http://www.printyourbrackets.com

Print a bracket, randomly write down peoples name for head to head.

For game choice put 3 items in a hat and have a group member pull out item which will determine which pin group plays.

You can use software but its more complicated.3 round knockout use brackelope. Online bracket use challonge . I personally use matchplay.events

I've done a few parties with non pinheads with a casual tournament. You really cannot underestimate just how casual and approachable you need to make it. For starters I would not require a cash buy in and prize. Adds complexity/intimidating etc. do a very simple format like golf (post the target score clearly on each machine). Make sure the tournament doesn't last too long (1 hr or less). Have some grand prizes for the winner(a) and just furnish them your self (nice bottle of booze or whatnot). As an added fun thing, offer small prizes to anyone that puts up a high score during the evening. Like mini booze bottles. And you will need to manually lower even the default high scores considerably for anyone to ever reach them. Just focus on making it fun and approachable and the little prizes will encourage a lot of ppl to play that otherwise won't. Think if you went to someone's house and they were into some hobby that your are not (crocheting maybe?) and what would it take to get you to participate . Let us know what you do and how it goes.

Jack

Yeah remove the cash
Winner gets a trophy or a six packof beer

I would use https://matchplay.events so everyone can see the data. They can also enter their own scores, you approve them before they are official.

Definitely try to figure out how long a three strikes event will take with thirty people. You don't want to go hours past your expected finish time.

My guests enjoy rounds of weird challenges like playing with crossed hands, low-score pin golf, or while wearing special "fireworks" glasses that refract the lights. I've also thought about covering the playfield glass with cardboard that has holes and strategically cut shapes to limit visibility. I was really inspired by the Pinball Olympics games at ReplayFX.

Yeah I would say 3 strikes tournament on 3 games with 30 people would take a while. Putting everyone into 4 person groups would cut down on the time I would think. Bottom 2 get strikes.

That or do two strikes.

No, you are over thinking it
Keep it simple, keep it fun

Or to expand on the pingolf idea. Have each game play as 6 holes. Come up with 6 different objectives for each game to make your 18 holes. Or just have everyone play 9 holes and do 3 objectives each. It might take a while, but everyone could go at their own pace. Best golf score at the end of the party wins a prize.

What about a format where for the 1v1 match up the players play two games on the same machine to decide the winner, with the cumulative score the decider? For example, the two players play on High Speed. Player 1 finishes the game with 1 million points, whereas Player 2 gets really unlucky with the bounces and finishes with only 100,000. The second game, Player 1 finishes with another 1 million points, but Player 2 puts up a score of 2 million points. In this format, Player 2 would win with 2.1 million vs 2 million from Player 1.

My thinking is that sometimes you just have a really bad game and get super unlucky with some drains. In my opinion, if the format was left to one game head to head play, one player can just get kind of shafted by the luck factor. By playing at least two games, it forces both players to put up as high of a score as they can each game. And it takes away having to play a third game if you were playing best 2 out of 3 series.

Yeah that is what is keeping your tournament from running as fast. Having only 3 games it's really tough to have a tournament with 30 people take less than 6 hours to be honest. At least I cannot think of any formats that would make for a quick tournament.

I concur with JackD, don't charge anything (the "tournament" format is intimidating enough for casual players). Keep it relatively simple and fun, and have a top prize and some little prizes.

The last tournament I held was probably more complicated than necessary, but it kept everyone interested (most of whom were just casual / rare players) and they all had a blast. Here was the format I used:

-- 16 people
-- 6 operational pins
-- First: 'Mini-tournaments' on each individual pin
---- Players randomly broken into two groups of 8
---- All players play 2 games. (For reasons Bugsy described -- sometimes you just have a crap game, or need a chance to figure it out.)
---- Players with the top 2 scores in each group advance to a semifinal match
---- Semifinal winners play one more game to determine individual pin champion
-- Overall Finals: After all 6 pins' champions are established, each champion then plays one more game on each of the six pins
---- Champion who wins the most games out of the six is the overall tournament winner!
-- Tournament winner receives a trophy and a few scratch-off lotto tickets.
-- High score on each machine gets a scratch-off lotto ticket.
-- Low score on each machine gets a scratch-off lotto ticket.
-- Fun is had by all!