Looking for ideas to seperate our tourney from others.

[rico23]

We are looking for some fresh ideas to separate our tourney from others. Any fresh ideas ??? We have a very, very nice facility with ample parking, concession, functional bathrooms to name a few. We lined, watered fields and raked between games. So all that is taken care of. The tourney itself is ran by the ASA of Western PA. What I am looking for is ideas to make our tourney special. I was suggested mvp game ribbons which is ok. I was thinking more along the lines of home run derby under the lights, fastest base runner, that type of thing.

Any suggestions ??

 

[joboo1drew]

Unless it is a nationals I think the HR derby and other stuff is just fluff.

Playing games under lights is always fun. Just do things right and on time and you will stand out from others. Example is many tourneys don't have contingents for rain. Plan for the worst and pray for the best.

Having vendors is a good thing as well.

 

[Hickorybuck]

Post results on-line ASAP

 

[joboo1drew]

By the way I applaud you on taking the initiative to make the tournaments you run better each time.

 

[ApogeeDemon]

Years ago, a tournament my girls talked about for years was a midnight madness tourney. The last games had a start time of midnight. They loved it! Of course if you played that late, the next day you didn't start until like noon the next day. It was different but also a ton of fun.

 

[The3dm]

Just before I stopped running tournaments I was toying with the idea of a type of family dinner night at the fields on Saturday night.

I was thinking of doing a Pig Roast w/sides & bevies and pre-selling them at the time of tournament entry as well as walk-ups night of.. We had a big pavilion available for seating or plenty of lawn for blankets, so that would have not been an issue. Take any fore-casted profit and rent a garage band (genre appropriate) to provide some entertainment. Make it about the families and togetherness and not about profit and I am sure it would be great.

 

[JoeA1010]

I also applaud looking for ways to make it better. I agree with the others above. I would add an idea to update results not only online immediately, but also on-site. Put up the board for pool play results and then bracket results at each site and make it huge and easy to read. In other words, if you have three four-field quads, have a board for the results at all three spots and make the board so big that people do not have to elbow around other people to read it. Make it easy to read by either typing labels or having someone who has clear handwriting do the updating. And update it immediately after the end of each game.

There isn't a single tournament I can think of that does all of this. If yours is a college exposure type of tournament, it's even more important, as it is frustrating for college coaches to try to figure out who is playing when when the brackets aren't updated or you can't even read the name of the team on the bracket (or the team name is incomplete, such as Cincy Static without specifying which Static it is).

To do this, you can't rely on coaches to report scores to you, as they will often forget and your updates will be hours behind. You need a rep at each field at the end of each game and they text the result to the people doing the updating.

This might seem like a lot, but if you want one way to stand out from the others, this will definitely do it.

 

[FastBat]

1.) Fast t-shirt lines- this year vendors were very slow, worst service of my life at one of them.

2.) Have game changer live streaming each and every game!

Good luck!

 

[coach t]

Start the games at 10pm on a Friday night and play all the way through the night into the next day (recover Sunday). We did a tournament like that in Missouri and it was a a blast!

 

[CARDS]

With the June Keith Carver in Maysville KY we did not start any game before 10am Sat and Sunday, We made sure we used NCAA 47/400 balls and had fields set at 200ft.
Plenty of restrooms both fixed with running water or a port o lets..Concessions including ICE cream. Shade available, along with warm up areas and plenty of parking.This year we had a guy from Columbus Ohio set up an tent for tshirts and sold other stuff hair bowes etc at a decent price.

We did a chicken dinner with mashed potatoes, green beans, corn on the cob, side salad and a choice of desert and drink for $7.00 in 2013 and it went over pretty well. Krogers helped sponsor the event and did all the cooking and supplied the food./drink that year. It was a lot of work though with setting up tables and tents, keeping up with the garbage etc.

Now this was an open age and HS age scholarship event with no teams under 14U and a lot of college players. The college coaches in attendance were there to see their players play not so much to scout talent but; anytime you have the chance to play in front of a college coach it can be a tryout...
As an open event there is no need for sanctioning. Just proof of insurance for those under 18. or they need to sign the waiver.. We had NCAA and KHSAA umpires two per game and three in the finals. Awards 1st through 3rd. Dog tags and tee shirts seem to be the award most sought after at the older age groups.

In 2015 we are working with the local cable company in Colerain to stream the Saturday games live on the internet for the July tournament. Copies of the games will be available for purchase on Waycross community public access IRC and TWC will broadcast the games locally.
Doing this takes a lot of prep work and staff, The teams must submit team info in advance for broadcasters to be able to fill the time get line ups correct etc but we think it will make the tournament unique and something special. I know when we do it for high school the teams play harder and the fans are more into it!
Best part min 4 games $325.00

Know where you want to go. Do not dream about it plan for it. Set goals and Make It Happen!

 

[WNYFastpitch]

I love the idea of a Game Changer for the tourney for every game.

I also loved the way this year at Fire in the Sky was handled. They had pretty fast up to date scores on here.
They also had an announcer for the semi final game at the main field and an announcer during the game for the finals. We were one game away from hearing my daughters name called out at starting line up and for the at bats. I gotta say, that would of made things a little dusty for me if I heard it, in front of all those people. Maybe next year, one game away this year....lol

 

[wvanalmsick]

I don't want to be Mr. Rain Cloud but.........

The above mentioned items are very nice to have however they require 2 other major ingredients, Money and people.

You could say that the money is the easy part, just put it in the entry fee. That works if you end up with a quality product. If not, teams will not come back.

The second is hard to find. Getting people to man those duty positions at the ball fields. You first look to the parents within your organization. Good luck there. The parents want to be able to watch their kid play ball. It is a nightmare to try to arrange a duty schedule based on when certain teams are playing and not playing. Pool play is easy but when those teams get into elimination play, it is impossible. The tournament in which I work, the main members (TD, Asst TD, Concessions) do not have any kids playing travel ball anymore. So, how do you get workers? Pay them. Now we are back to item #1, Money.

So, the main question now is "How much are teams willing to shell-out for a tournament that will provide all of those niceties?"

To get live streaming, you need to have an internet connection. If there is no available network at the fields, then you could always use an air card. Once again, money. You have to rent or buy the cameras. Once again, money. At our tournament, we use an air card for internet so we can do the live updates. When we were the first tournament in Ohio to do live updates in 2006, we ran a phone line from the concession stand to the scoring tent and had a dial-up modem. The next year we went with the air card.

Innovation is great. The above mentioned niceties are great and they can be accomplished with a "Can Do" attitude. It will take some great thinking, some elbow grease, and some understanding from the teams when the price for tournaments go up.

 

[FastBat]

WVanalmsick...you are a realist!

 

[CARDS]

It takes a lot of effort to run any tournament let alone make one unique. Working with the local chamber of commerce, city and county parks department a lot of the field cost can be offset for non-profit events.
After nine years we have been able to find sponsors for food, balls, tables, tents, chairs, gift cards for coaches and teams, hotel discounts as well as discounts on other activities while in for the tournament is time consuming but in the two areas we hold the Keith Carver Memorial the business community and local governments help to make it work along with about 12 volunteers.
For the 2015 event we are working with our local media company that I have worked with several times for the HS games in Colerain so we will see how it goes. No cost just volunteers time . http://www.waycross.tv/Create_your_Own_Show.html
This will require more staffing that we will be getting from the D-TV program at the high school. The students can get some community service hours as well. We are not interested in making the event one of the mega tournaments so we cap both events at 14 teams in order to make it a quality event. One thing that does make it unique is the HS / Open Adult division formats along with connections to get NCAA DIII and KHSAA umpires.

 

[FastBat]

Sounds like alot of work. Good luck!

 

[CARDS]

Sounds like alot of work. Good luck!

It is, however after nine years of putting on the event we have learned some things to make it a little easier…Hopefully; other TDs can see what makes the events good/bad and make adjustments…

 

[Westler33]

Good umpires and clean restrooms and your in lol.

 

[coop24]

See previous post, you have no idea how to set up a tourny and wouldn't know a good one unless the lasers were there

u forgot the STFU part in your post

 

[Lester]

Good umpires and clean restrooms and your in lol.

and hot walking tacos

 

[mike_dyer]

and hot walking tacos

But real ones.

Don't drop a scoopy of sloppy joe in a bag of fritos and hand it to me. Bad form.