Welcome to The DVC Thing 2020!


We are so excited to host you for what is sure to be an awesome weekend of competition across 14 speech and debate events. There are teams from 14 different states attending this weekend, for whom we hope to host such a great tournament that you’ll consider joining us again when we’re back in-person.

If this is your first time attending a tournament on ForensicsTournament.Net, then you might have a few questions. Feel free to respond here and ask, but many of those questions are answered in these guides:




As you and your students prepare for the tournament, please make sure they have verified their email addresses (this can be checked on the students roster tab in the top right) and that they are prepared to use the Chrome Browser. Other browsers may have difficulty with the video conferencing service 8x8, so please stress to your competitors now that they need to use Chrome. DO NOT DOWNLOAD THE 8X8 APP. 

We have a large judging pool each day, and have hired several more judges just to make sure everyone gets a few rounds off. We really want to make sure this is a positive experience for everyone, especially our judges and coaches. We hope to keep all of our judges fresh so nobody gets burnt out throughout the weekend. 

For those new to digital ballots, you may return to your ballots throughout the day to add additional comments, but please make sure you submit your rankings as soon as possible after the round has ended. This will be critical to keeping the tournament running on schedule.

You can access the tournament help room and other relevant rooms (extemp prep, topic announce, etc.) on the homepage for each day of the tournament. For your reference I have included the links to those rooms here as well, in addition to the link to the homepage for each day of the tournament:

NPDA Topic Announce:

Extemp Prep: https://8x8.vc/DVCExtempPrep

Help Room: https://8x8.vc/DVCHelpRoom

Standby Judges Room: https://8x8.vc/DVCJudges

Student Lounge: https://8x8.vc/DVCStudents

Friday (IPDA): https://forensicstournament.net/TheDVCThingFriday/20

Saturday (IE1 and LD): https://forensicstournament.net/TheDVCThing/20

Sunday (IE2 and NPDA): https://forensicstournament.net/TheDVCThingSunday/20

The tournament kicks off tomorrow with a full day of IPDA competition. Striking for IPDA topics will happen in each round, and the judge will have the topics printed on their ballots under "Debate Topics" to provide to the students themselves. Copy and paste these topics into the chat so students can strike. The time listed on the schedule is the time that strike starts, followed by 30 minutes of prep time.


We’re going to have an awesome weekend, and we are happy that you are here and are a part of it. 


Thank you for supporting The DVC Thing and the DVC Forensics Team,

Blake Longfellow

DVC Director of Forensics