Im running our first competitive tier event in our small community expecting 10-16 turnout.

An issue came over with my co-TOs.

How would you guys handle late arrivals?

Thanks!

Was the start time published/advertised before hand? Did you have enough people to go at that time?

If YES to both of these then I'm sorry but those late arrivals are not allowed into the tournament. Perhaps they need to figure out how to arrive earlier next time or perhaps the start time should be pushed back if an early start time is too difficult for many to get to on time. IF YOU SAY YOU ARE GOING TO START AT A CERTAIN TIME THEN START AT THAT TIME IF POSSIBLE.

If yes to the first but no to the second perhaps the start time could have been held up but that is unfair to those who showed up on time.

No stated starting time? Then I don't know how you planned things unless it was 'wait until X slots fill up and then go from there," in which case you still filled up the tournament.

I know you feel guilt about players who show up to play but are not allowed to because they missed a start time but people need to learn to be ON TIME to things. Being "fashionably late" has no place in competition. IF allowed to join the competition they should be give game loses with 0 points of MoV although that does make the tournament a net loss.

^This. +1

It sounds like the OP is trying to establish a new community and from his signature it looks like he's in the UAE. Both of these things might be cause to be more flexible than a TO running a tournament for an established community of players from a different culture. If you are pulling your pool of players from a large geographic area you may need to be a little more flexible as well. If you turn away a significant number of players at your first tournament, you may have trouble growing your community.

I might be mistaken but I seem to remember hearing that promptness doesn't have the same importance in Arab societies as it does in the US and parts of Europe. If that's the case, TOs may have a hard time making the time requirements of a tournament work with social norms.

I'm not a TO, but most of the tournaments I've been to generally publish both a registration time and a start time that are about an hour apart. Even with the hour in between it seems like the TOs get everyone together and start going over the details of how the tournament will be run around the published start time. This usually has players setting up for their first round about 75-90 minutes after the registration time. It may be helpful just to publish the registration time until you get a better grasp on how many of your players show up late, and how late they do show up.

All of that is true too WWHSD.

The situation is a bit challenging in that you don't want to penalize anyone who gets there 'on time' and may have time constraints that say you need to start by a certain time but you do not want to alienate any new players who may show up and not know expectations. Having a registration period before the actual is a good way to create a built in time buffer but even that will have its limits.

I'll admit that even a punctual person can get confused by what a given 'start time' may mean. To put that into perspective just consider what may be involved in getting on an 11:30 airplane flight. For most places in the world that would indicate which time the aircraft 'departs' the airfield although even that has some variation as it may be 'leave the gate' time as opposed to actual take-off time. Now to make that 11:30 flight there are many different standards on what it takes to get on that flight. Few places would let you show up at 11:30 and then leave immediately; needing to arrive much earlier to go through all sorts of pre-flight rituals is far more likely than pulling up to the plane in a taxi and jumping out of it and into the plane.

As my father would say:

Showing up 10 minutes before the meeting starts means you're on time.

Showing up when the meeting starts means you're late.

As my father would say:

Showing up 10 minutes before the meeting starts means you're on time.

Showing up when the meeting starts means you're late.

Sounds like something my father would say. He was always advocating the six 'P'.

"Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance"

As someone who regularly arrives late to things (though not tournaments)...

You snooze, you lose.

I've had game nights where I showed up late, everyone was already paired, games were going long, and I simply didn't get any games. I had no one to blame but myself.

If I were to show up to a tournament I might ask if I can join late but a stern "No" would be entirely appropriate.

If we're looking at saying one of the things they've told the kids for year, although strangely not this year, is the following:

If you're early then you're on time.

If you're on time then you are late.

And if you are late then you get left behind.

If you plan on turning people away if they're a minute late, you should probably have a pre-tournament registration time. I think WWHSD's 60+ minutes example is probably excessive for only 10-16 people, but 20-30 minutes might not be a bad idea. If someone is 5 minutes late to a 20 minute pre-registration, it's not as big of a deal.

As a newer tournament player, I've been to exactly 2 tournaments. The first was a regional, and we had an hour registration. I got there, registered, got all my stuff ready, and then chilled for a while. The second tournament was much smaller, my friends and I showed up right before the start time, not realizing there was no registration period, and we felt late. Had I known, we would have been there earlier, but we were new, and didn't know what to expect.

I guess the main thing is, if you're going to have a hard start time that's fine, just make sure everyone knows that before hand.

If you're looking to start and build a community,then an overly harsh response my be counter-productive.

I suggest you give the late players a full 100-0 match loss for round 1 and incorporate them into round 2. This way they are not being rewarded for turning up late, and thus not hindering the players that showed up on time, but is allowing them to join into the community, and is enough of a penalty that if they decide to come back, they may very well be on time.

Old saying. "It's better to be 30 minutes early than 1 minute late".

Thanks a million to all...

I tend to be quite strict, other TOs are more relaxed.
Im always thinking on the guys that are on time, leave their families early for a full day of playing... then you let one in 2h late, and he ends up taking it.

The full loss is a good option.
Lets hope no one is late.

There are of course different version of "late." You've got the "just pull up as the time goes off but you can still see it" level to the "I'm sorry but it left hours ago" version. If someone misses a start time by two hours, where start time equals when play begins, then leaving them out is probably the only logical thing to do; if you plan for an eight hour tournament and someone shows up two hours late they should expect to be out of it already.

When it comes to a tournament I believe that even the most generous among us will say that if you aren't there in time for the second round of play to start you aren't going to be allowed in. From the time the first round starts until it finishes is pretty much all the same degree of lateness but after that...

Old saying. "It's better to be 30 minutes early than 1 minute late".

Unless the poor sap that was 30 minutes early had to wait for my late ass to show up.

Most tourneys I play have a time for registration and a start time. This should give your players enough time. Also have the FLGS phone number listed so if they have something like a flat or road closer they can call and let you know.

Maybe offer some team tournaments to encourage promptness in your local X-Wing culture? I'm the kinda guy that's almost always late - if I set my alarm 30 minutes earlier I somehow end up screwing off for 35 minutes! But we had a Team Epic tournament 'in my area' (in quotes because when you live in Alaska 'my area' is a pretty broad concept as the borough I live in is about the size of Oklahoma) and I got up crazy early, drove 60 miles, and showed up at the venue 20min early to ensure I wouldn't let my teammate down!

I have gotten to tournaments a half hour early only to have them start over an hour late. If the TOs wait for late arivals, the the players will qnticipate that and may no longer show up on time.

Advertize the event saying that it wil start "PROMPTLY" at the time listed and let players know that they must show up 15 minutes early with lists ready to be submitted.

I generally have to travel pretty far to get to tournaments and have on occasion gotten held up by traffic and not made it on time( I live in southern California where a 1 hr drive(at 55) can take 40 mins or 3 hrs). The places I've played have normally let us join, but we just take a first round loss if they were already underway. An acceptable compromise and we still got 3 rounds of play. happened twice in the last 6 months.

I live in southern California where a 1 hr drive(at 55) can take 40 mins or 3 hrs.

This has got to be some form of temporal anomaly in action. Twizz has the ability to compress or expand time. People, I do believe we have our first time traveller.

(Sorry, couldn't resist a wee dig there. )

LOL, the Temporal Anomaly for the time slow down is very common in SoCal it's called Cal-Trans. and they do this on a daily basis on random Freeways.

I live in southern California where a 1 hr drive(at 55) can take 40 mins or 3 hrs.

This has got to be some form of temporal anomaly in action. Twizz has the ability to compress or expand time. People, I do believe we have our first time traveller.

(Sorry, couldn't resist a wee dig there. )

Oh I'm sure there is a perfectly natural and realistic explenation. You know like how it makes perfect sens for Han to calim to have made the Kesel run in less then 12 parsecs...

If we're looking at saying one of the things they've told the kids for year, although strangely not this year, is the following:

If you're early then you're on time.

If you're on time then you are late.

And if you are late then you get left behind.

I've always considered this to be the same as "You are getting left behind, period."

Because...

If you are early, then you are on time.

If you are on time, then you are late.

If you are late, you get left behind.

Therefore, if you are early, you get left behind.

But I've always been a bit of a rules lawyer.