Tip to run a successful youth tournament

We all want to run a successful tournament, the more successful of a tournament you have the more likely your tournament is to grow. We need well run events so we can retain our beginner wrestlers. One of the biggest reasons people quit wrestling is because they don’t have a good experience at events. Some key points in running a success tournament are:

1. Stay on time, it is better to run ahead of time than behind time so adjust your schedules accordingly.
2. Have brackets ready as early as possible on Friday, do not wait until Friday night to do bracketing. This helps give parents an opportunity to check brackets and let you know of mistakes such as wrong weights entered etc. This will cut down on changes on Saturday
3. Whoever is your tournament director make sure they are available and will answer calls, texts and emails regarding your event. The most frustrating thing for a parent is when they are trying to get answers and no one will respond to them. 
4. Make sure your tournament director is someone that can effectively run trackwrestling and manage an event. If you don’t have the time or have someone within your program that can do this then hire someone to do this for you. It is worth paying someone than to have your event be a disaster. If you need help finding someone to run your event please let us know and we can help find someone.

Additional tips on how to run a successful tournament

1. Run live on trackwrestling.com – this helps ensure results get put into track so parents aren’t wondering or asking. This also helps with seeding at bigger events such as Youth Super State
2. When you group wrestlers and then assign to a mat the rule of thumb is no more than 8 kids per mat per hour. Start with how many mats you can run (includes space, refs, awards, table help) and then times that number by 8 and that is the cap for how many kids in that 1 hour session. 
3. Use staggered start times so 1 or 2 grades are going at one time. The goal is to get kids in and out in 1 hour but for sure no more than 2 hours. If you don’t have the space to get kids in and out in less than 2 hours then cap your tournament. 
4. Chairs in the corner. We understand this isn’t always possible but if you are able this helps keep crowds from gathering on the mats.
5. Make sure all weights are entered on Thursday nights. This allows for Friday to be a day to build brackets and make corrections. If you are unable to get all weights in on Thursday night then for sure Friday first thing this should be done. 
6. The day of the event make sure you have someone out among the mats constantly making sure things are running on time and efficiently, you need someone visable for questions and to fix issues.