Need ping pong tournament tips

July 18, 2008 1:58 PM

Where can I rent ping pong tables in New Jersey? Any other tips for running a ping pong tournament? More questions inside...

I need to organize a ping pong tournament for my local community. Any idea where I can rent ping pong tables around North Jersey? I'm not finding much on Google. Is there something specific I should be searching for? Also we're going to be having people of all ages in it, probably from 12-70. Any suggestions for splitting people up? Or should we just make brackets and have a final winner?

posted by exhilaration to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (2 answers total)

Best answer: I'm assuming that you don't know the skill level of everyone, or anyone for that matter. Breaking them up into groups based on age won't really do anything. I mean, who do you expect to be better?

If you're going to split based on groups, have everyone rank their skill level from 1-10 (I'd prefer 12 because it makes adjusting for the inevitable unequal distribution of rankings easier, but 10 is more conventional). Then make equal/roughly equal groups based on everyone's self rating.

If by some miracle I won my group (I'm not very good at all) I would want to try to be the overall winner.

Is there going to be a prize? And if so, are people paying to play? And if so, is this something that will happen on at least a semi-regular basis? Because ping pong tables are easy to mess up, and if you're going to be playing regularly then it would probably be a good investment just to buy your own table(s).
posted by theichibun at 2:15 PM on July 18, 2008

Response by poster: Thanks man, I forwarded your response to the rest of the organizers. We're not having much luck even finding a place that'll rent us tables, so we're exploring different options (maybe borrowing them from a bunch of people?).
posted by exhilaration at 4:41 PM on July 19, 2008