Level Two - Lesson 24
Large Event Structure - Tournament Roles
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Hello there!
Welcome back to the level two lessons for the Star Wars™: Unlimited Judge Program!
As always, I’m your host Jonah, and this course is going to talk about large event structure - as an L2 judge, you may begin to work events that have hundreds if not thousands of players, and with dozens of judges. While the rules and policies for these events are the same as they are everywhere else, the logistics can change pretty dramatically.
Knowing what to expect coming into these events can be a huge boon, so this lesson is going to give you a broad overview of what you need to know to be a bit more comfortable at your first event like a Sector Qualifier.
This document won’t be comprehensive, as there are a lot of specifics that are unique to particular events and organizers.
Tournament Organizer
The Tournament Organizer sets up the event and manages it from a high level. They're the one who set the event schedule, manage prizing, hire staff, work with the venue - all of the high level tasks that don't involve much direct interaction with the events themselves. They also deal with player concerns and have the ability to remove players from the venue.
At a large event, it’s not uncommon for the TO to have multiple representatives, and they’ll have their own internal hierarchy. Most of the time, other than an initial briefing and receiving any compensation or gifts at the end of a show, floor judges won’t generally have many significant interactions with the TO, except to report things that the TO needs to know, such as bringing up unhappy players, or notifying them of a significant spill.
Any significant customer service concerns should go to the Tournament Organizer. If you’re able to help resolve it before bringing the player to the Tournament Organizer, you can do so, but it’s important to then inform the TO. And if you’re not confident in your ability to calm down a player, rather than trying to force it, you can simply escort them to the TO, and pass the task to an expert.
Floor Roles
There are a lot of roles for judges at events - in this lesson, we’re going to very broadly categorize them as “Floor Roles” and “Stage Roles”. Floor roles include those where the individal is generally expected to be out on the floor, taking calls, handling their tasks, and very proactively engaging with players and other judges.
Stage roles, however, often find the individual assigned to a specific area - often on the “stage”. Sometimes the stage is an actual elevated platform, but more often it’s an area blocked off with tables and curtains to denote a specific space. Stage roles are critical because they make the tournament work - handling a lot of logistics. Furthermore, they’re not moving around, so players can find them for customer service concerns, and they’re are usually several of them in the same space, so they can quickly and easily consult for high-impact decisions.
Head Judge
The head judge is the final authority for the event that they're on. For many multi-tournament weekends, each event has it's own head judge. The head judge is responsible for developing a staff schedule for their event if they have many judges and other pre-event work. Of course they're also the one who handles the morning briefing for their event’s team to get everyone started.
They're also responsible for handling appeals, cheating investigations, and other major incidents. They communicate directly with the TO about their needs, and delegate tasks through their Team Leads.
Assistant Head Judge
Assistant Head Judges, also known as Support Judges or Appeals Judges, are there to support the Head Judge. While they may provide their insight and opinion on the staff schedule or other pre-event work, it's not an expectation of the role. Their job is to ease the load of the Head Judge by helping with appeals and investigations. Generally, you start to see an Assistant Head Judge at about four to five hundred players, and then see additional AHJs every five hundred or so players beyond that. This means that an event with 1200 players would likely have a Head Judge team of three to five members.
Team Lead
Team leads are usually roles assigned by the Head Judge for internal use in the event. They are assigned a task to manage, and a team of judges to lead. They may send out an email or other communication leading up to the event giving instructions to their team regarding the task, and will also be responsible for briefing the event staff with regard to event specifics for their task in the morning.
Other than that, team leads are frequently among the most experienced judges on staff for an event, and will often be used as a reference for consultations.
Team Leads mentor and guide their team, ensure that they have a good time, and ensure that their task is completed efficiently. They communicate with the Floor Judges on their team extensively, as well as regularly checking in with the other Team Leads to see if there are tasks they can help with and the Head Judges for feedback on their task completion and to provide updates.
Task Point
A point person is someone who is in charge of managing a task, like a team lead, but doesn’t have a dedicated team to assist them with it. Sometimes, this is because the task is relatively small, and so it can be accomplished by an individual. Other times, it’s because the event staff is relatively small, and while there are enough folks on staff to cover all of the tasks, there aren’t enough to have full dedicated teams.
A point person’s job is to make sure that their task is completed - oftentimes by doing it themselves, but equally frequently by delegating it or recruiting assistance from other judges on the event.
Task Point roles are often used as a stepping stone to Team Leading.
Sides Lead
Side events at larger tournaments can involve a complex schedule and many judges. The Side Events Lead is entrusted with choreographing that experience for judges. While they'll assign individuals as head judges to specific events, and that judge will be responsible for the smooth progression of their specific event, if they have appeals or investigations, those are frequently escalated to the sides lead - not the Head Judge of the main event.
Sides Lead can sometimes be broken down into a few different roles, including Schedule Sides Lead, On-Demand Lead, and Competitive Sides Lead - each responsible for only a small slice of the Side Events pie, rather than the whole thing. In these cases, the various Sides leads coordinate with each other and with a TO representative to make optimal use of the space and ensure the smooth progression of their many events.
Sides Leading is a logistics-first role - balancing the needs of many simultaneous events, ensuring that they have adequate judge coverage, and that the judges on staff are having their needs met as well. Sides Leads very infrequently are on the floor answering questions from players, and so there isn’t an expectation of the level of rules and policy we would have for a Head Judge at a similar scale. This makes Sides Leading a great choice for Team Leads who want to take the next step to Head Judging, and are secure in their objective skills - rules and policy, but still need to develop their subjective skills - leadership, mentorship, logistics, self-evaluation, stress management, and more.
Floor Judge
Floor judges are the pillars that hold up their entire event. They're assigned specific tasks and teams, and handle those responsibilities, whether they be logistics or answering calls.
Floor Judges may be assigned to the “Main Event”, which is what the headlining event is frequently called (Sector Qualifier, Galactic Championship etc...), to Side Events (which is everything else and *can* include competitive events with hundreds of players) or a flex role, where they move from one event to the other.
Floor Judges (and in fact most roles) generally have one role throughout an entire day - judges frequently aren’t scheduled to move between the Main Event and Side Events within the same day. However, sometimes attendance predictions misallocate judges, and so judges may be moved dynamically. Furthermore, as a Floor Judge you may be assigned one section of the event for one day, and another drastically different responsibility for the next.
Admin Roles
As mentioned above, these roles have fewer judge calls (practically none), and consequently don’t require as much rules or policy knowledge, generally speaking. However, familiarity with the game is key, as it helps you better communicate with any players who may have questions.
Furthermore, admin roles are frequently roles that require a high degree of trust between the TO and the individual they are hiring. Scorekeepers can cause catastrophic damage to event integrity if they don’t know what they’re doing. Registration handles transactions, and Prize wall and Back-of-House both have significant quantities of product being moved around.
Information Desk
Information Desk, Info, or Customer Service is a catch-all term for a common admin role. Many players don’t read posted signs, and so ask questions about event schedule, prizing, and sundry other things. This role is very frequently part of all stage and admin staff’s expectations, because if you’re sitting at the stage, you look important and folks with ask you questions.
Scorekeeper
Scorekeepers at large events are relatively stationary - they stay near the computer or device running the scorekeeping software and ensure that rounds turn over smoothly. Their key priorities involve creating new rounds, adjusting erroneous match results, and handling any issues that may crop up with the scorekeeping software.
The scorekeeper is sometimes a representative of the TO, but can also be a contractor on staff, including judges.
Registration
Registration staff handle ensuring players are registered for their events. They receive payment and ensure that the player is enrolled in the events that they want to be playing in. They, more so than other roles, act as information and customer service, letting players know about event structure and prizing. This is also often a TO representative, but equally often they hire someone to take the role on directly.
Prize Wall
Prize Wall is a task that is busiest towards the end of the weekend, but slow for the first day and a half. At large tournaments, instead of receiving specific prizes or booster packs for events, players earn prize tickets, which they can redeem at the Prize Wall. This allows the player to select exactly what prizes appeal to them. If they want packs, they can get packs.
Working the prize wall is a very high-energy shift - you’re almost constantly interacting with players who have many questions about the prizes, and keeping up a buoyant presence can be tiring for some. However, you also have the boon of interacting with players when they’re at their happiest, collecting their winnings!
Back-of-House
The last admin role is back-of-house. This is a little bit different from the other admin roles, as the individual isn’t tied down to just the stage or to just the prize wall. The responsibilities of back-of-house vary depending on the event, but it’s a logistical role that doesn’t entail floor judging.
Tasks can include preparing product for goodie distribution and for limited events, ensuring that prize wall gets additional product as necessary, moving tables and chairs if the floor plan needs to be adjusted, coordinating with the venue for a variety of other tasks. It’s a very independent role, usually held by a long time tournament expert, or a representative of the TO.
As you may have noticed, a lot of these roles are held by the Tournament Organizer, but it’s also very possible to be a floor judge and also have some of these responsibilities. Furthermore, having one of these roles doesn’t preclude you from having others. However, as events grow in scale and scope, it’s important to ensure you’re able to devote your attention to your primary responsibility, and having multiple tasks will likely lead to a worse player experience.
Okay - that’s a fair amount of content and we haven’t even begun to discuss the teams and consultation procedures, which will come in the next lesson. If you’re watching this on YouTube, and you want more level two lessons in your feed, go ahead and subscribe. Join us Tuesdays and Fridays on twitch.tv/swu_judges for live broadcasts covering the content of these lessons as they are released, and join the Star Wars: Unlimited Judge Program Discord to join the community in discussion of this and much, much more.
As always, good luck, and have fun.