Important Tournament Information

Important Info!

Entry Fees - they are the same as last year

IE’s - $25

Congress - $30

Policy, LD, PF - $40

WSD - $45

Each missed/no-show round assigned to your school for judging will result in a $25 "no-show fee." You are responsible for any judges that you privately hire. If they are in Tabroom, we assume they are fair game to schedule!

Invoices not paid in full by November 31, 2025 are subject to a $50/wk late fee.

Congress

We will be using Rule 2(l) on page 68 of the TFA Constitution and limiting floor debate per item of legislation to no more than one-third of a session's total floor time. We anticipate that will be 1 hour per piece of legislation.

There is a minimum cycle of one affirmative and one negative speech before items can be tabled.

Forfeit Policy

Individual Events (Including Duo & Duet)

Our judges will be instructed to remain in the competition room for 15 minutes per competitor in that section - with a minimum of 60 minutes - from the start of the round. Once that time has lapsed, the judge can submit their ballot and the student will be a forfeit in that event.

Debate Events

Our judges will be instructed to remain in the competition room for 15 minutes from the start of that round. If a competitor has not arrived after 15 minutes, the judge can submit their ballot and the student/team will be marked as a forfeit for that round.

Judging

Judging Obligations
Congress - 1 judge per 8 entries
LD/PF - 1 judge per 4 entries
CX/WSD - 1 judge per 2 entries
Speech - 1 judge per 6 entries

All Section A and Section B IE rounds will be single judges except for finals for TFA IE qualifying events (semis will be paneled if judging permits).

All debate rounds will be single judges except for semis and finals of TFA qualifying events (additional elims will be paneled if judging permits).

The judging pool will consist of community/volunteer judges, coaches of competing schools, and contracted judges. School judges may be moved between pools (especially for Congress school judges). JHS varsity students may be utilized as judges in novice events.


Additional Tournament Information

All competing students must be accompanied by an employee of the school or school district attending. The supervising adult must be available throughout the tournament until all students from that academic institution are eliminated and/or finished competing. Unaccompanied students will be dropped from the tournament with no refund.

Maverick entries will not be accepted.

No independent entries from schools within Texas will be accepted. All entries must be affiliated with and a representative of their school, defined as an organization, institution, or group that grants a diploma, or its equivalent, as recognized by the Texas State Board of Education and/or Texas Education Agency.

Middle school/junior highs are welcome to attend, but may not earn TFA points.

For this tournament, a novice is defined as a competitor in their first competitive year in forensics or a middle school/junior high competitor.

Sweepstakes

JHS students are not eligible for any sweepstakes or top individual awards.

We will award the following Sweepstakes awards:

• Top Speaker in all debate events
• Overall Sweepstakes