Tournament Information

We will utilize NPDA tournament guidelines unless otherwise specified. The tournament directors will be empowered with the discretion to make decisions conducive to the tournament’s efficient and correct completion. The tournament will have 20 minutes of preparation time, with a 5-minute forfeit rule. Any team not in their room and ready to debate by 25 minutes after the topic is announced will forfeit the round.

The tournament is open to any regularly enrolled undergraduate in a two- or four-year college or university who has their school’s permission to compete and is in good standing with their school’s debate organization. As we wish to encourage as much debate as possible, we will accept maverick entries and hybrid entries. We request that teams limit maverick entries to one per school (that is to say, if there’s someone a competitor can debate with, we strongly encourage them to debate with a partner).

All entries must be submitted via Tabroom. New entries are due by September 6. Entry changes are permitted until the 10^th, but no new entries may be considered at that time. Please email Bryce Piotrowski directly if you wish to register as a hybrid.

There is no hotel block for the tournament.

The University of Minnesota has a solid guest Wi-Fi network and additionally uses eduroam. The network is called UofM-Guest, and it will prompt you to accept terms and conditions upon connection. No account creation is necessary.

Minnesota’s campus is drug and alcohol-free. This means that, should anyone affiliated with the tournament be caught using drugs or alcohol on University property, our team may face consequences. The buildings we will (likely) be in are right on the edge of campus: should you need to, please briefly leave campus to do whatever you need to do. Anyone not compliant with this policy may be asked to vacate the campus by University security: in that event, we would be forced to withdraw that individual from participation in the tournament.

From the University of Minnesota website:

“All students, staff, faculty, and visitors are prohibited from smoking and using, selling, free distributing, and advertising tobacco products and electronic cigarettes in all facilities and on all University property…Visitors who refuse to comply with this policy may be asked to vacate campus property.”