Staffing an Event
I’ve decided to deviate from the schedule I had outlined before to bring this topic up as it has been a source of great contention and organizer boo-foo’s as of late. Now mind you I will speak in terms of USCF and you have to translate for your own environment. Most should translate without an issue though.
The first thing we’ll talk about are tournament directors (TD’s). These are the tireless souls doing the pairings, put up the wall charts, and make the rulings. Love ’em or hate ’em they control your destiny at that tournament. For an organizer – the wrong TD’s can mean a bad experience for players to the point where they may wish not to return to their events.
Now the USCF states 1 TD per 50-75 players as a good rule of thumb. This spread is based on the experience of the TD’s and the type of players at the event (scholastic, youth, adult, master). I know of TD’s that can handle a 300 person tournament all by himself. I don’t recommend this though. He’s just a superman.
My personal opinion is to do 1 TD for every 50 players. I believe in overstaffing. If you are a competent organizer you can always find things for the TD’s to do to improve the overall experience of tournament players.
Here is the full article, courtesy of Sevan Muradian.
How do you find money to organize events? HOw does NA Chess fund its tournaments?
I’d love to host an event someday, but (other than life getting in the way) the one thing that holds me back is a desire to play in that very event. Do any TDs manage to play and work at the same time?