Tournament participation is down in many places. Nationals attendance has been going down for a long time (well before ZO). I'm not going to get into the argument as to why, but it is down. HOWEVER!!! What this has done is forced some of us to re-think how we run tournaments. I have only been this sport for about 9 years and have only been hosting tournaments for the past 3 years. However, I recognized that something was missing in tournaments..... FUN!!! I went to tournaments for 6 years and was bored to tears. Ski, sit/drive/judge for 4 hours, ski, sit/drive/judge for 4 hours, ski. SO.... I decided to bring some FUN into tournaments! Following the Big Dawg lead, we created the Little Dawg series. Bang! Attendance went up. This year, we added a couple Wed afternoon tournaments with night skiing. FUN!!!! We also have great food (cooked by my wife) or cookouts, offer free bottled water to everyone, sell cheap t-shirts, invite more officials (like 3 scorers), etc. Bang, we have waiting lists!!! Some of the other lakes are trying, but IMO still are missing a few things. Their attendance is down. One even canceled a tournament. It HAS to start with the LOC member's mentality. You have to do something to attract skiers. The old models are not working. I went to one tournament where they were going to pull practice till 7pm. Someone showed up on the dock at 7:05 and they were initially told it was too late. Eventually, they were allowed to ski, but what message does that send? No fun! Attitudes need to change. The tournaments that I hear are doing well are doing things like turn&burn, head2head, 6 rounds, or just doing a great job of marketing nationwide (like JD). I wanted to go to Cottonwood, thought about it for a day, lost out b/c it was full. That's cool! BRING THE FUN!!!