It has taken six months for it all to come together, but after many hours of preparation and coordination, the Veishea tournaments have hit the homestretch.

This year, nearly 40 tournaments have been scheduled, and tournament co-chairmen Brian Capesius and Jake Smith said about 600 people had signed up as of two weeks ago. With more events than ever before, one goal this year was to enhance the offering.

“We wanted to find a diverse group of tournaments that would have something for everybody,” Smith said. “We have video games and just about every sport you can think of.”

After breaking the Knockout world record last year, the record was taken over by Grace College shortly after. The goal for Capesius and Smith is to attract 1,000 participants to shatter the record once again at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Hilton Coliseum.

Any such record doesn’t come without a price, however.

The Veishea committee had to pay to rent Hilton Coliseum for the event and also must pay for referees for their various other tournaments. Those costs are where the entry fees come into play.

“For most of our tournaments, we have to charge an entrance fee and we usually try to make that as small as we possibly can,” Smith said. “That money basically covers the championship T-shirts that we give out to people and our cost for refs.”

While Knockout is one of the free events for participants, the committee uses profits from the other tournaments to help pay for its costs.

Because a student group does the events, all facilities at Iowa State are free for use. Capesius, who has worked for ISU Recreation Services in the past, said the communication this year has been a strong point.

“We’ve really tried to up our communication and relationship with Recreation Services because they have all of the equipment and facilities,” Capesius said. 

Russ Jones, program coordinator for Rec services, helps advise the tournament section of the Veishea committee and said the department has worked with the co-chairpersons to schedule facilities and help provide equipment.

“There’s a big push on campus for Veishea to be used as both a retention, as well as a recruitment tool for the university,” Jones said. “Veishea is very important to this campus. Obviously Rec services — that’s what we do is tournaments — so it’s a good fit for us.”

Doug Arrowsmith, another Rec services program coordinator, has worked closely with the committee on the facilities end. Arrowsmith said helping with the tournaments — and other student events — is simply what they do.

“We’re here to help the students; it’s a service that we provide,” Arrowsmith said. “We look at it like it’s a great way to get students in our facilities that may not step foot in them otherwise — it’s an opportunity to get our name out there as well.”

For the committee, the tournaments act as just one of many options for people to take part in during Veishea week.

“There’s so much stuff going on during Veishea with the concerts and student stuff during the week,” Smith said. “We just want to provide another option for people to get out and do something and be a part of Veishea.”

The tournaments take place through the end of Veishea on Saturday.