Out of curiosity, what happened to the Wisconsin select invitational that UWM (I think) used to host? I've heard many a tale about Dan Shapiro's exploits at that tournament, and it sounds like it was awesome.
I can answer that! We scheduled Select in March with the weekend being the weekend of our Spring Break that was not also the Saint Paul National weekend. The idea was that teams qualifying for Des Moines often had as much as an eight-week dead time between their qualifier and the Championship. I felt they needed opportunity to keep the rust off.
Select ended after two years because I was thoroughly turned off by ridiculous UWM parking policies (why ticket guests when the whole campus is empty!) and by low blows from certain UWM folks. (I responded to complaints about Select I that were raised for the first time the January following the March tournament.) So, I said we'll never host again. (A regional qualifier, two Silvers and two invitationals are enough for a while.)
But I encourage the AMTA community to adopt some of the things that Select did well. My objective was to maximize the number of trial rounds that could be put together over a weekend. More bang for the travel buck. So we invited "elite" programs - a first for AMTA - that obviously several invitationals have now followed. If the field is strong enough, you can do what I did. We created "round robins" of four teams and saved time by not power-pairing the first three rounds. Then we had a hidden (or supposedly hidden) quarterfinal. Sunday morning was the semifinals. We tried to schedule scrimmages for teams that had been eliminated if they wanted to scrimmage.
After the semi, we had an "only what we can afford brunch." Josh is right that Mom and probably my sister put some food together. (You hear no complaints from college students when they're sharing food together. (Stuff like institution sized cans of fruit cocktail cost little and go a long way. Borrow a couple of toasters and offer Dolly Madison thrift store bargains.) [If UWM was in session, I was thinking I'd find a service club and have them all report on Sunday morning. Then I'd have each team assigned to bring a different component for a salad bar. If they didn't want the hassle, they could pay us to pick up their lettuce or onions. The service club could have a great time peeling, chopping and serving - and everyone knows salad bars are warmly received every where.]
I thought I had a decent idea as to awards. I created a traveling trophy (which U of Minnesota holds) out of an ecletic array of old trophy parts. It only cost me the fee for an engraved plate. Like the old time debate tournaments, there was one and only one trophy. Beyond that, I went to Wal-Mart and bought loads and loads of picture frames. Trophies are expensive and become inconvenient. But with frames and a word processor, you can create attractive awards persinalized for the recipients.
On Saturday after the quarterfinal, I went and added names of student and school winners to the certificates I pre-prepared. I remember that Select II was the year of the Mount Everest case and I photocopied a National Geographic shot of Mount Everest as the background of the certificate. A framed certificate with someone's name is at least as nice as a four inch trophy. The first year, I found some lenses in a science thrift store and glued them to the certificate glass with the colored AMTA Seal. Stuff like ribbon is cheap and dresses even the plainest certificate up.
Do I care if a recipient decided to use the frame for something other than the Select certificate? Naw. And Wal-Mart sells some pretty nice frames.
In conclusion, feel free to be creative and operate within your budget. The resilience of youth goes a long way and, as most have said here, the important thing in a mock trial tournament is the opportunity to mock trial.
