Tips for Match Directors

[BN]

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If you follow Bill Nesbit's suggestion of 3-4 minutes between shooters, then you need a minimum of 45 minutes for 15 shooters to finish a stage.
Speaking of which, much of the delay that I've seen has been shooters who are not ready when it's their turn to shoot, so make sure that the RO or the scorer or an assistant of some kind is telling folks that they're up next. This actually takes a lot of proactive work, as you may have to tell the more social people several times to stop flapping their gums and start getting ready.

The suggestion for 3-4 minutes per shooter is from my experience with all day big matches. The math might need to be different for a small club match. The main thing is that the times per squad are the same to prevent back ups.

When my wife and I run a stage, we put all the score sheets on a clipboard, fanned out so everybody's name can be seen at a glance. That way shooters can keep track of where they are. We also call out who is the shooter, who is on deck, and who is in the hole.

[Sal Picante]

I've been an MD for close to 7 years... Some general thoughts.

* Get help: a core group of good guys that help with setup/tear down/RO/etc. Reward those people with free registration, priority registration or something else. Burnout sucks.

* Consider using Eventbrite or Practiscore to handle all the registration and payment details ahead of the match. Having squads lists, payments, etc all ahead of time makes it easy to just get the show on the road and underway. Additionally, online registration keeps $$ from "blowing away", dig? It is easy to incorporate as a non-profit if necessary, doing so helps handle payments (FEIN #). If the range is putting on events, make sure they can handle payments/etc.

* Get insurance -or- make sure the range's insurance covers the events

* Get a set of decent rules/range policies in order - e.g. the stuff NOT covered in the USPSA rulebook. E.g. how many times can someone DQ per season? What about guys that are drinking before hand? Who can RO? (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...aws/Bylaws.pdf)

* Consider capping the matches - 100 people is A LOT. Squads of 16 move pretty slow... 10 people per squad moves at a good clip!

* Coreplast sheets from HomeDepot are great for wall sections. If you're outside, and wind is a concern, snow fencing and 2x2's are a good alternative. Walls that are 4'x8' are ideal - you run em tall or long.

* Will you allow folks to reshoot Classifiers? I personally think that is dishonest: people should pay once and get 1 try, but I know I'm a bit of minority there.


More specific thoughts:

* The time is really spent on the walk throughs and stage resets. Anything you can do to make stage resets easier will make things flow faster.

* Stages with 2 strings are almost as much time as 2 separate stages.

* A good mix, scores-wise is still the IPSC rule of thumb: (3) Short Courses to two (2) Medium Courses to one (1) Long Course. Though here in the states, nixing one short course and adding another long course is kinda the deal.


Hit me up if you want...

[Sal Picante]

First, have some kind of class for new shooters before the match. Get them up to speed on draw stroke, reloads, weak hand shooting, the 180-degree rule, shooting on the move, and especially on any range-specific safety rules. If you can't do it a week or so out, then do it on the morning of the match. It will take an extra bay and extra SO's, but it really reduces the knucklehead factor and the unsafe/non-compliant gear, which makes for a much safer match. I consider myself pretty experienced, and my club's mandatory 6-hour course was some of the best instruction I've ever received. It REALLY helped.

We have to limit participation at our matches - but this is a good idea. We send people to a few reputable trainers that do "intro-courses" regularly.

[Sal Picante]

Another one: Shell out for kindles. It makes scoring so much easier.

People REALLY like seeing the results at the end of the match.

[nwhpfan]

I'm hoping to get some feedback from experienced match directors (MD) or other organizers/stage builders about what they think or have observed are successful formulas for running USPSA matches. Success defined as safe, challenging, minimal waiting and back ups. Let's assume USPA, 100 shooters, 5 stages with 1 being a classifier, decent weather conditions, variety of shooter experience. Thanks for the input.

Be careful not to pick stages that show your bias. If you are hoser....don't build 32 round wide open target hoser stages. Don't make everything a 30 yard standard either. A mix. Listen to what the shooters are saying, they are your customer.

Host at least once a year a RO course.

Encourage all shooters comfortable with the game to learn to RO.

Encourage all your shooters to join USPSA.

If it's going to rain, more steel.

Only one crazy stage per match. Don't have every COF have a drop turner activated multi rotating Texas Star.

[PPGMD]

* Will you allow folks to reshoot Classifiers? I personally think that is dishonest: people should pay once and get 1 try, but I know I'm a bit of minority there.

Personally I would never do it. But I've become ambivalent on grandbagging.

To get to GM, even through grandbagging takes pretty descent skills, so getting a GM card just to bolster your training resume isn't horrible, the guy at least knows how to shoot.

From a competitive stand point, if you grandbag you are just competing against people above your USPSA skill level, so you are getting your shit pushed in. No great loss to other people.

OTOH Sandbagging hurts the value of class awards, and allows people to get prizes that they really shouldn't (as some matches give prizes to class award winners, or a trip to the prize table ahead of their order of finish). So if I have any issues with shooting classifiers it is when people either don't want them submitted, or purposely blow the classifier.

[cheby]

Be careful not to pick stages that show your bias. If you are hoser....don't build 32 round wide open target hoser stages. Don't make everything a 30 yard standard either. A mix. Listen to what the shooters are saying, they are your customer.

It is hard to cover all the skills during the club match because it is usually just 6 stages. Still, a good club match should be designed to be as balanced as possible.

OTOH, a drop turner activated multi rotating Texas Star sounds like fun, LOL

[Lomshek]

More specific thoughts:

* The time is really spent on the walk throughs and stage resets. Anything you can do to make stage resets easier will make things flow faster.

* Stages with 2 strings are almost as much time as 2 separate stages.

Man is that ever true! I've been an MD for 4'ish years and totally agree. Simply changing where a target is placed so it can be scored easily without having to wander through a maze of no shoots, barricades and barrels can help immensely.

Other than that having an RO who's not afraid to keep people on task and hustle is extremely important. The guy who walks slowly back to the starting area from the furthest target while chatting with another shooter can add an hour to your match time over 5 stages. Figure if he's walking 30 yards and takes a minute extra because he moves like a retired guy with all day to burn instead of "range walking" or trotting so everyone waits on him to take those last 10 ponderous steps before the make ready command can be given adds a minute to every shooter's reset time. That means 5 stages with 10 shooters takes an extra 50 minutes because of that guy.

When I'm running a squad it almost looks comical as I speed walk through the stage scoring targets with my stats person trying to keep up while tapping away and the squad fanning out to cover the different target arrays waiting for me to blaze by to paste. I ran a 10 member squad on our night shoot (full dark outside range) through 4 30+ round stages with stars, 30 yard plates and some crazy elaborate stages in 3 hours. We can move a 13 member squad though 5 daylight stages in 2 1/2 hours. Our daylight matches go hot at 10 AM and we're usually tore down and ready to leave the range by 1:30 PM (5 stages 2 - 3 squads depending on numbers).

[olstyn]

thing I see most sorely lacking at USPSA matches is a Loading/Unloading Station.

Agreed, bigtime. Those of us who carry to/from matches have an issue there. Can't do it at a safety table, handling ammo there is a DQ. Can't walk to your first stage loaded, that's a DQ. Lots of places aren't happy with you unloading/loading in the parking lot, but also don't provide an area to do it. What's a guy/girl to do?

[Mr_White]

Agreed, bigtime. Those of us who carry to/from matches have an issue there. Can't do it at a safety table, handling ammo there is a DQ. Can't walk to your first stage loaded, that's a DQ. Lots of places aren't happy with you unloading/loading in the parking lot, but also don't provide an area to do it. What's a guy/girl to do?

Here are the applicable USPSA rules as far as I know:

2.5 Unloading/Loading Station
2.5.1 If it is possible that some competitors arriving at a range where a USPSA match is being held may be in possession of a loaded firearm on their person (e.g. law enforcement officers, persons duly authorized to carry a loaded firearm, etc.), match organizers should provide an Unloading/Loading Station to enable such competitors to safely unload their firearms prior to entering the range, and to safely load their firearms again on departure from the range. The Unloading/Loading Station should be conveniently located outside the entrance to the range (or outside the portion of the range allocated to the USPSA match), it should be clearly sign-marked and it must include a suitable impact zone.
2.5.2 Where no Unloading/Loading station is provided, a competitor who arrives at a match in possession of a loaded firearm and proceeds immediately to a match official for the express purpose of safely unloading the firearm shall not be subject to disqualification per the provisions of Rule 10.5.13.

In practice, it mostly comes down to 2.5.2 from what I've seen. There is normally no loading/unloading station. I normally have to go find a match official to ask to unload upon arrival. I make sure to allow time to track them down and take care of it. At local matches where I'm used to the MDs and they are used to me, they mostly send me to an unused bay, or all the way to the edge of the berm to take care of it. All the local MDs are very appreciative. At matches further away, the whole thing takes more time and sometimes it can be hard to find the MD (any other match official I find tends to refer me to the MD.) I've been looked at strangely, like no one has ever asked about it before, but I've never received anything but cooperation from MDs. If I feel like I don't have time to deal with this stuff according to the rules, I take care of my guns before arriving on club property. Once I'm there, I will not handle the guns inside the vehicle.