Summer Royale Asynchronous

Tournament Invitation

Sync Summer Royale Link

Dear Forensics Community,

We are excited to welcome you to the National Online Forensics Asynchronous Season online tournaments! These monthly asynchronous competitions are a fantastic way to prepare your students for Nationals and provide additional rounds for team members throughout the year.

Tournaments are offered across all grade levels — from kindergarten to college — in a wide variety of events. Our highly qualified tournament staff is committed to delivering a smooth, engaging day of competition. The schedule takes only half a day to complete (see schedule here), and winners receive Bronze, Silver, or Gold recognition.

Schedule (Pacific Time)

Monday 8:00pm pst - Registration Closes

Tuesday - coaches will be notified of collapsed events and missing video links; can edit entries collaboratively with the tournament director

Wednesday 9:00am pst - deadline for coaches to drop competitors from collapsed events, enter missing video links

Wednesday 12:00pm pst - preliminary ballots sent to judges

Friday 12:00pm pst - preliminary ballots due

Friday 8:00pm pst - final ballots sent to judges

Sunday 8:00pm pst - final ballots due back

Monday 6:00pm pst - deadline for ballot feedback; award ceremony video posted

Key Information

• Each school is required to provide one judge for every 5 IE entries per pattern/2 debate teams. At the discretion of the Tournament Director, uncovered entries may be allowed but penalty fees will apply.

• Judging Requirements: One judge per 5 IE entries per pattern / 2 debate teams. Uncovered entries may be allowed at the discretion of the Tournament Director with applicable fees.

• Technology: Asynchronous tournaments use video submission prior to the event, then circulate submissions to judges for evaluation and ranking. See the Best Practices section of this invitation for guidance on preparing to compete online.

• Rules: The complete set of NOF rules is available here.

We hope you and your team will join us throughout the year. For questions, please email us at alexandra@nationalonlineforensics.org.

Sincerely,
Alexandra Smith, Robert Cannon, & Danny Cantrell
National Online Forensics

Entry Policies

• Competitors may triple-enter in IE events (except Extemp, which is limited to double-entry).

Individual Events

• Three prelims will be held; one final round will be held, unless the number of entries exceeds 30 per event, in which case, a second elimination round will be added.

• Competitors may enter a maximum of three IE events except competitors in Extemp who may only double-enter.

• 1 Judge is required for every 5 entries.

• Prelim Ranking: Ranks/Decimal/Drop High Rank  

• Elim Ranking: Total Rank/# of 1st in Event/Rank in Elim/Decimal in Elim/Judge Pref in Elim

• Speaker Points will not be used.

• Competitors will be recognized with Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Honors awards.

• See the NOF Bylaws for more information about NOF events and awards.

Debate

• The current NSDA topic will be used for LD, Public Forum, and Policy.

• All preliminary rounds will be randomly paired. In Elims, brackets will be broken to facilitate debating. 

• One  final round will be held, unless the number of entries exceeds 30 per event, in which case, a second elimination round will be added.

• Competitors may only enter one format of debate and no individual events.

• 1 Judge is required for every 2 debate entries.

• Speaker Point Scale will be 70-100. 

• Prelim Ranking: Wins/Total Points/HL Points/Z Score/Opp Wins. 

• Speakers Ranking: Total Points/HL Points/Ranks/Z Score.

• An award for the top speakers in debate events shall be given. The top 15% of competitors shall be recognized.

• A 5 minute forfeit rule will be put in place for all debate rounds.

• Competitors will be recognized with Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Honors awards.

• See the NOF Bylaws for more information about NOF events and awards.

Awards

• School sweepstakes: Top schools will be recognized at each division (college, high school, middle, and elementary school).

• Competitors winning Gold, Silver, or Bronze will receive physical awards that will be shipped to coaches following the tournament.

• Coaches will be asked to verify their shipping address at registration. Please contact the tournament director ASAP if you would like your awards shipped to a different address than on file.  Additional shipping costs may be assessed if an incorrect address is supplied.

Judging

Any schools seeking to buy out of their judging requirements must have approval by the Tournament Director. Please contact the tournament early to request uncovered entries.  

The tournament reserves the right to assign ballots to judges when they are scheduled:

Due to the complex nature of the schedule, judges may be asked to accept ballots in events they did not initially register.  For example, if a judge is signed up to accept debate ballots, but the tournament needs more Impromptu judges, then that judge would be expected to take the Impromptu ballot.  We will do our best to accommodate event requests, but may not be able to do so.

To ensure timely pickup of ballots, all judges should wait in the Judges Room until dismissed or they have picked up a ballot via email. This will ensure judges are not missing ballots pushed to them during the tournament.

Fees

• School Fee: $50

• Individual Event Entries: $25/entry

• DUO Event Entries: $45/entry

• Congress Entries: $30/entry

• One person Debate (LD, IPDA, NFA-LD) Entries: $50/entry

• Two person Debate (NOF Parli, PF) Entries: $60/entry

• Three+ person Debate (World Schools) Entries: $75/entry

• Judges: First Missed Ballot - $25 / Subsequent Missed Ballots - $50

• Uncovered IE/Congress Slot (with Tournament Director Approval): $35/slot

• Uncovered Debate Team (with Tournament Director Approval): $125/team

• Changes after entry deadline - $25 per change (subject to tournament director approval)

• Judge drops within 24 hours of the tournament will be charged a $150 judge no-show fee.  

• Judges who submit incomplete eBallots (with little to no substantive feedback) may be charged a judge no-show fee for failing to complete their judge assignment which includes both ranking the speakers along with giving sufficient comments.

• Delay of tournament fees may be assessed from $20-$100 based on the severity of the delay.

• Competitor no-shows (coaches did not notify the tournament prior to the missed round) - $35