The wrestling was good for the kids and that is what really matters, but when you get new parents going to their first tournament not so good.
Starting late never helps no matter what the reason.
Having one person at each table to help direct traffic and the flow of your process would have helped.
Hand out the medals AND the brackets at the table, pretty painful for the 1st place kids to have to wait 30 min. after the bracket is done until all the other placers have gotten their medals, even after the bracket was done. Again see the point above and having someone knowing the bracket was done and not letting the other placers run off would have helped.
I know this was for a good cause and all and the kids reffing did a great job and the wrestling was good.
I just get worried when this is the first experience several parents have towards a wrestling tournament.
I don't want to sound negative, but I haven't been to a tournament yet in 15+ years that had a bracket room or table go smooth. It will have 100 kids wanting their brackets at the same time, then the debate about placers in a RR even makes it worse. Not to call anyone out but I waited (my son) over an hour for a Sub district bracket one year with the same "bracket table" set up...crazy.
I don't want to sound like I have all the answers but observe the well ran tournaments, and you will see alot of similarities between them.
