The document proposes a redesign of the gloving competition system to expand nationally. It identifies key issues with the current system like distance to travel and proposes solutions. A Competition Packet Program would provide materials and guidelines for local competitions organized by regional leaders. Competitions would be tracked online and divided into tiers (CPP-A and CPP-B) with increasing support from EmazingLights. Judging would be improved through a two-tier certification process and standardized scorecards to increase consistency. The goal is to foster participation, growth and connections across the gloving community through accessible local competitions coordinated under a national framework.

1. Running head: Comp Redesign – May i
Competition Redesign:
An analysis, evaluation, and redesign of Gloving Competition Standards
Mariah May
To fulfill the requirements of Competitions Manager
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
B.S. Human Factors Psychology Engineering
December 18, 2015

2. COMP REDESIGN – MAY ii
Contents
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 3
Current System Description & Overview ....................................................................................... 4
Competition Purpose................................................................................................................... 4
Current BOSS (Battle of Supreme Swag)................................................................................... 4
Methods & Analyses....................................................................................................................... 5
Alternative Dance/Performance Competitions............................................................................ 5
Custom Questionnaire................................................................................................................. 6
Nationwide Gloving/Lightshow Competition System................................................................ 6
Managing Nationwide................................................................................................................. 6
Judging ...................................................................................................................................... 10

3. COMP REDESIGN – MAY 3
Abstract
The success of EmazingLights and ultimately gloving rests in the prosperity of lightshow
competitions. A low-cost, efficient management system for a national gloving league will
have to rely on local leaders and teams. A national league will be organized by team
registration and built by region, similar to the NFL. A Competition Packet Program, or
CPP, provides competition supplies based on level and attendees while imparting
essential guidelines and marketing tools for a successful tournament. Similar to a full
BOSS, a CPP-B program is a more sponsored and overseen event compared to CPP-A.
Tracking will be completed by competent and trusted leaders online, fostering a
competitive spirit for gloving forums. Judge certification will be divided into two tiers to
identify the head judges or those to be trusted to mentor future judges. Tournament
software bracketing and tracking may be accomplished mostly through Challonge.com. A
gloving convention, or GloveCon, that exhibited workshops, and trade shows with team
meet-and-greats, and competitions will create a keynote to revolve the rest of the
tournament season around.
“I had my first competition. I feel like I didn’t bring enough concepts, found myself
panicking… Nevertheless, the whole experience was fun and I found myself learning
valuable experiences and lessons for life.” – Gerald Lemur on SGC ~ 12/15/15
“I was nervous about [the competition] but after that I didn’t care. I realized it doesn’t
matter who wins; the part that matters is you’re building relationships and watching
other people grow. I’m addicted to competitions now.” – Sherman Portillo ~ 12/14/15

4. COMP REDESIGN – MAY 4
Current System Description & Overview
Competition Purpose
“Competition, passion, enjoyment. It’s the entirety of the [gloving] scene honestly”
replies Jacek Grzybek when asked what keeps him motivated to glove. Competitions can be
utilized for growth not only fiscally but garnering awareness of the art. Participation in
competition can provide the means to gauge one’s progress in relation to other glovers of similar
age in the field of interest, as well as give a path of growth and goals of achievement for which
to strive for the community. There are always five goals to any successful competition:
participation, sportsmanship, learning, networking, and enjoyment. How does one build relations
with other companies? Would participants want to compete again?
Current BOSS (Battle of Supreme Swag)
By my research, last year EmazingLights hosted six BOSS’s, February through August in
SoCal, Dallas, and Miami followed by IGC in October. Each BOSS is held at a location either
donated or rented inexpensively. Judges are selected from volunteers then trained prior to
competition. Judges range in experience, background, and training. A disk jockey (DJ) is either a
volunteer or reimbursed using competitor entry fees. Interest and networking for BOSS is
promoted via Facebook, online advertisements, and word of mouth. Now, the aim is 50
competitions across the nation’s major gloving scenes. A Pareto analysis can reveal the relevant
major issues with the current BOSS system. “80% of your trouble comes from 20% of your
problems,” the Pareto analysis determines the problems that need the most attention. A
combination of surveying and research of competitions online complaints in various Facebook
groups and YouTube video comments revealed four problems and their relative frequencies. The

5. COMP REDESIGN – MAY 5
“other” category included statements such as “Gloving isn’t a sport” or company biases. Table 1
identifies the most frequented excuses to not compete or attend a BOSS event.
Reasons to not compete/attend Sum Freq.
Distance to travel 15 34%
Fairness/equal judging 12 27%
No “real” incentive to compete 5 11%
Cost 2 5%
Other 10 23%
Total: 44 100
Methods & Analyses
Alternative Dance/Performance Competitions
An Analysis of Similar Systems, or AoSS, is an examination of existing system’s traits of
interest. The purpose is to discover how others have addressed similar problems identified thus
far in past competitions. Open Call, one of the countries lead dance competitions, aims to create
a supportive, inspirational, and educational dance environment. Working personally as a judge
and a manager, their faults, along with any others, can be our success. One of their main
successes is how they conduct judging and scorecard assembly. The judge panel is first chosen
similar to a jury, random from a volunteer pool with varying experiences but all willing to give
feedback. For the elite competitions, judges are invited based on prestige and accomplishment.
The scorecard, as with most alternate dance scoring, is simply divided into three categories each
with three divisions: creativity, appearance, execution.
Table 1: Pareto analysis results

6. COMP REDESIGN – MAY 6
Custom Questionnaire
A short survey will be constructed to identify areas with heaviest impact and what
glovers would like to see in a competition. Victor De La Cruz posed a question to Glover’s
Lounge on December 14, 2015 asking which was the best state to trade shows/compete against
glovers. The most popular responses yielded California, Colorado, Florida, New York, Hawaii,
Texas, Midwest, Washington, Arizona, and the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virgina).
Nationwide Gloving/Lightshow Competition System
History lessons from the formation of National Football League (NFL) reveal they
weren’t the first attempt; however their success is attributed to a team-backed system. The first
NFL founded in 1920 with ten teams from four regions. Teams play a vital role in driving the
local and national scene, especially in regards to gloving. To be at the forefront of LED
competitive performance art, a league that includes gloving, orbiting, hooping, and poi should be
founded. An early broad foundation will allow for further expansion and marketing in the future.
The beginning of an International Lightshow League (or some other variation) will have
to start with consolidation of teams and their registration into an online database. From there,
competition programs will communicate and organize via teams and regional leaders. The
psychology of competition suggests that situational factors affect social comparison and
competitive attitudes. Therefore, a new glover has a more favorable chance of competing if
affiliated with a local team, leading to increased retention in gloving.
Managing Nationwide
Community leaders and company sponsors will be the success of competitions; they have
connections and ideas specific for their region that would otherwise lead to failure if lead by
someone not involved personally. Therefore, the only foreseeable success of a national lightshow

7. COMP REDESIGN – MAY 7
league-and the world of gloving- rests not only in a divine management system, but also the
willingness of leaders across the world to inspire and spread ideas through competition. From
personal experience and data collection, there is a significant area of interest for gloving’s
leaders to hold competitions. The cities with the newest interest in gloving see competition as
their savior in a world difficult to share ideas, therefore they will hold various tournaments with
or without assistance. However, without an organization to step up to manage or a body of
representatives to set up official guidelines, any attempt at national tournament organization will
be unsustainable and costly.
Tracking-There are two possible ways that may be successful at tracking the statistics
from all the competitions. The first, creating a “Competitions” section on the EmazingLights
website to post live streams, an open chat, forum, results, list of meetings. Even divide or
organize by region so new glovers can easily connect with those nearby. Allow community
leaders to post events or meet ups on a calendar and compare season statistics with other regions.
Signups and ticket purchases can be easily linked and provide a compiled area for pre-
registration. The second foreseeable option is running entirely from Facebook and creating a
group devoted purely to competitions. Both of these options should allow competition
participants to post videos and questions, thus boosting gloving prevalence and competing
interest.
Managing - The following is a proposed solution to managing a low cost, national
gloving tournament series. The Competition Packet Program (CPP) is a comprehensive
compilation of essential gloving tournament material and instructions. Still maintaining the
current system of BOSS and mini-BOSS, there will be two levels of packet and sponsorship
available, CPP-A (mini-BOSS style) and CPP-B(full-BOSS style). Tier level is experience and

8. COMP REDESIGN – MAY 8
attendance-dependent and are assigned post-application. For example, the West Covina location
in SoCal will receive more CPP-Bbecause there are more glovers per capita and more
experienced leaders to run the competition. A CPP bundle may be attained through application
via Emazinglights website. Acceptance will be based on previous leadership, commitment level
shown in application effort, community involvement, and location. This CPP proposes a resource
efficient program that enables leaders to promote, entice, and manage competitions while
creating an initiative for regional leaders and locale recognition. Each CPP applicant may apply
for further assistance in material purchase that contains 2 rolls of painters tape, scorecard copies,
pens, and nametags to ease startup costs.
A probationary CPP-A will include:
 Letter of expected commitment (time, cost, attendance, registration, feedback)
 Tentative timeline and tournament schedule
 Scorecard to make copies
 Instructions to Head Judge, Judge, DJ, Registration/Bracketing, MC
 Promotion tips
 Song Folder - 100 MP3 90-second clip songs folder
 Tournament Software assistance
 Registration outline
 Prizes/incentives
 16/32 How To Run
 Format selection (swiss, single elim., round robin)
 Materials list
A possible CPP-B will include:
 CPP-A full packet
 Promotion Materials
 Guideline for Emazinglights prize sponsor
o Application for desired prizes (optional)
 Judge Shirts
 Prize selection (give list of things to choose from similar to arcade)
 *only 32+-competitor tournaments allowed for this level

9. COMP REDESIGN – MAY 9
The primary difference of a CPP-A to B competition is level of involvement by Emazinglights.
Higher level of prizes, assistance in location and DJ booking, and greater incentives are among
some of the direct involvement by Emazinglights. For instance, a CPP-B may be allowed to have
the top 8 spots receive priority IGC registration (or if IGC was reserved for only top 8 results of
CPP-Bs and top seeds from CPP-As). A one-time coupon with expiration for 20% code for all
attendees of a CPP BOSS is another avenue to directly increase market sales while tracking
event success.
The most accurate and highest reviewed online tournament tracking software by research
is Challonge.com. With full customization and sharing options, alternative programs do not meet
our needs.
The following proposal is used to track and account the league and managers progress.
The purpose of the root-cause analysis was to identify the sources of the problem to reach a
solution. A fishbone or process diagram was created to graphically represent the roots to the
connection error [Figure 2]. This analysis will especially be helpful for other recommendations
apart from organizational and scorecard redesign.
Equipment
•Judge supplies
•DJ prepped &
equipped
•Prizes
Process
•Booking
•Tournament
format
•Registration
People
•Judge training
•Gather
interest
Environment
•Sportmanship
•Music
•Location
Figure 2: root-cause analysis

10. COMP REDESIGN – MAY 10
Judging
Any performance art competition is highly subjective, based on the judges own
background, experience, culture and proficiency, not to mention personal biases and allegiances.
Even at the highest levels of the most elite international dance competitions, political agendas
and personal preferences still get in the way. Putting too much weight on these decisions is not
always helpful, nor an accurate picture of where a student stands in relation to their peers.
Placing too much emphasis on the importance of a trophy (many competitions award prizes to all
participants, regardless of actual accomplishment) does nothing for a competitor’s sense of self-
image. Allowing students a false sense of accomplishment does not allow them to create true
and real self-esteem…only diligent hard work over time to accomplish a difficult goal not
previously achievable, allows young adults to develop a sense of self-worth.
In that regard, judges are the most essential facet in a successful competition. A reliable,
consistent, and constructive judge is a rarity but can be fostered. Revamping judge certification
should involve two tiers. Tier-I is competent and trustworthy with some experience and training;
Tier-II would also be considered a head judge or IGC judge – extremely knowledgeable,
experienced, trusted - the elite judges. Tier-II’s are also certified to mentor Tier-I judges. A video
certification may be easily assembled for cross-country volunteers, also creating a check-and-
balances system. First, an artist will apply for application to judge as Tier-I or II. Then for
instruction, a video file with a split screen of a lightshow and scorecard being filled out step-by-
step. Finally, the applicant will have to be evaluated for accuracy. For instance, a pre-recorded
lightshow will be sent with an interactive scorecard. The judge applicant must score within 10%
error of the answer key.

11. COMP REDESIGN – MAY 11
Scorecard accuracy testing may be accomplished using several of the systems usability
scales available by Human Factors experts. One of the simplest questionnaires for users to
complete and researchers to interpret is the Modified System Usability Scale (SUS). Using a
Likert scale, we gauge how easy a new judge uses the scorecard while still maintaining artistic
accuracy. An example SUS figure shown below [Figure 3]
Conclusion
A complete upheaval of the prior competition system is not completely necessary. Mini-
BOSS, BOSS, and IGC have laid an excellent foundation for a management system to rely on.
To increase retention and awareness for gloving, competitions must succeed at a national level
while maintaining a reputable image.