I have done the tournament thing all over the east coast as a competitor and judge. I have seen extremely well run tournys and very poorly run ones. Enough judges or judges getting to their rings always seems to be an issue. I have been given shirts and I have been given free admission. One idea, that seems to have worked extremely well was for a Black Belt to have to sign in on a seperate sheet as judges. They were then given free admission/shirt (if they were giving out shirts). 30 minutes before the event began was the cutoff, the promoter then collected the sheet and held the judges meeting. At that time each ring was assigned 2 BBs 3rd degree or higher and as many lower ranking BBs as were available so that each ring had a fairly equal amount. The reason two higher BBs were assigned was in case one of them had to compete or had a student competing. We were then instructed that if both of the Senior BBs had to leave the ring to find at least one who was available to fill in until we could get back. This system worked very well. I was recently at a tpurnament where I came merely to spectate to see how the organization was running it. I paid my admission fee and 5 minutes later was recognized by several of the senior BBs and was asked to be a referee. I was not refunded my money and was very disappointed at the caliber of the rest of the judges. Needless to say, I have not been back to any of those events.
