we could win our budget every year.

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

Yeah, if you are planning on going to nationals, planes are not really a viable option for your regular season if you don't have a bunch of built up tournament money or school support.

This is the only reason we did the TV show when we were in high school; we could win our budget every year.

This is the only reason why i wish we had our local TV show back, crappy format and all.

[gyre and gimble]

Yeah, if you are planning on going to nationals, planes are not really a viable option for your regular season if you don't have a bunch of built up tournament money or school support.

Sorry, I thought the NorCal kids were gonna fly down here (even though I think I read that somewhere, I probably just assumed it). I suppose it's A) a lot cheaper for in-state and much shorter flights and B) they might not even be flying anyway.

[cvdwightw]

I have ordered HSAPQ Tourn-10 and NAQT Division II SCT sets for use on the two days. I have not committed to which set is being used on which day. If you are a local team that can only make one day of the tournament and has a strong preference for using one set or the other, please let me know. Also, there is a slight possibility that we would run the NAQT set as a timed tournament, but we would need clocks to do so. If you have clocks that would work, let me know.

Here are the fees for the West Coast Invitational. We hope that teams can still get together on short notice. We will run each tournament as long as there are a minimum of 6 teams. All teams are welcome to attend.

Base fee (per team, one tournament): $70
Base fee (per team, both tournaments): $120
Second and subsequent teams: -$10, per team, per tournament (so a second team participating both days would be $100)
Buzzer discount: -$5, per fully-functional buzzer system, per tournament; discount off school's entire fee, not each team's fee
Moderator discount: -$15, per tournament; discount off school's entire fee, not each team's fee
Travel discount: -$5 per 100 miles traveled one-way, per team, one-time discount off total fee (distance calculated by reputable online map software, from your school to the tournament site)
Clocks (if we get enough to run the tournament): -$5, per clock, NAQT tournament only; discount off school's entire fee, not each team's fee

Minimum fee, per team: $35 for one tournament or $60 for two

Checks should be made out to "College Bowl Club."