UK Freestyle Competition

Subject UK Freestyle Competition
From abw@cre.canon.co.uk (Andy Wardley)
Date Wed, 20 May 1998 09:27:14 GMT
Newsgroups rec.kites 
Barry Savell wrote:
> Currently Andy's suggestion is in pole

Andrew Phelps wrote:
> >
> Have I just volunteered to organise something on Sunday at Bath??  Somebody
> save me please!!??  Either that or give me a helping hand on the day.

There's more than one Andy....

I don't think Barry was necessarily volunterring either of us (other than to fly) but was referring to my post about the Freestyle format. I'm in favour of something based on Patrick Somelet's format that Speedy mentioned.

My biggest qualm was with the music, but I have a suggestion. I've dug out a number of commerical sampler CD's which collectively contain scores of 60 and 30 second commercial cuts of various kinds of music.

How about this: 

A competition consists of a number of rounds that each eliminate half
the fliers (knockout format)

The fliers' names for each round are put in a hat and drawn sequentially.

The drawing order gives the pairs.  1 vs 2, 3 vs 4, etc.

Each pair of fliers flies 3 heats to music.

First name drawn goes first in the first and third heats

Second flier goes first in the second heat (means less change-overs, too)

Music track (30s) is selected at random for each heat.   <---------+
                                                                   |
Music is played once through.                                      |
                                                                   |
First flier flies.                                                 |
                                                                   |
Second flier flies.                                                |
                                                                   |
Judges decide (individually) on winner (perhaps while commentator  |
entertains the crowd with a clap-o-meter, just for fun).           |
                                                                   |
Judges confer.  Most votes wins.  Red/Yellow flag goes up.         |
                                                                   |
** REPEAT ** ------------------------------------------------------+

After 3 heats, the winner is obvious.

All the winners go through to the next round.

The final round may consists of more heats or longer heats. (3 x 60s or 5 x 30s?)

You may have an uneven number of competitors in a round. In these cases, an extra person can be added from the losers of the previous round. At the end of each round, the eliminated flier with the most "votes" goes forward. In the case of multiple fliers having the same score, you have a one-heat fly-off to decide.

Key Points:

Any more?

I can't think of any major drawbacks with this approach, but I welcome any feedback, good or bad.

As for a name....

"Freestyle" is what it is, and I believe that "Freestyle" is what it should be called. I do appreciate that this _may_ cause some confusion in regard to the existing (defunct? Oh please tell me it's defunct! :-) freestyle format.

So what about a "Something" Freestyle?

"New Freestyle"
"Open Freestyle"
"Euro Freestyle"
"Not the Silly Freestyle"
"Somelet/Speedy/Wardley/etc Freestyle"
"Extreme Freestyle"
"Trick Freestyle"
"Radical Freestyle"
"One, Two, Freestyle" <groan>
"It's a Freestyle Knockout" <major groan!>

There are hundreds more silly suggestions out there, I'm sure.

For the moment, it's still just "UK Freestyle Competition" (with apologies for changing the "Subject: " line).

A 

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Andy Wardley  <abw@kfs.org>     Signature regenerating.  Please remain seated.
      <abw@cre.canon.co.uk>     For a good time: http://www.kfs.org/~abw/