League Policies
Equipment and Set Up
No equipment will be provided by Tournament Administration. Only a single device to display the slides, external speakers, and wireless presenter remote are allowed; external monitors, projectors, screens, TVs, etc. are not permitted. Additional display screens are not permitted. No equipment may be placed on the judges’ table; it should be held or placed on the provided equipment table. That table may not be relocated.
Accessibility to outlets are not guaranteed at a tournament, so careful planning to have a charged laptop is recommended for in-person tournaments. The device must connect to Wi-Fi for both in-person and online tournaments. For online tournaments, plugging directly into your router will offer the highest quality connection.
Competitors must set up, present, and break down within their designated 15-minute time slot. Special accommodations will not be made for a speaker’s equipment failure. Assistance with a competitor’s setup or equipment is not permitted once the speaker has entered the competition room.
Round Protocols
Prior to the start of the speech, speakers are permitted and encouraged to advance through two to three slides and confirm with their judges that their slides are advancing. This also gives an opportunity to test the responsiveness of the clicker. Test slides may be slides from the presentation or plain-colored test slides that have numbers only.
Students may also request that the judges turn off their sound on their laptops before the speech begins.
For both in-person and online competition, speakers have the option of either using screen sharing within the NCFCA competition platform and/or using their own device to display their presentation. In online tournaments, both the speaker and the digital presentation must be visible throughout the speech. While screen sharing, the speaker and presentation will be displayed side by side in equal-sized boxes with the speaker on the left when facing the screen and the presentation on the right.
More Tips
- We advise downloading the whole presentation and saving it onto your computer rather than accessing it from cloud storage, even if there is an option for offline availability. This would also require you to use downloaded software (ie: PowerPoint or Apple Creator). It will avoid most lag due to a slow WiFi connection.
- Please note that it may take up to 15 seconds for your video display to load to the room after you share the screen. This may seem much longer; please wait for it to populate! You will see the screen on the attendee list before the video appears.
Here are some useful tips we’ve heard regarding using a clicker:
- While it may seem more professional to use a remote clicker, bluetooth is less reliable than plugging into the USB port in your laptop. We recommend using a USB-connected clicker.
- Expect slide transitions to lag. It’s okay to quickly glance at the slides on your laptop to keep track of that.
- If your clicker seems unresponsive, consider replacing your batteries.