Buy-In: $60
Starting Chips: 5,000
Starting Blinds: 25/50
Levels: 20 minutes

Usually around 5 or 6 tables.

I was just wondering what the strategy for this type of tournament would be. The blind structure is quick; it goes from 500/1000 to 1000/2000, 2000/4000, etc. One time I calculated it, we were down to around 15-20 people, blinds at 1000/2000 soon to be 2000/4000, but the average chip stack was only about 20,000.

Usually, the same people play the tournament, and most of them are horribly loose. The only strategy I can imagine working is to play really tight in the first few rounds and let the weak players eliminate themselves, and then play aggressive preflop poker to build a stack big enough to survive the huge jump in blinds. What do you all think?

Hard to answer. The best bit of advice I can give you is to abuse your fold equity when the blinds get high.

a combination of what you 2 said.

Employ a tight/aggressive strategy---given that this is a live tournament, few players will understand basic ICM, so that won't be taking advantage of their chip stacks relative to the other players. Focus on playing position and shoving light hand ranges from the C/O, BTN, and blinds.

I used to play in a MTT with a structure that moved fast like this. The best advice I can give is this:

Learn to play a small stack very well. Focus on all of the intricacies of small stack play, that will give you a great advantage over everyone else who is playing as most will not apply the proper strategies as their stacks dwindle. In structures like this everyone will be short stacked, even the big stacks, at some point in the tournament.

Second advice is this: Play tight. If they are playing too loose, the best way to exploit that is to wait until you can value bet them to death. Don't bluff early, when loose players have chips and can afford to call, they will. If they are passive preflop, limp in with small and medium pairs in EP and MP (I think open limping loose passive tables is better with 22 than open raising in EP and MP).