UPDATE: We're FULL! Registration is closed as of 3 pm Saturday June 26. Team assignments will be posted by this evening, and all registered players will get an email letting them know what team they're on, team color, and other details. 

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 June 27, 2021 on Venice/SM beach, 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 4x4 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 have had in the past. 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.

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…and, we have a favor to ask. 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!