Wow. I cannot say enough good things about the administration of the Battle Royale. I've been to a whole bunch of WFTDA tournaments: every regional and national, both ECE's, the Bumberbout, and except for Dust Devil 06 I was part of the staff for every one of them. I've never once seen a tournament stay on time. Sometimes close, but never completely on.
When I first saw the timeline for this event, I literally laughed out loud. 90 minute turnarounds between bouts? Completely impossible. I mentioned to everyone I could think of that the schedule simply violated the laws of physics. Can't. Be. Done.
Day 3, and not a single event has started more than 5 minutes behind schedule.
So how did they do it? Three items stand out:
- No intros until the third and first place bouts. I am somewhat surprised to discover that I really didn't miss them. I like the skate-out and the intros, I think that's fun, but with this many teams playing this many bouts, it's just not necessary. Several minutes saved per bout.
- Warmups for the next bout's skaters start at halftime of the previous bout. Ten minutes on skates at that time, and another ten - fifteen minutes between bouts, turns out to be enough warmup for experienced teams.
- No fixed amount of time reserved between bouts. Rather than guarunteeing, say 15 minutes between bouts, the time-to-start clock is instead set to count down to the time the next bout is scheduled to start.
Ivanna was just reading over my shoulder, and she pointed out one more item: teams are taking only a single victory lap, not skating multiple times around the track at the end. Not sure if this was part of the plan, or just teams recognizing that the schedule is tight and being respectful of the warmup time needs of the teams following them, but it's a good development.
It's been a tour de force of event management. There are a whole lot of other things that Houston Roller Derby is doing right here, but those are the new items, and I hope other leagues running tournaments can benefit from them.
You can't miss it when you're outside the venue, but on the inside, there's no way you could possible know this city was hit by a major hurricane three weeks ago. Congratulations on hosting a very successful event, Houston!
Thank you!
Thank you for the compliments Hurt! HRD's plan was to host the best tournament ever! It was quite an adventure to say the least!
We were thrilled to have the folks in Houston and glad to hear that we didn't disappoint you!
Carmen Geddit
Houston Roller Derby
Battle Royale 08
So great to read that Hurt! We can't say enough wonderful things about having our derby sisters in our city. It's always amazing to watch the skill level and how our counterparts play the game. And it's just beyond good to see those faces!
Thanks to the derby community for coming out to support!
Anyone who needs help on how to use sign language to curse, hit me up!
DBC
Houston Roller Derby
Set my watch by it...
I watched nearly all the bouts online and was also impressed at the timely manner. There's so much chaos getting everyone together but apparently Houston has their stuff together! I'm sorry I didn't get to hang with DBC, I need to learn some sign language too! :)
Sign language cursing
I grew up a town with one of the larger colleges for the deaf. Lots of deaf folks tend to settle there. Bars actually have "deaf night." Once I walked into one, not realizing it. It took me a moment to realize that that table of girls weren't Italian-Americans .
But seriously, ASL curses are about the only sign language that ever stuck with me, other than one or two other words they'd teach you in jr. high along with finger-spelling.
-Barely even speaking for myself...
*~[
Grand Poobah
Sin City Stat Pack
Fabulous Sin City Rollergirls
Whoops
I totally had an HRD sticker for you, too, Hurt. I guess I just forgot.
I've never had so much fun in my life, and the tournaments or events that i've been to- the level of play just intensifies every single time.
Jeanie - Ann Heuser Butch- did an amazing job as Tournament Director.
And by the way- the men's derby during half time on sunday- loved it.
And one more time- I freakin' LOVE B.A.D.G.
It was very well presented
The whole thing was very well presented. Kudos to everyone who was involved in it not just on the tourney staff but to the folks in the derby media who brought it to the world.
=m
with derby love...
Michi-chan
Member, OSDA Advisory Board
Agreed!
Thanks Houston! I loved that all the bouts started on time. Especially since my teammate Grr Lee Burly had to leave the last bout as soon as it ended to make her flight home! Everything worked out great!
Thanks!
Thanks for the kind words everyone! We worked our butts off putting this thing together, even without electricity at times, so it's really nice to hear everyone's approval. Anheiser Butch (tournament director), HOT Rink Sweeper (floor manager), Prosecutor (schedule diva & referee wrangler) and several other key people get mad props for making Battle Royale run smoothly. Thanks to all the teams that participated for being on time and ready to play under such pressure and a big thanks to everyone who came to see the tournament. It was definitely a weekend of derby I will not soon forget.
Much Love,
-Scarlet O'Hurtya
PR/Marketing director
Houston Roller Derby
Is WFTDA really putting on Easterns and Westerns the same days?
Check the flyer over on the WFTDA site. Both the Eastern Regionals and Western Regionals are being held on September 11-13. Was this intentional or the only dates they could get? It doesn't appear that the other tournaments are overlapping. I'm wondering if it was just a typo...
-Barely even speaking for myself...
*~[
Grand Poobah
Sin City Stat Pack
Fabulous Sin City Rollergirls
Is WFTDA really putting on Easterns and Westerns the same days?
Check the flyer over on the WFTDA site. Both the Eastern Regionals and Western Regionals are being held on September 11-13. Was this intentional or the only dates they could get? It doesn't appear that the other tournaments are overlapping. I'm wondering if it was just a typo...
-Barely even speaking for myself...
*~[
Grand Poobah
Sin City Stat Pack
Fabulous Sin City Rollergirls
Yes- East and West Regionals will be held on the same day. Because WFTDA relies on its member leagues to host our tourney and our member leagues are at the mercy of their venues, scheduling conflicts will occur. It will make for one action packed weekend though, won't it?
Miss Jane RedRum
Fort Wayne Derby Girls
Good Gawd
The DNN-boutcast-logistics center of my brain is asking for sedatives.
Yes indeed
No typo, that's the schedule. Kind of a shame, I was hoping to make it out to Denver...
If Only Statisfier Could Multiply
Oh, ha-ha.
I kill me.
Refs
Your comment made me realize something: That weekend will double the need for qualified tournament refs. West Regionals had a number of eastern refs helping out and they aren't likely to be in Denver next year. The need to train qualified tournament refs really needs to be a high priority for WFTDA this year.
- bjmacke (a.k.a. Apron)
So does that mean.....
that the Western Regionals or the National Tourney will be in Denver in 2009?
Denver and Philly
that the Western Regionals or the National Tourney will be in Denver in 2009?
The Western Regionals will be in Denver in 2009.
The 2009 National Championship will be in Philly.
xo,
Loco Chanel/ WCR
How bout
The Eastern Regionals yo:)?
easterns
will be in North Carolina.
Check out this nifty map on www.wftda.com with all the tournament dates and locations.
Holly Gohardly
Charm City Roller Girls
North and South Central
Will be hosted by Minneapolis and Atlanta, respectively.
Just for those of y'all who aren't checking out the nifty map graphic like Holly is wisely advising.
It is a priority!
There's a great article about the Ref Certification Process in the current issue of Five-on-Five Magazine. WFTDA recently rolled out this system and I believe all 2009 tournament refs will be required to be certified.
I'll say it's great!
(and thanks and aw shucks).
Incentives
Or possibly look into travel stipends. Tournament season is going to hit those refs who are in high-demand pretty hard next year. Some may be called up for 3 weekends for regionals. Then, there's nationals. What I think the organizers have done for East/West is have a certain percentage invited from that region and a certain (smaller) percentage from the other region. There seems to be a decent pool of refs that are just about at tournament level coming up (windy city has a good crop), so if this factor stays on course, it should work out. If the same ratio is used next year, east and west could pull refs from North/South Central for that weekend.
Sorry, just trying to get thru today, aka the longest day ever, til i get on the plane for Madison tomorrow.
ITA
Your comment made me realize something: That weekend will double the need for qualified tournament refs. West Regionals had a number of eastern refs helping out and they aren't likely to be in Denver next year. The need to train qualified tournament refs really needs to be a high priority for WFTDA this year.
- bjmacke (a.k.a. Apron)
If the number of certified refs isn't doubled over the next year, I think you're gonna end up in a couple of prickly situations that Ed Hochuli would think ain't according to Hoyle.
The Original GGRDonald Scully
TRUSTNO1
same day
Each league puts their bid in for regionals and nationals seperately with the dates they are able to secure for the venue. So unfortunately, they do happen to overlap this year.
Holly Gohardly
Charm City Roller Girls
And there are 4 that have to be within date X and date Y ...
Odds are there would be a conflict ...
Correct
The Tournaments Committee gave bidding leagues a window during which the Regional Tournaments are to happen... The window does not "force" overlap (i.e. there are at least 4 weekends that are options), but it's a likely possibility because scheduling is hard.
And when you look at the alternative-- something like 2007's Western Regional in February and Eastern Regional in August, the overlap is better option from a sports perspective.
For the future
While the six-month gap last year sucked, perhaps in future years the window could be, say, six or eight weeks? The overlap weekend is gonna be a challenge, as I realize is already well understood.
Overlap
If I'm doing my math right, there was an 83% chance that there would be at least one overlap. There was a 25% chance that all four tournaments would happen the same week. If you expand out the window to eight weeks, there's 28 possible outcomes and 15 without an overlap, almost 50%.
Now that's all random probability stuff. Since there's a selection process involved, you can fiddle with the odds a bit. Say... require bids to have at least two possible weekends and favor bids that can do all four. Then the four winning bids get to horse trade on which weekends work best for each of them.
- bjmacke (a.k.a. Apron)