On the local level, tournaments are run by Pokémon Professors. These are people who love Pokémon and share that love with their community. Pokémon Professors may be staff of a local game store, or they may be volunteers who run events at game stores or other venues.
If you have checked the Event Locator and don’t see any events for a game you play, but do see events for other games, reach out using the contact information for those events and see if the tournament organizer is interested in running events for the game you play! If you see a store listed on the Store Locator, you can contact the store and see if they are interested in hosting the events. Local Championship Series events for Pokémon TCG and Pokémon GO are tied to retail locations, so starting that conversation with a store is important.
If a store is interested in hosting events for your game, but doesn’t feel knowledgeable enough to run a tournament, consider becoming a Pokémon Professor yourself! After passing the Organizer exam, you can run casual tournaments – by being involved with your local store’s League, you can become a League Leader and start running Pokémon TCG and Pokémon GO Championship Series events like League Challenges and League Cups. For Pokémon video game Championship Series events, there is a separate application process available on Professor University.