Hard mode players will certainly be within consideration unless we fill our registration cap with teams of all Expert Level players. The intent is to target the tournament itself towards those who are highly accomplished first, although this particular tournament will lean far more towards entertainment value than score.
Teams should definitely consist of all Hard/Expert players if you want to have a chance of qualifying, since it will likely be a popular event.
A tentative qualification process is as follows:
Expert - 3 points
Hard - 2 points
Other - 0 points
So, a team of 3 expert level players would qualify at 9 points, a team of 4 hard level players would qualify at 8 points.
Due to the fact that this tournament is a judged performance, we are seriously considering allowing bands to have auxiliaries - dancers, keyboardists, et cetera - in addition to those actually playing the game. More details on this will be available later.