Hello, I am a cuber representing from the Southwest {Arizona, New Mexico}. I would like to make a recommendation for the orginization of a tournament in our area(Preferably Arizona). I have noticed that this area has been receiving a lack of tournaments. As long as I have been cubing, I have always wanted to go to a tournament. I can not go out of state. What I am asking is that the WCA is to consider making Arizona and New Mexico official "cubing" states. If this is not immediately possible, I would like to receive info on how the state of Arizona can hold an official tournament. Thanks,

Hi squarefreak, The way competitions are run is a bit different from what you seem to think - rather than choosing "cubing states" and running tournaments in them, tournaments are actually run by a relatively small group of organizers. The reason why California (for example) has so many competitions is because there are so many people in the area who are willing to run them. So the only way to make another tournament in your area, if there haven't been many before, would be to find someone who is willing and able to set it up, and then have the WCA accept it. Unless you know someone nearby who has competition experience and wants to be able to run a competition, you'll have to do it yourself or with a group of friends. Since you haven't been to a competition, the best route in my opinion would be to fly a WCA delegate with competition experience to your area. Someone in California would be best, as it's nearby and there are a large number of delegates there, so you'd have a good chance to find one who can fly out at the time when you want to hold your competition. If you do this I strongly suggest that you coordinate almost everything about the competition with them (by e-mail, probably), since their experience will be a lot of help in things like scheduling and getting the competition accepted. You'll also have to find a room to hold the competition - it should seat at least 100 people and have good lighting, and ideally a stage or something similar - which you will need to have use of during the competition day. You can help cover the costs of the room and flying a delegate/organizer out by charging competitors a small fee to enter (typically something like $5-$10 plus $1-$2 extra per event). This might sound like a lot of work, but since you are required to announce the competition at least a month before it happens, you will have plenty of time to set it all up. Good luck!

If you can't go out of state, why are you suggesting New Mexico? I would strongly look at going to the San Diego competition so you can see what they are like. Yes, it's out of state, but try to figure out a way. The experience is going to give you a much clearer picture of what you need than trying to read anything. You can also look at the competition guide at http://www.cubingusa.com/cguide.php Also, it looks like there's 3 people signed up on CubingUSA.com in the Phoenix area. Perhaps you want to contact them to see if they're also interested.

Good news: http://arizonaspeedcubing.com/arizona-open-2011/