Here in Australia we have one regional per state currently. To put that into perspective for those in the USA, that's 7 regionals spread across a country marginally smaller than the US.

And the closest regional to me is over 1300km (800 miles) away (and there are X-wing groups 300km (200 miles) further north).

I'd certainly hope that a regional was big enough to give me two games of gaming if I'm having to fly half the length of the country to get to it!

PS: of those seven regionals, only one is a single day event... But many gamers here come from the 40K/WHFB/FOW/WMH tradition, where two day events are pretty much the norm...

And from the old Dwellers Below podcasts it sounded like they were a blast.

Yeah, the Regional yesterday really needed to be 2 days. Though, not starting the cut till after midnight suggests that there were some organizational issues.

I don't think there was an organizational issue. Sure I could've been a little more efficient, but some things I can't cut out. For example, waiting for a dozen games to finish the round after time is called adds typically 20 minutes, which is 3 hours over the course of the day. I think the efficiency issue I had was not having someone to collect results, but I don't think that would've added time because I was usually done entering results of completed games when I called time.

If you ballpark for 95 minutes a round, that's still about 10 hours. That's assuming you don't have any issues along the way or do any lunch. Yes, I had a few pairing mistakes identified that added some time and we did have lunch.

I am considering requiring lists at registration so that we can have the first round ready before the day starts. This way you come in, confirm your verification, and sit down at your table.

If you have ideas on how I could improve the event, please let me know. I'm always interested in improving my events.

It may help if FFG adds in the rule "At 15 minutes finish your round to completion, do not start any new rounds." Creates a hard cap while still showing fidelity to 75-90 minute games.

Yeah, the Regional yesterday really needed to be 2 days. Though, not starting the cut till after midnight suggests that there were some organizational issues.

I don't think there was an organizational issue. Sure I could've been a little more efficient, but some things I can't cut out. For example, waiting for a dozen games to finish the round after time is called adds typically 20 minutes, which is 3 hours over the course of the day. I think the efficiency issue I had was not having someone to collect results, but I don't think that would've added time because I was usually done entering results of completed games when I called time.

If you ballpark for 95 minutes a round, that's still about 10 hours. That's assuming you don't have any issues along the way or do any lunch. Yes, I had a few pairing mistakes identified that added some time and we did have lunch.

I am considering requiring lists at registration so that we can have the first round ready before the day starts. This way you come in, confirm your verification, and sit down at your table.

If you have ideas on how I could improve the event, please let me know. I'm always interested in improving my events.

It may help if FFG adds in the rule "At 15 minutes finish your round to completion, do not start any new rounds." Creates a hard cap while still showing fidelity to 75-90 minute games.

That's essentially the same thing as 60 minute rounds where you finish the round if you started before time elapsed. FFG has been moving away from that and encouraging 75 minute games.

Yeah, the Regional yesterday really needed to be 2 days. Though, not starting the cut till after midnight suggests that there were some organizational issues.

I don't think there was an organizational issue. Sure I could've been a little more efficient, but some things I can't cut out. For example, waiting for a dozen games to finish the round after time is called adds typically 20 minutes, which is 3 hours over the course of the day. I think the efficiency issue I had was not having someone to collect results, but I don't think that would've added time because I was usually done entering results of completed games when I called time.

If you ballpark for 95 minutes a round, that's still about 10 hours. That's assuming you don't have any issues along the way or do any lunch. Yes, I had a few pairing mistakes identified that added some time and we did have lunch.

I am considering requiring lists at registration so that we can have the first round ready before the day starts. This way you come in, confirm your verification, and sit down at your table.

If you have ideas on how I could improve the event, please let me know. I'm always interested in improving my events.

It may help if FFG adds in the rule "At 15 minutes finish your round to completion, do not start any new rounds." Creates a hard cap while still showing fidelity to 75-90 minute games.

That's essentially the same thing as 60 minute rounds where you finish the round if you started before time elapsed. FFG has been moving away from that and encouraging 75 minute games.

If they're actually interested in encouraging larger events and 75 minute rounds, time needs to be a hard cut off. Even in switching to 2 day events, there's a point where those events may outgrow the 1 day swiss as well.

Yeah, the Regional yesterday really needed to be 2 days. Though, not starting the cut till after midnight suggests that there were some organizational issues.

I don't think there was an organizational issue. Sure I could've been a little more efficient, but some things I can't cut out. For example, waiting for a dozen games to finish the round after time is called adds typically 20 minutes, which is 3 hours over the course of the day. I think the efficiency issue I had was not having someone to collect results, but I don't think that would've added time because I was usually done entering results of completed games when I called time.

If you ballpark for 95 minutes a round, that's still about 10 hours. That's assuming you don't have any issues along the way or do any lunch. Yes, I had a few pairing mistakes identified that added some time and we did have lunch.

I am considering requiring lists at registration so that we can have the first round ready before the day starts. This way you come in, confirm your verification, and sit down at your table.

If you have ideas on how I could improve the event, please let me know. I'm always interested in improving my events.

It may help if FFG adds in the rule "At 15 minutes finish your round to completion, do not start any new rounds." Creates a hard cap while still showing fidelity to 75-90 minute games.

That's essentially the same thing as 60 minute rounds where you finish the round if you started before time elapsed. FFG has been moving away from that and encouraging 75 minute games.

If they're actually interested in encouraging larger events and 75 minute rounds, time needs to be a hard cut off. Even in switching to 2 day events, there's a point where those events may outgrow the 1 day swiss as well.

How long do rounds run over the 75 minute limit? It's got to be very rare that it takes more than 5 minutes to finish a current round. It probably takes the TO at least that long to collect and enter the remaining scores for the round. Anything that outgrows one day of swiss is probably a large enough that it should be split into multiple flights of swiss that each contribute to the same cut. So you'd run a two hundred person tournament with two 100 player flights that each play 6 rounds of swiss and then cut to top 16. The next day you have a single elimination top 32 tournament.

Wrong list.

And if your really ambitious and want to go to two regional, the next closest one is in Ontario, about 1-2 day drive

Actually, there's one in Quebec City on July 2. It's still 10+ hours, but not multi-day.

We have (had) 3 within 4 hours of Ottawa, too much of a drive for me at this point though. If the next one could be in Montreal it'd be nice, Ottawa itself would be just amazing.

time needs to be a hard cut off.

There is a hard cut off, it happens at 75 minutes. If you say no more rounds after 60 minutes then you're playing 60 minute rounds and it was decided that those were less than ideal.

The point isn't to have every game stop after exactly X minutes, but for no new rounds started after X minutes. X used to be 60 but that wasn't long enough.

Yeah, the Regional yesterday really needed to be 2 days. Though, not starting the cut till after midnight suggests that there were some organizational issues.

I don't think there was an organizational issue. Sure I could've been a little more efficient, but some things I can't cut out. For example, waiting for a dozen games to finish the round after time is called adds typically 20 minutes, which is 3 hours over the course of the day. I think the efficiency issue I had was not having someone to collect results, but I don't think that would've added time because I was usually done entering results of completed games when I called time.

If you ballpark for 95 minutes a round, that's still about 10 hours. That's assuming you don't have any issues along the way or do any lunch. Yes, I had a few pairing mistakes identified that added some time and we did have lunch.

I am considering requiring lists at registration so that we can have the first round ready before the day starts. This way you come in, confirm your verification, and sit down at your table.

If you have ideas on how I could improve the event, please let me know. I'm always interested in improving my events.

I hate to say it but does sound like you have a scheduling mishap some where.

Edit:starting to realize phones and this forum don't mix.

Yeah, the Regional yesterday really needed to be 2 days. Though, not starting the cut till after midnight suggests that there were some organizational issues.

I don't think there was an organizational issue. Sure I could've been a little more efficient, but some things I can't cut out. For example, waiting for a dozen games to finish the round after time is called adds typically 20 minutes, which is 3 hours over the course of the day. I think the efficiency issue I had was not having someone to collect results, but I don't think that would've added time because I was usually done entering results of completed games when I called time.

If you ballpark for 95 minutes a round, that's still about 10 hours. That's assuming you don't have any issues along the way or do any lunch. Yes, I had a few pairing mistakes identified that added some time and we did have lunch.

I am considering requiring lists at registration so that we can have the first round ready before the day starts. This way you come in, confirm your verification, and sit down at your table.

If you have ideas on how I could improve the event, please let me know. I'm always interested in improving my events.

It may help if FFG adds in the rule "At 15 minutes finish your round to completion, do not start any new rounds." Creates a hard cap while still showing fidelity to 75-90 minute games.

That's essentially the same thing as 60 minute rounds where you finish the round if you started before time elapsed. FFG has been moving away from that and encouraging 75 minute games.

If they're actually interested in encouraging larger events and 75 minute rounds, time needs to be a hard cut off. Even in switching to 2 day events, there's a point where those events may outgrow the 1 day swiss as well.

How long do rounds run over the 75 minute limit? It's got to be very rare that it takes more than 5 minutes to finish a current round. It probably takes the TO at least that long to collect and enter the remaining scores for the round. Anything that outgrows one day of swiss is probably a large enough that it should be split into multiple flights of swiss that each contribute to the same cut. So you'd run a two hundred person tournament with two 100 player flights that each play 6 rounds of swiss and then cut to top 16. The next day you have a single elimination top 32 tournament.

I've run 2 regionals, several store champs, and scores of casual tournaments. In my experience, the gap in time is worse in regionals and usually with players in the middle of the pack. I would average 15-20 minutes added per round waiting for players to finish their round. Often, I'll find I call time with one player having just set a dial down and then both players are super cautious and take their time as one mistake would mean a loss. I usually hover over their games to send a stronger message ("everyone is waiting on you"). It's not nearly as bad in store champs and casual games (typically only about 5-10 extra minutes).

I think it boils down to regionals and everyone wanting to eek out that win so they can make the cut.

Also, to answer the other person, 57 players is 2 total rounds less. I had several players with physical handicaps that I had to rearrange to keep them stationary. I usually spent about 10 minutes getting the pairings and results posted. I did have 3 goofs; round 2 had to be repaired due to me making a mistake on recording someone's results and I didn't think to just swap the players' games, round 6 someone noticed there was a mistake made in round 4 (I kept their pairing as it actually worked out) and someone noticed they had a player that was supposed to have been dropped and hadn't for some reason (easy fix also).

You had 8 Swiss rounds? Over 513 players?! And you did that by yourself? Impressive! If not, then Swiss ending after 12 is still running late. It's more rounds of top cut yes, but Swiss is still 6. That's pointing to a scheduling problem. Hell having 6 Swiss rounds end at 830 was an hour behind the scheduling I had.

time needs to be a hard cut off.

There is a hard cut off, it happens at 75 minutes. If you say no more rounds after 60 minutes then you're playing 60 minute rounds and it was decided that those were less than ideal.

The point isn't to have every game stop after exactly X minutes, but for no new rounds started after X minutes. X used to be 60 but that wasn't long enough.

This is where you start wondering how long each round is going to take. If the game is slow and taking 15+ minutes per round I think it is poor manners to "start" another round at 74:45 where the planning stage isn't even finished before the clock expires and then have everyone wait around 12+ minutes while that one round finishes. If you're knocking rounds off in 5 minutes or less and that last round would be critical then start it at 74:45 but otherwise you should be done shortly after time is called.

The difference between 60 minutes and 75 minutes is pretty substantial but that 75 minutes should be a lot harder. Instead of simply "starting a round" I'd certainly say that unless the Activation phase has begun a game should end at time even if players have entered that gray area that is known as the planning phase. If the End Phase is over at 74 minutes and someone begins one of those 10 minute long planning phases that game really should be forced to end at 75 minutes.

What do people actually consider a reasonable drive time to get to tournaments? I think I could find tournament locations 1-2 hours away (the time to go is something else entirely) but I even see that as pushing it for any 2 day events. It's close enough that a long day wouldn't be the worst thing but it's too far to make two days really reasonable. To me if you are already looking at a long drive then an over-night should probably be expected anyway which makes a 2 day even less stressful.

When it comes to 2 day events I believe they really cater to the local crowd that thinks nothing about running to the event location and to those who are travelling some distance are really should be thinking about staying overnight in any case. What I really see them killing are those who may have an intermediate distance to travel that could manage a long day but who may find staying overnight to be fiscally irresponsible while making the trip twice is equally as irresponsible.

How far do you need to travel before you start to think that an overnight is something that should happen regardless?

How close is close enough that you don't feel any guilt about making the same trip multiple days?

If two day tournaments start to become the norm, I imagine we'll start to see other local stores that didn't score the regional scheduling some sort of event the second day that will attract players that traveled and got hotel rooms.

time needs to be a hard cut off.

There is a hard cut off, it happens at 75 minutes. If you say no more rounds after 60 minutes then you're playing 60 minute rounds and it was decided that those were less than ideal.

The point isn't to have every game stop after exactly X minutes, but for no new rounds started after X minutes. X used to be 60 but that wasn't long enough.

This is where you start wondering how long each round is going to take. If the game is slow and taking 15+ minutes per round I think it is poor manners to "start" another round at 74:45 where the planning stage isn't even finished before the clock expires and then have everyone wait around 12+ minutes while that one round finishes. If you're knocking rounds off in 5 minutes or less and that last round would be critical then start it at 74:45 but otherwise you should be done shortly after time is called

Except that isn't how the rules work. It doesn't matter how long your rounds are taking or how long the next round will take, if time hasn't been called you start the next round and play on. Players don't have an option to do otherwise, short of one player conceding. And unless a player concedes that last round gets played, no matter how trivial it ends up being. Any TO that is cutting players short on the play time alotted to them by the rules, which is where that after time round comes from after all, shouldn't be TOing. That is not to say the TO can't tell players to play at a reasonable pace, but they should not be cutting players short.

We got spoiled. At first a local event would have maybe 10 people playing. Store Champs the same 10...maybe 15.

Regionals had 30 or so. Worlds was something like 50 or so???

By 2014 Worlds was 114. In 2016 several Regional events sold more than that. Worlds is being shifted by 6 months to accommodate more players.

X-Wing has become a victim of its own success. With larger numbers of players you have to play out more games to get an accurate cut. Else you will have a 60 person event doing 3 rounds with a top 16 cut (that would be 7 rounds total...a full days playing). Of course that means 15 of those players are going 3-0 and a single 2-1. Essentially lose 1 game and your done.

The only ways to accommodate the growth of the game is to either expand large events (Store Champs in large cities and Regionals) into 2 day events, put an artificial low cap on numbers of players, or restrict players to only playing in a single venue per event type (you may attend only 1 Store Champ and 1 Regional).

Which of those 3 options would you like to see?

...

This is where you start wondering how long each round is going to take. If the game is slow and taking 15+ minutes per round I think it is poor manners to "start" another round at 74:45 where the planning stage isn't even finished before the clock expires and then have everyone wait around 12+ minutes while that one round finishes. If you're knocking rounds off in 5 minutes or less and that last round would be critical then start it at 74:45 but otherwise you should be done shortly after time is called

Except that isn't how the rules work. It doesn't matter how long your rounds are taking or how long the next round will take, if time hasn't been called you start the next round and play on. Players don't have an option to do otherwise, short of one player conceding. And unless a player concedes that last round gets played, no matter how trivial it ends up being. Any TO that is cutting players short on the play time alotted to them by the rules, which is where that after time round comes from after all, shouldn't be TOing. That is not to say the TO can't tell players to play at a reasonable pace, but they should not be cutting players short.

Maybe it SHOULD be how the rules work. I don't want to deprive someone the chance to actually finish up a round they are really into but to me you should be able to end a game anytime before ACTIVATIONS start happening. Just throwing out a dial which you completely intend to change later to say you've started the planning phase shouldn't count as starting a new round.

...

The only ways to accommodate the growth of the game is to either expand large events (Store Champs in large cities and Regionals) into 2 day events, put an artificial low cap on numbers of players, or restrict players to only playing in a single venue per event type (you may attend only 1 Store Champ and 1 Regional).

Which of those 3 options would you like to see?

Some combination of the above.

I find the idea of travelling to multiple Regionals to be crazy. I mean it's like saying a team from one division should be allowed to fill a playoff slot intended to go to a different division. Now there may be people on the bubble but people should belong to one "region" when it comes time to compete. Store Championships could be the same way although here you may have a higher likelihood of people justifiably having a place in multiple stores; if you want to make the FLGS highly relevant to the game anyone playing in a store championship could have to meet some level store patronage to compete.

I'm not sure what to consider an artificially low cap on the number of players but "win your way in" or meeting some other qualifier are time honored traditions when it comes to keeping numbers of participants in manageable numbers. It seems to me that there are a number of marathons that will turn away people who'd like to run in them because they don't meet certain criteria.

Even with all of that there may still be times that two day events are reasonable.

The Austin, TX Regional at Dragon's Lair didn't finish until 5:00 am. This should've been a two day tournament.

Players don't have an option to do otherwise, short of one player conceding.

Well that's not completely true. If there's 15 seconds left in the round and another round isn't going to change anything. Both players could extend the end phase until time was up. I can't imagine there's a TO out there that's going to take action against anyone who does that.

But the larger point is correct, that until time is called neither side should simply give up because they're going to go past the 75 minute mark. No one, including the TO should take take time away from someone, time that could actually be the difference between a win and a loss.

Maybe it SHOULD be how the rules work.

As I said they kinda do really. I mean you can't force the players to pick up a dial, and until someone does that the next round hasn't started. I don't think there's a TO out there that would have an issue if at 1 minute or less in the round both players decided to call it a game.

We got spoiled. At first a local event would have maybe 10 people playing. Store Champs the same 10...maybe 15.

Regionals had 30 or so. Worlds was something like 50 or so???

By 2014 Worlds was 114. In 2016 several Regional events sold more than that. Worlds is being shifted by 6 months to accommodate more players.

X-Wing has become a victim of its own success. With larger numbers of players you have to play out more games to get an accurate cut. Else you will have a 60 person event doing 3 rounds with a top 16 cut (that would be 7 rounds total...a full days playing). Of course that means 15 of those players are going 3-0 and a single 2-1. Essentially lose 1 game and your done.

The only ways to accommodate the growth of the game is to either expand large events (Store Champs in large cities and Regionals) into 2 day events, put an artificial low cap on numbers of players, or restrict players to only playing in a single venue per event type (you may attend only 1 Store Champ and 1 Regional).

Which of those 3 options would you like to see?

It is important to point out, that the first year the game was out, there were no Regionals as we know them. Regionals were essentially Store Champs that year.

With the recent explosion in the number of X-Wing players here in the US, I agree that we need to start moving to two-day events, OR start these events ON TIME around 9 or 10 AM. Every regional I've gone to, it's delayed about 45 minutes; we have an hour check-in for a reason! Stores should also look to online check-ins where the players pre-pay and also send a copy of their list.

Another route that FFG should explore is expanding the number of regional events from 24 to 36 or whatever they deem necessary. This way, we don't have 100-120 players at a single regional or where many players have to travel 3, 4, or up to 6 hours just to get to the closest regional host.

Just my two cents. I predict that we'll see FFG move towards more regionals next season though.

I don't think adding more Regionals will necessarily prevent the large Regionals from happening. Unless they are on the same day, which many players would not want to see happen.

OR start these events ON TIME around 9 or 10 AM.

That means the regional ends at 1am instead of 2am or later that's not much of a fix.

Another route that FFG should explore is expanding the number of regional events from 24 to 36 or whatever they deem necessary.

I wouldn't be surprised if they do this but unless they somehow require that all regionals in a given area run on the same weekend, you'll see people going to more than one. The same way you see people play in 5+ store championships. So you're still going to see 100+ person regionals.