ACF Regionals Southeast at Vanderbilt (1/24/15)

[Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin]

This is the general announcement for the Southeast site of ACF Regionals, a regular-difficulty, packet submission, collegiate quizbowl tournament, to be hosted by Vanderbilt Quiz Bowl at Calhoun Hall on Saturday, January 24th, 2015 (Database entry: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/2654/). Either Daniel Laky (daniel.j.lakyATvanderbilt.edu) or I will direct this tournament, and the general contact for this tournament is [email protected] (club account). Questions for ACF should be sent to [email protected] or posted on the main ACF Regionals thread: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16437. Calhoun Hall will be open/opening announcements will begin soon after 8:00 AM (CST), and the first round will begin at exactly 8:30 AM (CST). I have started tournaments without teams before; if I am tournament director, I will do it again.

Registration:
Registration can only be officially done through ACF.
The registration form is here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/12QXdqd ... c/viewform.

Field size and format:
The field cap is 20 teams as of right now. That should be more than enough to accommodate everyone interested, most of whom I've contacted personally. We'll follow ACF format (http://acf-quizbowl.com/documents/474-2/).

Qualification for ACF Nationals:
All the details are here: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16437#p292149.

The following are from the main ACF Regionals thread. The only difference is that I've added some notes about bringing laptops/tablets/readers for staffers.

Packet submission details:
Please submit your [full] packet to [email protected]; the actual email with attached packet should include the phrase "[name of school + A/B/etc. if applicable) PACKET" in the subject line. The submission schedule for this tournament is as follows. In order to meet any particular deadline, your packet must be in our inbox by 11:59 pm PST on the stated day. (Note that these dates are Saturdays, not Sundays.)
November 29: -$50
December 13: -$25
December 27: no penalty
January 3: +$25
January 10: +$50
After that: +$10 for each additional day you're late. Teams that are required to submit a packet and do not submit one by January 17, 2015 will not be allowed to play ACF Regionals.
Note: Though these deadlines are earlier overall due to the shift of ACF Regionals' place in the schedule, participating teams should take note that this year's earliest submission deadline corresponds to Thanksgiving break and the no-penalty deadline corresponds to Christmas break.

Distribution:
The distribution for this tournament will be the same as last year's ACF Regionals, which varies slightly from the required 24/24 distribution on the ACF website.
Teams who clearly fail to fill out the distribution properly will have their packets returned to them and be instructed to resubmit a properly-distributed packet.
Literature: 5/5 (Note that ACF only requires 1 world literature question in this whole 5/5)
History: 5/5
Science: 5/5
Religion, Mythology and Philosophy: 3/3
Fine Arts: 3/3
Social Science: 1/1
Geography/Current Events: 1/1
Pop Culture: 1/0 or 0/1
Your Choice / Any Academic Category: 1/0 or 0/1

Fees and payment:
Base fee: $120 for one team from a school, $240 for two teams from a school, etc.
Buzzer systems: -$5 each (No discount for broken buzzers; no maximum)
Staffers: -$10 each (No maximum)
Travel: -$10 per 200 miles traveled one way
International**: -$20
New to ACF teams***: -$25
New quizbowl teams****: -$75
The laptop discount has been eliminated.
Staffers are expected either to bring a device with them which is capable of displaying Word documents and PDFs, since we (at Vanderbilt) will be using electronic packets. We do have one or two spare computers/tablets which can be used by readers, but that's certainly not enough for all readers.

** For teams representing schools located in a different country than the tournament host.
*** For schools which haven't played an ACF tournament between September 2012 and August 2014; having anyone on your team(s) who has played an ACF tournament prior to the 2014-15 competition year invalidates this discount.
**** For schools which did not send a team to any regular collegiate academic tournament since September 2012; having anyone on your team(s) who has played a regular collegiate quizbowl tournament prior to the 2014-15 competition year invalidates this discount. May be combined with new ACF team discount for a total new-team discount of $100.

As with other ACF tournaments, payment will be centralized. Teams will pay their entry fee directly to ACF prior to playing the tournament, and ACF will pay host fees out thereafter. For more questions about payment, contact ACF treasurer Jerry Vinokurov.

Location, transportation, parking, and lodging:
The tournament will take place in Calhoun Hall, which you cannot park at (middle of campus). Here is the campus map, with Calhoun near the center right of the campus: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/econ/apet/ima ... pusmap.pdf. It is approachable from I-440's exit 1A onto West End heading north, or I-40's exit 209B on Broadway heading south towards the Medical Center, or from Charlotte Ave. to West End heading towards the West side of campus near the roundabout near Kirkland Hall, which is useful for temporary parking. Similarly, the parking lot on 21st beside the Law School can be useful temporary parking. I've linked the parking guidelines here: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/traffic_parki ... arking.php. Tip: I'd suggest parking (permanently) in either the Terrace Place or Wesley Place garages, which are about 7-10 minutes from Calhoun, but free and likely large enough, as opposed to the reserved lots that surround the area.

Nearby hotels that are affordable but also of fairly good quality include the:
Days Inn Nashville West (15-20 min. driving, 5.1 miles) - least expensive
Comfort Inn West (5 minutes or so, 1 mile) - less expensive
Extended Stay America Hotel Nashville -Vanderbilt (5-10 minutes, 2 or so miles) - more expensive
Anything else is probably more expensive or much farther away.

Food:
You will probably want to stay near upper 21st Ave. or West End for lunch, and we will probably give you about an hour or 45 min. for lunch. Also, Rand Dining Hall is just a few minutes' walk from Calhoun but only accepts cash I think. It is the closest option but not necessarily the fastest one, depending on what time lunch begins and which place within Rand you choose.
Along West End
Taco Bell, Checkers, Amerigo's, Five Guys, Jason's Deli, Jack in the Box, Qdoba, TGI Friday's, Jimmy Johns, Moe's, PF Chang's, Bread & Company, Wendy's, J. Alexander's

Along 21st Ave S
San Antonio Taco Company, Panera, Subway, Chipotle, Mellow Mushroom, Wendy's

The below unofficial field list will be maintained regularly:
(11 teams/ 20 total, 11(!) buzzers, 3 staffers) and 2 laptops
Rappaccini's Daughters (1,1,1)
Kentucky (2,2,0)
Clemson (1,2,2)
Louisville (1,2,0)
Farragut (1,2,0)
Chattahoochee (1,1,0)
UGA (2,0,0)
GT (1,1,0)
House (1,0,0)

If you have any questions for us, email the club account at [email protected]. If you have any questions for ACF, email them at [email protected]. Do not hesitate to contact us or them!
I'm looking forward to a large, diverse field on the 24th!

[thomasgnd]

Dorman will bring 2 teams. Please email me the registration link once it is available: [email protected].

[t-bar]

The registered field for this tournament is available at this link.

[Rococo A Go Go]

It turns out we're not coming to this, so you can take us off the field/spreadsheet/whatever.

[sephirothrr]

Louisville is only going to have 1 team, but we now should have 1 staffer.

[t-bar]

It turns out we're not coming to this, so you can take us off the field/spreadsheet/whatever.

Louisville is only going to have 1 team, but we now should have 1 staffer.

I've made both of these changes in the spreadsheet linked above.

[Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin]

Thanks for coming, everyone- especially in the horrible weather. Shout out to all of our staffers as well- especially Chuck Pearson, EDIT: Darwin Fu, Matt Hayes, and Dargan Ware, (EDIT: some of) whom traveled pretty far just to read (well) for the tournament. Kentucky's teams and Georgia Tech had to drop, so we had a field of 8 teams.
The House team won first place (8-3) along with the DII title; University of Georgia A (8-4) was runner-up, Farragut was third (7-4) and won the UG title, and Chattahoochee was fourth (5-5). The top scorer from the prelims was Kai Smith (UG) from Farragut with 75 PPG, and the top DII scorer was Duncan Morgan from the house team. Statistics on the database are here: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/2654. Please email the club account (vandyquizbowl_@_gmail.com, removing the _) if you see anything incorrect and I'll fix it.