Hello all,
It is time for a new entry in this blog! There will be some changes in the Judge Booth Project which will more or less lead into “everyone can run the booth at any tournament in the world”.
Why this change? The booth has been successful in its current form (GP’s only). Players love it and learn from it, but in the last months, I keep getting more and more requests from judges who want to do a booth at a local PTQ or Prerelease. We’d like to take this opportunity to open the booth to everyone! In order to do this, it is important to consider the different goals of the Judge Booth. It is far mor than just asking players some rules questions.
Provide a different perspective on the Judge Program
If a player doesn’t have a local judge in their community and only interacts with us in competitive settings, they may falsely believe that judges are only grim figures involved to distribute penalties when something goes wrong. The judge booth allows players to interact with judges as a group of individuals who share a passion, who are fun to hang out with, and whom they can befriend and trust, as opposed to just people in positions of authority. The booth wants to make a connection between judges and players. The players have the right to discuss any topic they wish when they are at the judge booth, and the judges running the booth should adapt and respond. If a player wants to vent on something that went badly for them, we’re there to listen. If we can help, we will. If we can’t, we’ll direct them to someone who can. If we don’t know what to do, we’ll take their email and contact them once we do know. This gives players a much more personal experience with Judges and the Judge program all together.
Rules education
People learn new things about rules and cards interaction thanks to the quiz, and that’s great. We always educate a player who is wrong on a question and often a player who is right, by going deeper than the initial question. People will always leave the booth with more knowledge than they came in with.
Recruitment Tool
The quizzes allow us to spot people with great rules knowledge. Those individuals could more easily be certified, so ask them if they are interested in becoming a judge. The player in front of you is maybe the next L1 in your area, and can help to grow your local community.
Increase fun for the event
…by creating memories, and provide a good experience to players. We’re one of the ways to make sure they still have a good day, even when they might have lost the first 3 or more rounds in the tournament.
What do you need to do to planning to do a judge booth? It’s very simple! Just download the booth files from the project page in Judge Apps. It’s a zipped file, including the sheets and the information about the goals of the booth, (like the information above).
What do we want to get from you after you’ve done a booth? That’s also very simple! We want feedback. Although we diligently work on the questions and try to ensure everything is correct, we are just human beings, so we can make mistakes. If you find an error within the sheets, let us know. Additionally, if you have pictures or fun stories of what happened during the booth, please share with us. We are happy to feature you in this blog!
That’s all for today, thanks for reading!
Happy Booth Judging