Tournament Management Software

[TrueJim]

Have folks here had much experience with tournament management software? The Kukkiwon/WTF-style school I attend plans to host a local tournament later this year. We haven't hosted a tournament in a couple of years and the fellow who managed the software-side of things has since passed away. I've been asked if I could come up with a software plan for this tournament. (Back in the day, I was a software developer…long ago.)

The tournament would be local, so figure a few dozen taekwondo schools competing (hundreds of competitors).

Here are some of the alternatives I've found so far:

Kihapp - Kihapp - Tournament Software for Martial Artists - handles online registration to making brackets, printing certificates and publishing results. First developed in 2009, looks to be entirely Web-based, which should a good thing. Appears to handle even the Web-hosting, which is great. Can handle multiple styles of martial arts. The website doesn't have much in the way of demos or screenshots though, so it's hard to know what you're getting. I figured I'd contact the developer as a possible next step.

Tournament Tiger - Tournament Tiger - Software for taekwondo martial arts tournaments. - nice looking website, and the tool looks pretty full-featured. If I had to pick something sight-unseen (except for the website), I'd think this one looks pretty darn good.

All Tournament Pro - All Tournament Pro Software Home - looks again to be another Web-based system. Apparently the tool charges the athlete $3 to register for the tournament online using this tool. Looks good from what I can tell on the website.

Mat Action (beta) - Martial Arts Technologies Cloud-Based Martial Arts Solutions -this tool isn't available yet, but just FYI looks like it'll be good when it is. All tablet / smart-phone based so officials can use it even on the competition floor.


My thinking was I'd set up some "fake" tournaments in a few tools, get some of my friends to register for the fake tournaments, give these tools a proper test-drive before I recommend one to my school…but I thought I'd check the forums to see if anybody had any thoughts or recommendations.

Any experience with any of the above? Any other tools I should check out?

 

[terryl965]

Go and get the daedo system, it is the best out their right now. Talk to Shane Merium at Deado truescore in Michigan about it.

 

[tshadowchaser]

never having used any software for tournament may I ask why software id needed. Can't you just printout elimination brackets what else is needed and why?
I'm asking this as I do not know anyone who has ever used any software for a tournament

Edit: I just read the first one that was suggested and see how it includes online registration and a few other things like certificates so I'm getting the idea.
Sorry for being so old school all I had ever seen online was a registration form and rules and the registration had to be turned in by hand

 

[TrueJim]

never having used any software for tournament may I ask why software id needed. Can't you just printout elimination brackets what else is needed and why?

It's a good question. I haven't had a chance yet to actually sit down with the head of our school and get a good handle on exactly what his requirements are. What he told me initially is that he's looking for something that can do online registration for the tournament, so he might not be as concerned with bracket-making as he is with keeping track of all the athletes and their information.

It looks like some of these packages also collect the tournament fees as part of the registration process, which may be another thing he's interested in.

 

[TrueJim]

Just an FYI, I posted this same question on KarateForums.com (the Korean Martial Arts portion of that forum). It turns out the developer of Kihapp reads that forum, so he pointed me to an online demo of the tool, which I thought was a very helpful thing for him to do...and since it's in the context of answering my question, I don't think that really qualifies as an "advertisement."

(Kinda like when somebody on this forum asks a question about gear or uniforms, and somebody provides a link to the product information. I don't really think of it as advertising if somebody is actually answering a specific question. And I wouldn't care if it was the Adidas CEO himself, as long as he was actually answering my question.)

KarateForums decided that constitutes an "advertisement" though and pulled the thread. I understand the rationale behind "no advertising" in the threads, but this seems a little over-the-top to me.

Eh, MartialTalk is a better forum anyway. If anybody here was also following this question there, and needs the Kihapp demo link, let me know.

 

[WaterGal]

I wish more tournaments had online registration! That seems like a much better system than mailing in a paper application and money order to some school and hoping for the best.

 

[TrueJim]

I wish more tournaments had online registration! That seems like a much better system than mailing in a paper application and money order to some school and hoping for the best.

Yah, I haven't determined yet whether or not Kihapp handles payments for athlete registration. I owe the developer an email with questions, including that one. I know Tournament Tiger handles payments, because it says so on their website.

I can't tell from their website whether All Tournament Pro handles tournament fees or not. I do see now that there's an option to have the tournament organizer pay the $3 website fee rather than the athlete. All Tournament Pro also has the nice feature that it offers to host a tournament information webpage that's integrated directly with the tool.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Terry1965 would be your go to source here regarding this. If he mentioned that Daedo is the best then please check it out.

 

[TrueJim]

Terry1965 would be your go to source here regarding this. If he mentioned that Daedo is the best then please check it out.

Yup! Good advice; I took a look. (Who wouldn't want to go with a Daedo product if it meets the need?) As near as I can tell, the Daedo software just handles tournament-day scoring. It doesn't do pre-tournament registration.

When I started this inquiry, I was expecting to find some products that do tournament-day scoring, and other products that do pre-tournament registration. One thing that has surprised me is how many products say they do both. In retrospect, I guess it makes sense...you already have the athlete information in a database as part of the registration process, so you might as well use that database for tournament-day.

 

[TrueJim]

Another update: upon further review, KarateForums agrees that the information provided by the Kihapp author does not constitute and advertisement, so they've restored the thread.

Some folks here on MartialTalk have asked for the Kihapp demo link (there actually seems to be a fair amount of interest in this topic). The Kihapp author caveats his link with the fact that his demo isn't 100% finished/polished yet, but here's the link if anybody else wants to take a look. World Championships Taekwon-Do Kihapp From Kihapp's author:

The above is a fully functional fake tournament that already has some competitors registered. You can use it as if you were an admin without logging in, so I guess we'll see now what happens when you post a link like this to a public forum. Multiplayer tournament management.

I'll probably do a reset or something every once in a while if people "conduct" the tournament to its conclusion.

If you want a private fake tournament with fake competitors, just email me at ville@kihapp.com.

If there's any questions, ask away! I'm always looking for feedback, it's the only way I know how to improve.

FYI, I've also sent some inquiries to the makers of Tournament Tiger and All Tournament Pro, questions like: what kind of payment methods are accepted from the registrants, can registrants pick school-affiliation for an organizer's menu, etc. As I collect this information, I'll put together some sort of feature-by-feature comparison for those who are interested. (I'm not trying to advertise for any of these tools...I'm just trying to figure out which tool will work for our tournament.)

 

[TrueJim]

For various reasons, I never did get a chance to undertake a more thorough analysis of Tournament Management software systems. Maybe one day I'll get around to it. I did go through the "Features List" of several products to see what all features the authors felt were important enough to mention. It's the list itself that I think is interesting. For those who are interested, I made a table of the feature set here:

Tournament Management Software - Taekwondo Wiki

 

[mrjasperc]

Hi @TrueJim, I know this is almost 3 years after your post, but, two other online tournament management solutions are sportsdata.org and wiredma.com . I know Wired Martial Arts (wiredma.com) can take online competitor registration and payment, and it generates draw sheets.

@tshadowchaser the reason for using a tournament system is pre-registering competitors so we (tournament organisers) can get an understanding of how many competitors there'll be and we can do a bunch of preperation work such as drawing up the draw sheets (if the software doesn't already do it). I know the traditional method of paper entries and writing up the draw sheets manually can take over 20 hours and be a bit of a panic for the tournament organiser the night before the tournament as late entries come in. Paying online is also a great benefit and pretty much the norm no-a-days as people move to more cashless purchases.

 

[clic]

Hi @TrueJim, I know this is almost 3 years after your post, but, two other online tournament management solutions are sportsdata.org and wiredma.com . I know Wired Martial Arts (wiredma.com) can take online competitor registration and payment, and it generates draw sheets.

@tshadowchaser the reason for using a tournament system is pre-registering competitors so we (tournament organisers) can get an understanding of how many competitors there'll be and we can do a bunch of preperation work such as drawing up the draw sheets (if the software doesn't already do it). I know the traditional method of paper entries and writing up the draw sheets manually can take over 20 hours and be a bit of a panic for the tournament organiser the night before the tournament as late entries come in. Paying online is also a great benefit and pretty much the norm no-a-days as people move to more cashless purchases.

The correct URL for Sportdata Event Technology is: www.sportdata.org for the Online platforms (event registration etc.).
For corresponding software products see: set.sportdata.org