I have mostly played online and have never played in a tournament and I would like to have some fun and try it out.

1)  What memberships do I need?  Do I need more than one?

2)  What kind of equipment do I need?  I don't have a clock, but I have heard that not all clocks are compatible with all tournaments, so I'm not sure how that works.

3)  What should I expect?  Like how much time per side and stuff?  How many games do I get to play if I lose every game?  How many if I win every game?  Is each tournament similar in general setup/rules or are there a staggering number of different ways tournaments are tallied?

I guess this is a lot of questions altogether, but it would help me out a lot to know.

Ok just wanna know is your thing meaning for a local tournament in oregon since you live their or are you talking about online here at chess.com!!?

In Oregon somewhere, something in person, face to face.

Thanks for the info!  Hopefully the membership fees are worth it.  I'm not sure how many tournaments are out there, and it would suck to pay a lot and only be able to go to 2 or 3 tournaments a year.  Are there other places that games can count towards rating besides tournaments?  Do you have to have the memberships to have any kind of rating at all?

I live in Corvallis and recently played in my first tournament. I got interested in chess while I was in HS but didn't have much desire to play in a tournament then so I didn't do any scholastic chess.

As your profile says you were born in 1981, so clearly you're beyond the scholastic chess also. That is a cheap and easy way to get into it if you're in K-12.

The tournament I played in was the Oregon Open which was in Gresham at the Community College. To join, I had to join the USCF, which was 65$ (or so) but that got me a 3 year subscription to Chess Life magazine. Additionally, I had to pay 25? 35?$ to join the Northwest Chess Federation for 1 year, I get copies of the Northwest Chess magazine for this price. The tournament itself, I think was 60$ to register for, though it may have only been 40$. All told, I spent about 140$ to join everything and play in the tournament.

I did well enough to get a 60$ check in the mail from the NWCF which essentially meant the tournament was free to me.  The tournament was a 6 round swiss system. That means that after round 1, everyone who had 1 win played other people with 1 win, everyone who lost played other losers, everyone who drew played other drawers. After round 2, repeat, so 2 pts vs 2 pts, 1.5 vs 1.5, 1 v 1, .5 v .5, 0 v 0. So no matter how you did, you were always playing someone else who was doing about as good as you were. As the tournament had 40ish people in it, it worked out pretty well, but in a smaller tournament, theres probably a greater chance that you will play someone who has 1/2 a point more or less than you, or even a full point more or less.

I brought my own clock but I never saw any shortage of clocks there, some people had 2 or 3 to loan to other people playing games. Every tournament can have different time schemes. The one I played in was 40 moves in 2 hours, then finish the game in 1 hour more. That meant there was the potential for a game to take 6 hours, but my longest game was about 4 hours. I rushed some of my moves and thus didn't do as good as I could have.

 I think that is the most common time format for major tournaments, but minor tournaments may have game in 40, or game in 60, or game in 2. From what the Portland Chess Club website shows, there is generally a tournament every weekend or once a week, but most of these are just 3-4 round game in 40 style tournaments. I suspect they are Swiss System also, but I haven't been to any. Matches also count towards ratings, but generally unless you're really good, you won't be playing any rated matches.

You don't need membership to get in chess.com and tournaments are free although theres limitation thats why its so good=)