The Bellevue West forensics team will host the National Individual Events Tournament of Champions on May 10-12, 2024.

“The national tournament that we’re hosting in May will probably bring in about 2,000 competitors,” forensics coach Becca Hier said.

Senior Tristan Tyson said It’s not going to be as quick and concise as the regular season tournaments. 

“The people with the best technique and best storytelling capabilities are truly the ones to be the ones to move on to the next rounds,” Tyson said.

Hier said the tournament will have four preliminary rounds. Afterward, 60 students from those rounds will compete and then the top 6 will compete. The tournament will span over three days and use the entire building. The school board approved a change to the school calendar as a result: students will not have school on May 10, and teachers will get a teacher work day.  

“It’s not possible for that many performances to happen in one day,” Hier said.

The tournament’s 2,000 competitors will be from all over the country, Hier said. In 2023, when the tournament was in Chanhassen, Minnesota, about 1800 competitors showed up. 

“The board is anticipating that this next tournament in 2024 will be larger because now we’re out of the virtual stuff that we’ve done in-person again,” Hier said.

Hier said that this tournament is the first national tournament that has been in Bellevue. She filled out the application to host the tournament at the end of 2022. 

“The reason we decided to apply is because we’ve seen a lot of national success in the last five years and we thought it was about time that people came to Bellevue and came to Nebraska to see what it is that we offer,” Hier said. “And on the national circuit, Nebraska on its own is starting to really get a name for itself and so the more that we can bring the country here to see what Nebraska speech is about, the better off we are.”