UPDATE: As of 3 pm Saturday, June 26, registration is closed. Registered players will receive an email with information on their team assignment (and what color shirt to bring) by 10 pm. Players should plan to arrive on Sunday by 9:15 am to allow them to check-in and get the required wristband, and to meet with their team to decide on mixed and open captains, and how they will split up players for the open and mixed games. First game starts at 10 am. There will be three rounds of pool play, followed by a one game championship or consolation game, after which pizza will be served (around 3:15 pm). Parking is available in the large lot on the beach just south of Ocean Park Blvd.

UPDATE: As of midnight June 24 (Thurs) the free registration period is closed, and late registration is open. There is a $10 fee for late registration. Late registration will close at 3 pm Saturday, June 26.

The word on the street is that people are jonesing to play some beach ultimate….Well, we’re here to help! LA Throwback is delighted to announce a Welcome Back! Free Beach Hat tourney on Sunday June 27, from 10 am to about 3-4 pm.

Registration is free until Thurs. June 24. You can register here, but please do not register until/unless you’re fairly sure you will come (i.e. don’t register “just in case” you decide to come).

To make sure that women are able to play in gender balanced games no matter the ratio of men to women at the event, we’ll be playing 4×4 using a format of our own invention called megateam format, which we have honed at prior Free Beach Hats where it worked pretty well. In megateam format, each mega-team consists of two squads, a mixed squad and an open squad. When two opponents play, they compete in two games on two adjacent fields simultaneously, a mixed game and an open game.

Before each round, the team picks who plays on the mixed squad and who plays on the open squad in that round. This format allows everyone who wants to play mixed to have a chance to do so and everyone who wants to play open to do so, while maintaining appropriate gender balance in the mixed game and getting everyone enough playing time. No playing in both games at once, however. In each round you play in either the mixed game or the open game. Your team’s record is determined by what happens in BOTH games in each round. In mixed games there is a required 2/2 gender balance. In open games there is no mandated gender balance (so for example you could have 3/1 on one team and 4/0 on the other). For the final round, the mixed and open teams combine back into a single megateam, and we play a mixed 5×5 game with a genzone. We are planning for each team to play 3 games to 13 and one game to 15 (last game of the day, the playoffs!).

As usual, we’ll have lined fields, scoreboards, water and ice. There will also be a massage table where you can work your friends’ kinks out for them, some pizza or other food after the finals (that we will serve to you to avoid crowding), and prizes for the winners, all on us (LA Throwback).

However, because we’re still coming out of a pandemic, we will forgo the orange juice press and oranges that we typically have at Free Beach Hats. Also, we will *NOT* have cups for water, even though we will have 5-gallon jugs of water out there. We ask that you bring your own container for water.

Also, we’re very happy to announce that our juice sponsor, Suja Organic, will be providing their great Suja Organic Juices for all players.

With respect to health and safety, we are asking that you EITHER provide us with evidence of vaccination OR wear a mask. All those providing evidence of vaccination will receive a wristband when they check in. In order to play, you will need to be wearing a wristband, or wearing a mask. You can upload a picture of your registration card when you register, or you can bring a picture of it with you and show it when you check in.

Again, registration is free if you sign up here by Thurs June. 24.  If you don’t register by then, it’ll be $10, with the money going toward the pizza (or other food) we’ll be serving late in the day. If you pre-register and then can’t make it, please let us know. Please do not register unless you are serious about coming and playing. We know it’s free up until the Thursday before the tourney, but please don’t use this fact just to reserve a spot you aren’t pretty sure you’ll really use. This makes planning very difficult, and leads to a lot of last minute shuffling of players. If you’re not fairly certain you’ll make it, please hold off on registering until you’re pretty sure you will. Thanks!

This will be a random draw tourney but we will distribute players based on survey responses so overall team strength is as similar as possible (this never works perfectly, but a person can dream, right?). We use a random number generator to make the selections. Players will get an email the night before telling them which team they are on and letting them know their team color.

The event will be at the same location as our prior Free Beach Hats, on the beach just south of lifeguard station 28 and the Ashland Ave. bathrooms (i.e. at “South Beach Park”) in Venice (technically Santa Monica, but most people think of it as Venice). Please be there by 9:30 am so first games can start at 10:00 am. We’ll finish up around 3-4 pm.

Look forward to seeing you out there!