Only 3 age groups really require two weeks of qualifying. 6, 8, and 10. There might be a few 12's but the majority could be handled with a district event.

This is a contraction idea and from a business perspective it is a recipe for failure, just like the existing format. We have reached capacity and we need to think "outside of the box" to create ideas that will allow us to GROW. It is pretty basic, if you are not growing your organization is dying. We are growing from a card purchasing view point but how long can we count on only delivering a product to less than 50% of our card buyers? Many people agree that we have reached the point that to grow we have to split our state tournament. Many also agree that having the state tournament earlier for the younger kids would achieve growth in participation which would then require subs, dist, and state for 6, 8, 10 for one state tournament (preferably happening the weekend before HS state) and then eventually the same for 12, 14, Cadets, and Juniors. (No KSHSAA state placers allowed to compete in 14U, all HS eligible wrestlers have the choice of entering as a Cadet or Junior.) Remote weigh ins would be instituted and last weekend would have been the last weekend for a Folkstyle event.

This opens up the opportunity to move the state tournaments to venues around the state which would be more economically just to our membership as well as not allow a city's hotels to hold us hostage.

I think this idea will boost our participation to 70% of the membership. I cannot be sure until we do it but I can be sure that we will not boost attendance at the state qualifying series until we make some changes to the current process.