I had a tournament planned for 4 months and sent out about 300 post cards for the tourney. I typically host my tournaments, paying $160 a day for the site. I’ve been running them monthly since May.
I got a call from the hotel (3 days before the tournament) and they said they were planning on having a wedding that afternoon in the lobby of the hotel, which happen to be right outside my playing site.
I asked them about the noise and they said it would get very noisy. The person I typically got the room from had left the hotel and I told her about the importance of how quiet it needs to be during the tournament. So in the middle of the 3rd round, the bass starts literally 10 feet outside the doors into the playing site.
I went and talked to the manager and she said there was nothing she could do about it. We found a solution by moving all 32 people into the hotel restaraunt, which was somewhat better, but not worth paying for.
I’m wondering if I should proceed into getting my money back for the site. I personally was effected, though I didn’t hear too much complaining from other players, basically because I think I did a great job as a TD and helped with fixing the problem the best that I could.
I tried to explain to the hotel manager that you can’t give me a 3 days notice when you send out $200 in post cards, have people coming, etc. It’s the same as asking me to change the date of the wedding after planning things out. Obviously, they did the wedding at the last minute.
Yes, I’ve played in tournaments where there was a wedding going on right across the hall from us in a hotel. We closed the doors to the room, but of course whenever anyone went out we heard it. Most players realized the distraction and tried to go in and out as quickly as possible.
I think you should at least get a partial refund. You didn’t get what you paid for and had to use inferior accomodations. Beyond that, I don’t think you can do anything else.
Unfortunately the hotel can’t afford to pass up a paying customer if they can handle the event. It’s always better to have a room rented than unrented, but they should have at least put conditions on the other customer concerning noise levels, or at least talked to them to get the noise reduced. Ask them if they value your continued business enough to work with you on this.
I have a huge state tournament I’ll be hosting in a month. I really don’t want to risk anything with the hotel, but then again, if they have this crap again, then it will be extremely irresponsible of the hotel to do pull this stuff again.
I’ll probably write a letter and mail it to the hotel and CC it to the corporate.
Very sure there is nothing you can do with a refund, the $160 for the site. They might give you a break for the next tournament, as you did move to a new hotel site. There is very little a organizer or a diector can do: when the site can be used for other events.
You could look for a new site, but then the regular players would start to question why it was moved. Have been at tournaments, and there was a last minute problem the organizer and director did not even know. Any place an organizer or the director rents, the site owners or managers do not understand the problems that happen during a tournament. Silence, is something they do not understand when having a site that can hold so many people. The other idea is finding a local church, then again silence would not be a problem; it would be a problem for some players going to a church in which they do not share the same faith.
Organizers and directors can see a problem they know will hurt there site, like the weather but not knowing to the last few days. Knowing a director having a tournament in less then 100 miles from your own, on the same day being worse to having it the week before or a week after yours. Then there is the problem with the site itself, like having something special happening at the same time, or the room is too hot or too cold.
Feel your pain thunderchicken, but any player knows that some times the director cannot be responsible for the managment of the site. Players should understand the weather, or the problems that happen outside the control of the director is not the problem of the director. Thunderchicken did everything that he could do with the little amount of time he could do. Moving the site was the best he could do for the problem. The players in my judgement will feel a wish too go back to his tournament, as he did the best he could do and that is all anyone is asking.
With all the directors I have talked with, they never found all their tournaments being the way they wanted it to come out. Been in a number, just wishing that this tournament will be over. Then again I was the only one beating myself up over the problem.
I think most organizers can tell similar sad tales. In my case, a site we used to use remodeled their bar the week before our event, extended it about 40 feet at the back into some storage space and put in a disco which shared a thin wall with the conference center room we were using for the state championship.
We wound up moving the games to two sleeping rooms that had conference tables in them.
Before you go ballistic with the site, consider your bargaining position there. It is quite likely that the hotel made more profit from the BAR SALES of that wedding reception than you paid to rent the space you were using.
A few years ago, the banquet manager for a US Open told me that his department was making more off the Saturday noon awards banquet than from the rest of the tournament.
Chess tournaments tend to take up space that hotels could possibly rent out THREE TIMES in a single day. We’re low cost/low profit events, attended by players who litter the room with their trash from McDonalds.
