Well....if you definitely have 16 committed to playing then try to work out a 2 day format. The only problem now is that your looking at getting people to commit to 2 days and if their consecutive days or weekends it might be hard for everyone to make it. I know I couldn't my group of guys to commit to two weekends in a row, we all have family stuff to work around.
Another option is to make that first round a single elimination round, give the loser a portion of their buy in back which could be used as start up money for a cash game.
Another possible option, which will require some organization, is to have all the players coordinate their games. Follow me on this one....(I read about this from member somewhere but have no idea who it was or where it was)...You first have a meeting with all your players and set up a cash game or tournament to get everyone to attend. Then you lay out the rules, each pairing will be required to meet up at a time they both agree on and play out their match. The match must be completed by a designated date like within a week or so then they report the results back to you. You inform them of their next match and again they set up a time/place with their new opponent and play out the match. You keep doing this until you get to your semifinal matches (basically the last few rounds) which could then be held somewhere and everyone can attend and watch the few remaining matches while playing in a side game of some kind.
Now the organization part comes down to the players getting together, having chips, cards, blinds, timer, etc., and then finally reporting the results to you. Getting all that stuff to happen would require some motivated players....
What would also be kind of cool with this format would be to have all the matches be best of three rounds!! Then you could just host the final match and play it out as a best of three match!! WOW....that would take a lot of time!
But it would be so cool all at the same time!!
That was just a few ideas off the top of my head/remember reading about, if I think of any others or come up with something different I will let you know.\
