Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence

Welcome to the PACE guide for directing in an online tournament. This guide is complete for hosting a Discord tournament. We’re still working on the version of this guide for Zoom (see bottom of this page). For guides for staffing, playing or coaching at an online tournament see here.

This guide assumes that you have staffed at least one in-person quizbowl tournament before. If not, please see TBD on quizbowl basics.

General Online Tournament Hosting

The following links apply to tournament directors hosting either a Discord or Zoom tournament:

Software Options for an Online Tournament
How Large Should Your Tournament Be?
The Tournament Director’s Role During the Tournament
Equipment You’ll Need (mainly for your staffers, but helpful to have as a TD just in case)

Discord Tournaments

As tournament director of a Discord tournament, you’ll:

Create a Discord server to host your tournament on
Invite staffs, players, and coaches to it and then add them to the appropriate tournament roles
Create the schedules and links to packets/scoresheets for your staffers
Run a tournament where moderators, players, and coaches join a video call to engage in virtual quizbowl matches. The moderators read the questions, the players type “buzz” to buzz in
Manage your staffers, make sure teams get to their new rooms each round, make sure stats are collected, create new schedules for playoffs
Enforce a welcoming environment adhering to PACE’s code of conduct

The below sections provide in-depth detail on how to host an online tournament on Discord. Please read them all before announcing your tournament so you know what to expect and what resources are available.