Kansas Forensics Virtual Series 1

2025 — Online, KS/US

Hello!

You and your team are cordially invited to the Kansas Forensics Virtual Series Tournaments! A fully digital series of tournaments hosted with options for Async IE's, an optional LIVE online final for KSHSAA state quals purposes, and LD/PF online rounds.

Please read the below information for details:

Structure:

Week 1:
Async entries are due by 8p on Monday.

Video links due ASAP after.
Async Prelim Rounds 1-3 Ballots released at noon on Tuesday or earlier.

Fines will be issued by noon Saturday, if your Async judges have failed to at least accept their ballots by then.

Async Prelim Ballots Due by 11:59 the following Sunday

Week 2:
IE Finalists released ASAP, or earlier. Only the entries communicated as "Yes Live Finals" will advance to the live finals. Select this option when we send out a spreadsheet the week of the tournament. If you choose not to have your entries advance to a live final, congrats! Your tournament is done!
Entries are due for LIVE debate by Wednesday at noon.
Wed - 4 rounds of live LD and PF starting at 3p, set 1 hour apart. Yes, that is a tight turnaround. Yes, some debates will run behind. We will use judge swaps as necessary to finish 4 debates as quickly as possible. You may double-enter in an Async event that you have taken to finals AND LD/PFD, we will give you a BYE in R3 or 4 to facilitate you performing in finals of IE's.
Wed - Live IE finals start at 5p-7p. The default is 1 judge in finals. KSHSAA rules, cume. Will use more judges when possible. Judges will be swapped with LD/PF. Programs competing in live finals owe 1 judge to the Wednesday category per 3 entries in finals.

Dates:

Tournament #1

Async Entries Due Feb 10

Video links due Feb 11
Async 3 rounds Feb 11-16
"Live" Digital Finals over WebEx/Zoom + LD/PF Rounds Feb 19th

Tournament #2
Async Entries Due March 3

Video links Due March 4
Async 3 rounds March 4-9
"Live" Digital Finals over WebEx/Zoom + LD/PF Rounds Mar 12

Tournament #3
Async Entries Due Mar 24

Video Links Due Mar 25
Async 3 rounds Mar 25-30
"Live" Digital Finals over WebEx/Zoom + LD/PF Rounds Apr 2

Tournament #4
Async Entries Due Apr 14

Video Links Due Apr 15
Async 3 rounds Apr 15-20
"Live" Digital Finals over WebEx/Zoom + LD/PF Rounds Apr 23

Fees:

It's free, but we will charge everyone equally if we go over the 50-entry threshold. There will be a $100 fine if your school is assigned a ballot and fails to complete it. We are not interested in making money, but we are very interested in making sure folks follow through with judging their ASYNC rounds.

Limited Prep Rules:
Imp2, Extemp, and IDA questions—I trust that coaches can write and administer draws for their own students. I expect that instead of a single video link, they choose to submit a Google folder with three video links from three performances OR a Google Doc with three YouTube video links embedded.

I expect that in live finals, coaches write 3 questions for their students and administer the draw fairly with the appropriate amount of prep. They do so in the order listed on the spreadsheet. The final draw for Extemp should start at 5 p.m. on the dot, in the order in which the entries are listed on the schedule. The same is true for Imp2, but with 10 minutes in between.

Checking Links:
It is the affirmative duty of coaches attending the tournament to check the links they submit to make sure they work. I will not ask judges to rescore ballots if the links submitted do not work. I do not intend to check any link submitted.

Judges:
Async IE's - 1 round of prelim judging per 2 IE's enter your judge(s) for as many as 12 rounds. An async judge can theoretically judge each event at least once assuming there are enough entries and sections. If entries are small for a particular tournament, I may limit this number if entries are low and it makes some judges unplaceable in all events. If entries are large, theoretically 1 judge covers 24 entries.
LD/PF - you owe one full-time judge equivalent per 2 entries. You need to in general have someone willing to cover every debate round. Since we are doing some swaps with IE's to make it easier in rounds 3 and 4 that should make it easier. I'm happy to be flexible as needed.
Live finals - 1 judge per 3 IE's that clear to finals. Please self-regulate this. I think the math works out where we might not even use every one, but it makes it so that finals can at least have (hopefully) 2 judges, or perhaps even better 3. Register them in the appropriate pool in the other judge category on tabroom.

Please email me with any questions!

Parker Hopkins
Lawrence Free State Speech & Debate
phopsdebate@gmail.com

p.s. If your school finds this to be a useful service, please consider opening registration for your tournament on Tabroom.com ASAP. I use the student self-sign-up feature on tabroom, but I cannot use that until tournaments are open for registration. Learn more about it here.