Channing (Practical Paracord) announced his sling tournament this year.  May 3 - 5.  Here's his video announcement: https://youtu.be/CP_a8bQi7Ag.

I had a video call with Channing and asked him a bunch of questions.  Here's some more information on the tournament.

Location: Baldwin, LA (Baldwin Park)
Hotel: Best Western Forest Inn, Franklin
Food: There are some special meals lined up, but the Forest Restaurant is right next to the hotel and will provide most of the breakfast and dinner buffets.

Scheduled Games:
[list bull-blackball]

Sling Golf

Distance competition with tennis balls (no limit on sling length)

Speed slinging round

13 meters Balearic with tennis balls

20 meters Balearic with baseballs

Tentative Schedule:
Friday (May 3) - Practice day starting around 10:00 AM
Subway or pizza for lunch
Back to hotel at 7:00

Saturday (May 4) - Buffet breakfast at Forest
Around 9:00 or 10:00 - Go to the park for competition
1st game - Sling Golf
2nd game - Distance slinging
3rd game - Speed slinging
4th game - 20 meters
For lunch (around noon or 1:00) will be a crayfish boil
Get back to the hotel around 7:00

Sunday (May 5) - Go to Franklin Recreation Center in the morning for breakfast
13 meter competition at the recreation center
Winners announced and prizes handed out after
Mexican food (Cinco de Mayo!) for lunch
All done and people can leave when they want

Other Information:
Entry fee - There will be a $5 buy in for each game.  To compete in everything will be $25.  *Note: Channing is still considering this. It's not certain.
Prizes - The top three overall winners will get a cash prize.  There will also be trophies for each of the games.
Sling Exchange - There will be a sling exchange between competitors.  Bring a sling if you want to participate.
Event T-shirt - There will be T-shirts for the event.  It wasn't decided but they will likely be around $25.
Transportation - You will need to get to the hotel or park on Friday.  Channing hopes to have enough vehicles to drive everyone around to the locations.  We'll have a better idea about this as the date gets closer and it's known how many people will be there.

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https://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?action=downloadfile;file=Down_South_Slinging_Competition.pdf (586 KB | 55 )

I'm going to try to make it.

Awesome!

I'm waiting to hear back from by boss at work.  I will potentially be at a conference for work right around the same time, which will cause all kinds of scheduling considerations.  I'm waiting for confirmation from him and then I'll see if I can make it happen.  I asked if he could let me know in the next week or so.

It's right next door.  It would be amazing to see some of the slinging.org Texas crew make an appearance.  I know we have quite a few of them.  ;)

Get enough of you guys there and I might have to rack up some debt

I had a video chat with Channing and got a lot more info about the competition, including the new name.  The first post has been updated with everything.

Joe, I also had a document typed up with a map on it I can upload or send to you to upload to the first post.

Thanks IG!  The PDF has been attached to the first post.

In case anyone wants a copy, a PDF has been attached to the first post in this topic.  It has the location and itinerary.  There are some small differences between this and what Channing told me, but for the most part it's the same.  This is the first year for this event, so a little bit of 'figure it out as we go' is to be expected.  We'll post any updates from Channing here.

Tickets booked! I'm going down with my wife and Mother-in-law a few days early to go sightsee in New Orleans. Should be a good time!

Flight booked.  I'll be there!

This would be so fun to go to.

Texas is pretty close to Louisiana... just sayin'.

IronGoober wrote on Mar 21^st, 2024 at 11:23pm:

Texas is pretty close to Louisiana... just sayin'.

This is true and seeing as how it's unlikely I'll ever make it to Ibizia...

We need to get as many people to go as possible. I wonder if Jaegoor would be interested?

Morphy wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2024 at 7:11am:

I wonder if Jaegoor would be interested?

How epic would it be to see a Jaegoor vs. Channing showdown!  :D

That would be! See its comments like this that keep me coming back. The thought of these two equally skilled and accomplished slingers facing off in a show down in my favorite hobby is something I find incredibly exciting. I so wish it could happen. Channing has taught so many people at this point it would be great to see an American master vs a very worthy German challenger.

Well, we've reached that time.  I'm leaving for the airport in just over half an hour.  We'll see what Channing has been able to put together.  Hopefully IronGoober and me will have some stories to post after this weekend.  And certainly some pics.  I think he's already down there in Louisiana.

Cheers everyone!

Add me to that list, just arrived driving from Missouri.

Awesome!  Are you at the Best Western?  I just checked in a bit ago.

Yeah, staying at the best western. I assume we are meeting at the restaurant?

I will say that the event was a success! Channing did an awesome job organizing a great event. Variety, good food, good people and we were able to finish all of the events.

There were 8 people that traveled pretty far to make it to the event, and 5 people that participated that aren't on the forum or really any of the online communities. So, it makes me think there are a lot of people out there that sling but don't engage with this forum. I found this interesting and exciting because that means if we get them to engage more, we can really grow this great sport/activity for more people to share!  I'm hoping to put an event like this on in CA at some point, probably next year. It'll be hard to top though!

Gentlemen who were there, it was fun to sling with you all!

I didn't get much footage, but I did get some of the speed rounds. My batteries don't last very long in my camera :(

Speed Round:
https://youtu.be/nU1TjhbYDSQ

Distance Competition:
https://youtu.be/dTftjgNW7pc

Sling Golf:
https://youtu.be/8Slx2ln0og4

Yeah, I'll add a +1 to everything IG said.  I'm quite surprised how well everything went.  I told Channing at the end that if someone asked me to quickly name something that didn't go right or should have been done differently, I would have no response.  Even thinking about it for a little while, nothing comes to mind.  The games were fun, the food was amazing, and nothing felt rushed.  There was always time to get in some practice throws or chat with the other folks there.
My only issue is that my slinging was terrible. ;D
It was just a big slinging party with a bunch of people having a great time!  I encourage anyone who can make it to definitely try to next year!

Below I will add a post with the scores for each game.  I was going to retype everything but decided to just post images of the scoresheets.  So if something is confusing, just ask what's going on.

Balearic 13m and 20m scores.  And the last image is the women and children (which is 10 meters).

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Speed round scores.

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Sling Golf.  The women and children Distance is also on this one.

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And finally the Distance round.  This was done with tennis balls.  Distances are in meters.

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One more picture.  Here's a shot of the trophies before they were handed out.  You can see the individual winners in the sheets above.  But the overall top 3 were:

1st: IronGoober (Who was freakin' awesome through the whole tournament!)
2nd: Jamie (Who is a new member that was just signed up during the comp, username SoySauceAOTGDF. And is also a fantastic slinger!)
3rd: Channing (His running around to manage the event was not a distraction. :))

And just one more thing to mention, Jamie and Channing were actually tied for 2nd place overall.  Jamie won it in a shootout on the last day.

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The event was great, meeting so many other slingers just makes me want to introduce some more people locally to it. Slinging by yourself is fun, slinging with others is even better! I filmed most of the distance comp, sorry Joe, but I only got one of your throws. I think I hit pause instead of record before you started. I also cut a few miss-releases and only used measured throws.

Distance Comp
https://youtu.be/y5QeA9lvl_0

Ha!  No problem at all man.  You, Jamie, and IG are really the ones people should see.  I certainly don't get the highest speeds, and distance slinging isn't something I practice.  I'll try to change that for next year!  :)

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When we were doing some distance practice on Friday, Hunter was absolutely killing it!  He had a couple that were out around the 85 meter mark.  He just didn't quite get that perfect throw on competition day.  It was still awesome to see him sling!

Yeah, his figure 8 was only at like 15 degree launch angle and was making it out to the same distance mine were...it was awesome.

Props to channing for holding the event and congratulations to goober for taking USA Gold!!