Tournament Organizer Guidance and Best Practices

Continuing the discussion from Tournament Organizing Elements:

I found this discussion on tournament organizing from a few years back that includes some high-level suggestions (more like an outline that was never fleshed out). The discussion and replies to the original post provide some elaboration and additional ideas. I have also looked at the legacy information on the US Chess website.

What I think would benefit the weekend organizer and those aspiring to organize larger events is a set of best practices covering topics like: how to register as a business (LLC vs DBA), financial/accounting software recommendations, space planning tools, advertising, liability insurance, budget templates, negotiation tips and all the hard-learned lessons from established organizers. I am sure there are more subcategories that I have omitted.

I noticed a WIKI feature in discourse not currently used in the US Chess forum. WIKI seems like a great way to have contributors add and update relevant information in one central repository. Is there a reason not to use the WIKI? or has no one ever explored that feature?

chess builds strong minds!

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I think there are things wiki is good for, but much of what is posted in the US Chess forums may not be something that wiki would work for. Perhaps after some discussion on a topic it would be possible to set up another topic as a wiki for people to help build a summary document with the most useful aspects of the thread. (Some threads can run to hundreds of posts, just reading them all is a lot of work.)

There used to be an active cribbage tournament group in Lincoln that held tournaments in the same motel meeting rooms we held some chess tournaments in. The difference is they bundled the registration fee in with a lunch in the motel’s restaurant, which got them the meeting room space for free. I suspect having a planned lunch break also kept the meeting room a bit cleaner, I’ve had to pick up a LOT of trash from players at tournaments from stuff they got at nearby fast food joints.

Whether that would work for chess tournaments is less clear. (Probably not for events with a lot of kids in them, IMHO.)