Different Tournaments

I've been kicking around the idea of a blind draw tournament, you dont know which game you are playing until you begin. Throw short rack banks, one pocket, straight pool, 9ball, last pocket or bank 8-ball, or others into a hat. Draw a game out after the brackets are done and everyone is ready to play. Make sure you have rules available for the various games you will be playing as well as some basic strategies. Obviously you could mess with the length of the races depending on time constraints. Dont play the same game more than once month to maximize variety.
Another format I like is the short rack 8ball. Take 4 stripes and 4 solids, 8ball in the middle racked like 9-ball using whatever local 8ball rules you want. Or you could make your players run short-rack 8ball in rotation like 9-ball.
Break pots are big around here to. have players throw a few dollars a piece into a pot, draw a few names everyweek, whoever breaks the money ball gets the cash, pots rollover from week to week, so they can get preatty big, i've seen quite a few $1000 and up break pots. Or you could cap it at a certain amount and start a 2nd pot. Once the 1st is won, then the 2nd pot becomes the main pot. Pick a few players, 2-3, and give them 1-2 chances at it each. You would be surprised how hard it is to win.

Hard Times

Tournments have hit hard times in my area. When I was playing in the 80's and 90's local tournments were paying out 150 first place 60 second and 20 dollars for third. This was singles 8 ball/ best of 3. It got where some guys was winning to regular so they added the rule "you win / sit out 2 weeks". It really worked well . It seems now that tournments are having a hard time paying out 100 bucks. Not sure what happen. I noticed that games have when up in price/ from 50 cents to a dollar . Intry fee is the same / looks like more players are playing in each tournment. It just seems like there is no money for the payout.

Frozn,

Right now I would ride the IPT wagon, and play 8ball tournys. You could even put them on 9fts and use IPT rules. In my area we usta have a luck of the draw doubles 8ball tourny. And it was very popular till several weeks in a row, two top players would get pair'd up. Not the same two guys, but it might as well have been.

But if you have a good variety of players you can do 1hole, 14.1, banks, straight 8ball, 10ball, etc.

I'mdoingit--- in my area its kinda the same, its tough to get guys to show up for a simple 5$ tourny because, the pool hall tends to just let anyone play, so it scares away all the little fishes. When the 5$ tourny is made for the lil fishes. But the pool hall owner doesnt have the spine to tell them they cant play.