SpeechWire Tournament Services - Forensics Tournament Software

You are invited to enter your students in the 2025 WFCA tournament at Vel Phillips Memorial High School in Madison on April 5th, 2025.

Eligibility - All WFCA member schools in who have submitted their membership forms AND have paid their dues are eligible to compete and can earn team awards and individual category awards. Schools who are not members of the WFCA may compete as guest schools, which are ineligible for team awards, but can earn individual category awards. Guests schools may compete at the WFCA state tournament one time without having paid WFCA dues. Any guests schools who wish to participate in the WFCA state tournament in future years will need to pay dues in those future years.

Please also note - All competitors on a school’s team must be officially enrolled students at your school. If you have any students from outside of the school that have competed with your team during the season, they cannot be entered as part of your team’s roster. They can, however, compete as an independent entry by paying for an affiliate membership. Please contact WFCA treasurer Mike Wagner regarding any students who will need to register as affiliate members of the WFCA.

Location - This year’s tournament will be hosted by the Madison Metropolitan School District, specifically at Vel Phillips Memorial High School and Ezekiel Gillespie Middle School Middle School. Specific details about location information will be uploaded to the Speechwire home page of the 2025 WFCA State Tournament, under “additional information pages.”

Entries – Each school will be allowed 25 entries with no more than four entries in any category. Students are not permitted to double enter categories. Only one team per school will be allowed in the tournament. Any bona fide pupil in good standing and in regular attendance in the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade of the member school shall be eligible to compete.

Student Congress - The WFCA student congress competition will take place on Friday, April 4th. Registration for student congress will be through the tabroom.com website. Any questions regarding student congress should be addressed to Tim Scheffler (timscheff@aol.com)

Categories – All WFCA sanctioned categories and category rules will be used. Rules can be found at the WFCA website (www.wfcaforensics.org).

Format – The State Tournament shall consist of three preliminary rounds, a semi-final round, and a final round for each category. Round one for all events will be at 9:00 am, round two at 10:15 am and round three will be at 11:30 am. Semifinal and final rounds will take place in the afternoon.

Fees – An entry fee of $10 per individual entry, $15 per group entry, and $10 per congress contestant shall be charged. A fee of $15 will be charged for any changes occurring after the close of registration at 5:00 on Thursday, April 3rd.

Schools who have not paid state tournament entry fees by the end of May will be assessed a $75 processing fee. If the fees are not paid by the end of June, an additional fee of $75 will be assessed.

Judges – All schools participating must provide 1 judge for every 5 entries (or fraction thereof).

Judging will done electronically through Speechwire. All judges must have a linked Speechwire account prior to the start of the tournament.

If a school is unable to provide its full quota of judges, there will be a fee of $35 for each uncovered entry on the team

Food – Pizza will be available to purchase for lunch for both students and judges. Schools will have the option to pre-pay for meal vouchers for their students. ~~Lunch vouchers will be $8 each~~ and will be included with registration materials that coaches pick up at the start of the tournament. Lunch may also be purchased with cash. There will also be some morning refreshments provided for the judges in the judges’ lounge.

As our lunch plans have come together, we have reduced lunch voucher prices to $6. Teams will receive 6 $1 lunch tickets for each meal purchased through Speechwire.

All lunches must be purchased with these tickets, but it in not a requirement to pre-purchase these lunch vouchers. Students can buy lunch tickets at registration on the morning of April 5th, and there will be a separate table selling extra tickets off to the side of the lunch area.

Schools will receive $6 of lunch tickets for free for each of their team's registered judges.

Our lunch prices will be a slice of pizza for $2, and everything else is $1: can of soda, bottle of water, bag of chips, fruit, etc.

Awards – Awards will be presented to all of the finalists, and semi-finalists. Sweepstakes trophies will be presented to the top six Division I, II and III schools based on State of Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) school enrollment for that school year.

Deadlines – Registration is open now on Speechwire.
Tuesday, April 1st: (5:00 pm) Initial ntries due. Schools are responsible for all entry fees and judge obligations at this point regardless of any drops that come in between this point and the start of the tournament.

Thursday, April 3rd: (5:00 pm) Coaches will no longer be able to make drops or name changes. (From this point on, if there are any details that need to be changed, they will need to be directly emailed to the tournament director (bkroll@sasd.net)).

Confirmation – A confirmation communication will be sent out to all registered teams on Wednesday evening, April 2nd. That confirmation will contain additional information including: Saturday check-in details, specific logistics of student drop-off, details of which categories will be in which building, Maps to distribute to students and judges, Impromptu round themes, Extemp round topics, as well as student codes and more information. Please watch for that communication and please share it with your students.

Additional Information – Please note that additional information will be added on the home page of the WFCA State Tournament on Speechwire – lodging options, nearby places to dine with your team, and more. If you do not see or find the information that you need or want, please feel free to contact me directly – bkroll@sasd.net or text to 414-688-2817.

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