I’m looking for opinions: what is a fair payout percentage for a tourney?
I know this will vary based on size.
What is a fair amount for the TD? I’ve considered $75.00 to $100.00,
but realize that if the tourney is not large enough, that will not be possible.
I would myself be willing to do it for less, but we’ve got three (soon to
be four) TDs at our club. I want to make running the Saturday Swiss
less of a burden on any one man. I also think it is fair that a TD get
paid.
Ideas?
$1/player for the TD is standard in my area.
We usually pay out 70%-80% of ADVANCE EFs to prizes. Late EFs go to the organizer/club.
I usually determine how much I want to pay out in prizes, how many players I expect to attend and divide prizes by expected attendance in order to obtain the EF I need to charge. Then I add on $1. for the TD plus $1. for the Rating Fee.
Example:
$400 prizes/30 players=$14 (rounded up) +$1 (TD) + $1 (RF)=$16
If you get the 30 players you expected, you would have an income of $480, from which you would deduct the TD fee and the Rating Fee. You would then payout your $400.
Note, that in the example I give, I’m paying 83% of Advance EFs
Terry Winchester
I’d think a set percentage is fair. Basically you have two (or three) expenses:
You can easily post this on your prizes board and people wont get to fussy about it. A good rule of thumb is like Terry posted above.
What I’ve done in the past is set up what your based on figure is, take away your costs / profit and go from there. You can adjust up or down pretty easily with a spreadsheet.
Don’t forget the TD fee, not all TDs will work for free (and they should not HAVE to).
Site fees can add up in a hurry, even the run-down motels around here want $150/day, if they’re willing to accept chess tournaments at all. The better hotels want $500 to $750 a day, and then grumble about the tournament needing the room from 8AM to midnight, so they can’t rent it out 2 or 3 times in a day at that rate.
It isn’t very likely that a local event will generate enough catering business or room nights to get the playing room for free or at a reduced rate.
The Affiliate Fee, Notation Pad Fee and other supply costs, I consider negligible costs. The Affiliate fee is usually taken care of by the local chess club membership fees. Supplies, such as notation sheets, wallcharts, etc are simply taken care of by whatever profits we make or by the chess club membership dues.
But the site rental is indeed a cost to be considered. I simply add that on to my prize fund, so if I want to pay out $400 and the site costs me $100, then I take $500/expected attendance and go from there as I wrote above. There, you’d need an EF of $17 plus the added TD and RF charges. Note, that you’re making a profit on the RF, because it usually never adds up to what I’m charging ($1/player).
-Terry
Cost of TD + rent + rating fee + supplies = cost to the organizer. The major cost for an organizer, would be the cost of a TD and the rent. If you have a based on prize, say 20 entries with a $20 entry fee, would be a gross of $400. If the rent is high and the cost of the TD is also high, not much left out of the $400 to cover the prize money. Having a based on prize of 20 entries with a $20 entry fee of $20. Would have the total prize fund be around $250. If you can factor in the rating fee and supplies, could find what is left is not much. With $400 - $250, would have $150 to cover rent, rating fee, supplies, hired TD. If you are going to have a small event, it would be better to become a club tournament director. Not all tournaments are set up to break even with the based on entries.
The $1.00/player salary for a TD will be for the whole tournament or this will be his salary/day? Because if for example you have 100 participants on a 3 day event, $100.00/tournament will be hard to take for the amout of work we have to do in 3 days.
1 day flat charge: $1/player + travel costs
If multi day tournament, I would add additional fees to cover travel, hotel expense and food.
Terry Winchester
This was taken from the USCF web site: Tournament Director Certification Standard
Tournament Director Compensation
The following are suggested minimum fees. Actual TD fees may depend on the size of the event and/or extra duties such as pre-registration duties, set-up duties, Chief TD, Section Chief, Floor Chief, Back Room Chief TD, etc.
Club director compensation at National Tournaments: $15 per round, maximum $30 per day, subject to negotiation with the organizers.
Local director compensation at National Tournaments: $20 per round, maximum $40 per day, subject to negotiation with the organizers.
Senior director compensation at National Tournaments: $30 per round, maximum $60 per day, subject to negotiation with the organizers.
Associate national director compensation at National Tournaments: $50 per round, maximum $100 per day, subject to negotiation with the organizers.
National director compensation at National Tournaments: $70 per round, maximum $140 per day, subject to negotiation with the organizers.
Please realize that this list is close to 15 years old (perhaps older). I have tried for years to get the TDCC to update the $$$ on this list.
Tim