Houston Region specific Information

Updated 02/04/25

Welcome to the Houston Area Region Odyssey (“HARO”) page. You will find here additional details that are specific to Houston, in addition to all the general program information that is explained on this website. To renew old memberships, visit our membership page with new instructions here.

Updated 11/17/25; Due to restrictions by ou Texas hosting sites, teams cannot use glitter in any way, shape or form in their solutions.

Updated 12/11/24: All Team List forms are now available. It’s time to start reviewing your forms! Details in our Member Area. If you forgot the “passphrase” to access, check an email that coaches only have received in October with “Restricted access“ in the subject line.

Check your HARO Team Qualifications to know what you need to do. Due dates are listed in the Key Dates table below.

Reminder: Teams do NOT need to register with OdysseyHQ (wildapricot.org site) this year. We will run our Regional Competitions entirely with google forms for Texas.

NEW 12/27/24: View your TEAM QUALIFICATION STATUS here for HARO and for SOUTH. This list will be updated every weekend - more frequently near deadlines. It includes your payment status and names of judge(s) and volunteer(s) who registered against your team.

Update 1/21/25: We are starting to post our Volunteer jobs in waves. Volunteers should visit the Volunteer page here to sign-up. Primary Team Volunteer Jobs are now open.
Update 1/24/25: Pre-and Post-Tournament jobs are now open. Other jobs on the day will be available as soon as the team schedule is available, so that you can select a job that does not conflict with your team performance.

NEW 01/26/26: See announcement regarding teams that will advance to the State Competition.

Update 02/04/25: We have completed the new school walk-through and the judge assignments. The team schedule is under way and should be posted by February 9th. We are also extending the deadline for Volunteers from Competitive teams to pick their jobs by Feb 14th.

Going forward, you should monitor the HARO Competition page (under Regionals menu) every 2-3 days until the regional competition.

OMER Talks. If you have missed the January topic, you can go to our Member Area to download the slide deck. From Concept to Spotlight: Enhancing Odyssey Stage Skills - Refine performance and boost confidence with expert stage presence and presentation techniques--ensuring your Odyssey creations shine in the spotlight!

Quick links to general information on our website:

Team REGISTRATION (google FORM)

Team Qualification Status (updated weekly)

Tournament Staff for HARO

What’s Happening in February 2025:

Teams should wrap up their final competition forms to make sure that they have hit all the score items. Forms tell the judge what to look for and gets them ready to score every items. If they don’t know it, they could miss something important!

We are very busy training judges for each competition site and planning the competition itself.

Two sets of Volunteer jobs are open for selection. No need to register as well, just pick a job and provide your team name. Click on the Volunteer webpage here and scroll to the bottom for instructions.

The team schedule will be posted by Feb 9th.

All competition related information and documents will be available from the HARO Competition webpage (under Regionals).

Key dates for Houston season

Link to our Google Calendar to add events to your personal calendar. Please note that rsvp is only accepted through the specific sign-up links below.

The list below includes all dates mentioned in newsletters:

Month	Date	Time	Type	Details
August/ September 2024			Key date	Annual membership renewal* to access the current year full problems and program guide. Purchase/renew your annual membership* here.
September to February		Ongoing	Key date	Team meetings under the direction of their coach to determine their team solutions, build their own sets and costumes, write their scripts and practice presenting them in an 8-minute skit.
November	1^st	10:00 pm	Deadline	Last date for Annual Membership Renewal/ Purchase HERE.
December	Sun 15^th	10 pm	Deadline	Online Team registration* closes for all regional competitions*
December, 2024	Wed 18^th		Key Date	Online Judge registration is open until Jan 15^th.
January 2025	10^th		Key Date	Preorders open for Team shirts for the regional competition. This is the shirt also worn on Day 2 of the World Finals Competition. Gather your team information to submit one order per team. Details to follow.
January	Wed 15^th	10 pm	Deadline	Payment for HARO competition fee. Late teams are not guaranteed to be on the competition schedule. Instructions here. Invoices will only be issued upon request.
January	Wed 15^th	10 pm	Deadline	Deadline to include any qualified scheduling requests within the Tournament Registration.
January	Wed 15^th	10 pm	Deadline	Deadline for registration of team judges for HARO competition.
January	Wed 15^th	10 pm	Deadline	Deadline for registration of team judges for SOUTH TX teams.
January	Thu 16^th		Key Date	All Judges start receiving Training Packet A by email
January	Fri 17^th	5 pm to 7 pm	Event	Tournament Staff Orientation. For memberships with 4 or more teams, by rsvp (4 slots). Info here.
January	Mon 20^th		Key Date	Volunteer job list opens for sign-up. Jobs will be open for 3 weeks, first come , first served. Links on this page.
January	Mon 20^th	10 pm	Deadline	Tournament Staff, deadline to register. For memberships with 4 or more teams. Info here.
January	Mon 20^th	4 pm to 6 pm	Event	Tournament Staff Orientation. For memberships with 4 or more teams, by rsvp (4 slots). Info here.
February	Sat 1^st	2 pm to 5 pm	Event	On-site Judges Training at San Jacinto College, South Campus, 13735 Beamer Rd, Houston 77089.
February	Sun 2^nd	10 pm	Deadline	Deadline for registration of untrained volunteers for all regional competitions. Job selection varies by region.
February	Mon 3^rd	10 pm	Deadline	Judges: Based on your session rsvp, deadline to take General Training certification test online if you attended the on-site full training. Link is in the judge confirmation email.
February	Wed 5^th	10 pm	Deadline	Judges: Based on your session rsvp, deadline to take General Training certification test online, for attendance to Virtual Judge Training make-up session. Link is in the judge confirmation email.
February	Thu 6^th		Key Date	Judges: Based on your session rsvp, you start receiving Training Packet B by email and an invitation for attendance to Virtual Judge Training make-up session.
February	Sat 8^th	3 pm to 5 pm	Event	Virtual Judges Training. Make-up sessions with limited scope. Pre-requisites apply.
February	Sun 9^th	4 pm to 6 pm	Event	Tournament Staff Orientation. For memberships with 4 or more teams, by rsvp (4 slots). Info here.
February	Tue 11^th	7:30 pm	Event	HARO Competition Walk-through for Coaches. Virtual one-hour session. No rsvp needed. Join here.
February	Fri 14^th	10 pm	Deadline	Volunteers pick their own jobs until this date [the deadline was pushed back due to delay in publishing the team schedule]. After that time, remaining jobs will be assigned to teams without volunteers.
February	Sat 22^nd	8:00 am - 4:00 pm	Competition	HARO Regional Competition, Pershing Middle School, 3838 Blue Bonnet Drive, followed by the Awards ceremony on-site.
February	Tue 25^th	10 pm	Deadline	Judges: Deadline to advance your registration for the State Competition.
March	Sat 1^st	10 pm	Deadline	Payment for STATE competition fee. Late teams are not guaranteed to be on the competition schedule. Instructions here.
March	Fri 28^th	6:30 pm	Event	Team Mixer. All teams invited to this party held at San Jacinto College, South Campus. Rsvp to follow.
March	Sat 29^th	8:00 am - 4:00 pm	Competition	TX State Competition, at San Jacinto College, South Campus, followed by the Awards ceremony on-site. (Advancing teams)
April	Tue 22^nd		Deadline	Team Registration and Payment of housing package or competition fee for all World Finals teams.
May	Wed 21^st evening to Sat 24^th	three full days	Competition	World Finals, Michigan State University, in Lansing, MI. (Advancing teams)