I may have the opportunity to set up a CE tournament at MomoCon in Atlanta this March, and I'm asking the CE veterans in the house (*looks over at Jack*) if this has been implemented before (online or real) and what seemed to work well.

Given the nature of the convention, I'm preliminarily thinking of charging a $1.00 entry per game, with the proceeds going towards prizes offered later (such as copies of the game itself). You can enter as many times as you want, the winner receiving X points (where X is the number of players), and joint wins receiving X-1 points to each joint winner. Then at a scheduled point in the weekend, the top 5 scorers (of those who show back up) will compete in a final game where a tie-breaking rule that prevents joint wins would be implemented (just don't know what that is). I would stick to Beginner aliens and possibly omit the use of flares, since those who would be playing would likely be completely new to the game.

Any thoughts?

I have had a tournament in the past, and we used a point system: http://redamedia.com/warp/points.php

I think what you are proposing will probably work out all right... maybe something where only one game has a higher fee, but if you sign up for more it gets cheaper per game (pay in advance).