Sunday Side Event Management
CIAO to everybody,
today we welcome a guest, a friend, an expert judge who prepared for us a series of articles dedicated to *Side Events at Grand Prix*. His name is Ivan Petkovic, he’s a level 3 Judge from Croatia, currently residing in Hamburg, Germany. He has become a regular at Grand Prix in Europe and he also had some appearances in Japanese GPs too, which will continue in 2017! He’s an expert in processes, organization and logistics, and I’m sure you will be able to enjoy his articles. Today’s article is about Roles Overview. Happy reading!
Sunday side event management is one of the most challenging tasks at the GP. And since I love and enjoy solving large-scale logistical challenges, I try to put myself often in this role. It turned out for the last year I was, in one way or another, involved with this task.
A lot of knowledge collected in this article wasn’t invented by me. They are things I picked along the way and possibly iterated on a bit to adapt to my style of organizing SE. Just to mention some names who helped with the creation of this document: Jurgen Baert, Alfonso Bueno, Matteo Callegari, Lamberto Franco and Riccardo Tessitori.
Why am I focusing on Sunday? Friday’s scheduled events are much more different than those on Sunday and largely consist of GP Trials and ODEs. Compared to Friday and Saturday, stuff you have available is smaller compared than Sunday (but so are the events).
Also, I won’t be focusing on ODEs since there is a series of excellent articles written about it already:
The initial idea for the article was to create a framework for myself of useful ideas and best practices so I don’t forget them when I am preparing for this role. As I was writing, I thought publishing it could be useful for others. Please remember, these are things I’ve collected along the way, it is not meant to be an exhaustive list and mostly reflects my experiences at European GPs.
You have been warned! 😉
Roles overview
I tried to list all major roles and their goals, responsibilities, and major interactions to give an overview of Sunday’s SE activities. One role doesn’t necessarily mean one person, but can be.
SE Manager
- Goal: Makes sure SE runs smoothly.
- Main responsibility
- Scheduled events (primary)
- On demand event (secondary)
- Efficient SE judge staff management
- Mostly interacts with
- All
- Primarily with Stage Manager, ODE Manager, Floor Manager (optional), Break Manager (optional) & SKs
ODE Manager
- Goal: Run ODE smoothly and independently from scheduled events
- Main responsibility
- ODE
- Breaks for ODE judges
- ODE space allocation (within space agreed with Floor Manager)
- Mostly interacts with
- SE Manager
- Break manager (for additional manpower for brakes)
- ODE Scorekeeper
- Prize Station
- ODE judges
Floor Manager (Optional)
- Goal: Plans where events will start
- Main responsibility
- Make sure all events have enough space
- Make sure events are compatible with TOs plan for venue breakdown
- Mostly interacts with
- SE Manager
- Kickstarter team
- Scorekeepers
Breaks Manager (Optional)
- Goal: All judges have both small and large (meal) break
- Main responsibility
- Breaks
- Judge allocations (where is each judge judging at any moment)
- Mostly interacts with
- SE Manager
- Floor Manager
Kickstart team (Optional)
- Goal: Seating / R1 pairings posted & logistics set up at scheduled time
- Main responsibility
- Scheduled events starting on time
- Mostly interacts with
- SE Manager
- Floor Manager
- Scorekeeper
Help / Flex team (optional)
- Goal: Assisting where needed
- Main responsibility:
- Resolving a task given by SE Manager effectively & efficiently
- Mostly interacts with:
- SE Manager & other managerial roles
Stage Manager (TO role)
- Goal: Smooth operations of SE from TOs perspective (e.g. registrations starting finishing on time)
- Main responsibility
- Events (and registration) starting on time
- Venue breakdown plan
- Mostly interacts with
- Scorekeepers
- Registration lead
- SE Manager
- Floor Manager
Scorekeeper (TO role)
- Goal: Supporting administrative side of the event
- Main responsibility
- Registrations
- Results entry
- Tournament paperwork (pairings, seatings, slips, signs…)
- Mostly interacts with
- Stage Manager
- Registration Lead
- SE Manager
- Floor Manager
- Kickstart team
Registration Lead (TO role)
- Goal: Smooth registrations for all side events
- Main responsibility:
- Logistics of physical lines (tensabarriers), signs, registration forms, payment points
- Making sure enough players register (and at proper time) by making announcements
- Answering players’ questions about starting of a tournament and registrations
- Customer service before the event starts (e.g. dealing with players who ask for reimbursements or want to change the event)
- Mostly interacts with:
- Registration team
Prize Station (TO role)
- Goal: All players who have received prizes in form of TIX, can have them exchanged for various prizes
- Main responsibility:
- Exchange TIX for correct prize
- Make sure no received TIX are misplaced
- Mostly interacts with:
- ODE Manager (checking which tournaments are still in progress)
This is it, this is the end of the first article. In the next one, we will go in more details regarding Side Event Manager’s work.
Stay well, stay tuned!
I hope you enjoyed this article, and I’m looking forward to reading your comments.
Contact Riccardo 
If you want to add a comment and discuss this article in the Judge forums, click HERE.
All comments, feedback, and advice are very welcome 🙂