2027 Mardi Gras LD Classic

Greetings Community!

The LSU Speech and Debate Team is excited to invite you to attend the first annual Mardi Gras LD Classic, February 6 & 7, 2027! The tournament will be online and synchronous. The tournament will be hosted via Tabroom.com, and rounds will occur through Zoom. The tournament will exclusively offer LD at this time.

The tournament will operate using the NFA-LD topic and speech times. Open, junior varsity, and novice divisions will be offered. In the event of limited entries, divisions may collapse but breakouts for elimination rounds would still be held for any collapsed divisions assuming numbers.

Division Eligibility

All participants must be active undergraduate students at their university.

• Novice Division - Students must be in their first two semesters of debate, including high school competition.

• JV Division – Student will be in their first four semesters of college debate.

• Varsity Division - Any student in their fifth semester or beyond of college debate shall only be eligible for open competition.

Students may be entered into divisions above their classification at their discretion. No student entered shall exceed 8 semesters of college competition or four years of national tournament participation.

Judging

Each university will be responsible for covering 3 rounds of judging per entry. Any uncovered entry will result in $50 cost per entry. Judges must have a paradigm published on Tabroom as well as a linked account to satisfy judging requirements. All judges are obligated one round past their school’s elimination from the tournament. Beyond the deadline below judge drops may also result in the uncovered judging fee as the tournament may not be able to guarantee access to additional judging.

During the round it is expected that judge cameras are ON and they are in frame during the debate. Debate is a communicative practice so seeing non-verbal feedback in addition to verbal comments after the round are essential to that process. Students are thus entitled to attentive judges as much of the non-verbal responses can be used to make real time evaluations and adjustments based on that feedback. Debaters should feel welcome to raise judges who refuse to abide to the tournament staff. Reported judges will be issued a warning but repeated violation will result in removal from the tournament and have their commitment voided resulting in the uncovered fee noted above.

Disclosure as well as feedback is strongly encouraged after each debate for the benefit of the debaters. Quality disclosure should involve not only a thought-out reason for decision but also areas of improvement for the debaters present. Students come from a wide variety of backgrounds and abilities so feedback should best be benched in the argumentation within the round. We are all educators and thus should strive to make sure that students are treated with the appropriate respect.

How to Enter

Entries should be made through Tab Room.

The deadline for entries and judge registration: Feb 1, 2027 9PM CST.

Fees

• Each entry will run at the cost of $10 this fee goes towards running the tournament.

• Any uncovered entry will result in $50 cost per entry.

• There will be a $20 fee assessed if a judge misses an assigned round.

• Late adds and drops subject to $10 fee and should be reported directly to Dr. Ashley Mack at ashleymack@lsu.edu

Pay by Credit Card: https://commerce.cashnet.com/COMMSTUDY

Make checks payable to:

LSU Speech & Debate Team

Coates 136

Louisiana State University

Baton Rouge, LA 70803

Logistics

• Tournament will run on Central Time and be using Zoom.

• Any difficulty accessing the zoom should reach out to the tournament staff at the end of this document.

• Given this is an online tournament we know tech may be an issue. To ensure the tournament runs as close to on time as possible seven minutes will be allowed for “tech time” for each debater for crashes or other technical difficulties. Judges should start the timer immediately and any tech issue(s) adding up to over 7 min of time should result in a forfeit for that debater.

• Pairing procedures will follow that for the NFA national tournament.

• Brackets will be assigned based on raw seeding. Coin flips will be done digitally by the “report time” on the schedule please ensure disclosure ASAP.

• At awards we will recognize the top 5 speakers in each division as well as those making it to elimination rounds.

Schedule

• Please see this link for schedule details: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17PW4VQPbD0U-t7Ylk7vssTGR2W8ghwas2OXVF9B3iTw/edit?usp=sharing

• Report time indicates the time judges and competitors should join the zoom room they are assigned. Cameras and mics DO NOT have to be on. This just ensures disclosure happens effectively and everyone is accounted for.

Please feel free to direct questions to: Dr. Ashley Mack ashleymack@lsu.edu

Best,

Dr. Ashley Mack

Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Cultural Studies
Director, LSU Speech & Debate

Brandon Reynolds

Director of Debate, LSU Speech & Debate