I’m curious as to what most people think is the proper distribution of entry fee money.
I have a tournament coming up where after I pay for the site, 85% of the (budgeted) entry fees are going to the prize fund, and after I take out for rating fees, TLA ads, and the cost of my affiliate membership, I have about $40 left over.
I noticed a few one day tournaments that were being advertised with $1,000 in prizes based on $2,400 in entries. I’d be willing to wager that their site can’t be more than $250/day, leaving over $1,000 of budgeted profit!
Do most people plan on a certain percentage of entry fees to be returned, or do they budget costs and then set the EF to cover the desired prizes, misc. expenses and profit?
IMHO I think 60% to 80% (depending on expenses) is a fair return of entry fees. Most smaller tournaments that I’ve been to fall somewhere in that range. Of course, some places have unusually expensive sites or other problems, but I think that’s a good rule of thumb.
It sounds like you’re trying to pay out as much as you can, but going over 80% doesn’t leave you much room for unexpected expenses (or profit).
It seems to me that most players think PROFIT is a four-letter word, and expect 200% of the entry fees to be returned as prizes.
Sites have gotten VERY expensive over the years. We used to use a local shopping center’s meeting room for $25/day, now even the local community college is charging $100 or more/day and hotels want $750/day and up, and then grumble because we want the site for 15 hours or longer. (They can sell the same space 2 or 3 times to other customers.)
For ‘small’ events (probably under 100), I’d say that if 75% of the entry fees can be paid out in prizes that’s pretty good these days, depending on what the other costs are.
As a local TD with an average of only 22 players per tournament, I pay out 60% of the entry fee’s collected. My objective is that after expenses (ad, facility, taxes, stationery, software, ink, rating fees, etc.), I net an amount equal to the 1st place prize. I think a TD’s time and efforts are worth that if their able to consistently coordinate smooth tournaments.
I did quite a bit of homework before I started directing, as I wanted to avoid what I saw happen to a couple of TD’s years ago. In an effort to draw many players to their tournaments, they held large (large is relative but let me define it here as $$1000) events that didn’t draw well, and they ended up several hundred dollars in the red/hole. Neither directed again.
With my calculations, as attendance goes up, so will the pay out percentage. In all honestly (be it considered good or bad) I wound not want to direct tournaments for only a $40 profit. I put about 16 hours into each of my tournaments, and even though I love chess and organizing dearly, I could do better than $2.50/hour doing pretty much anything else.
Right now, I’m more interested in getting a new event kicked off in an area that doesn’t have rated tournaments. I’m not interested much in profit, other than covering my annual affiliate fee. However, if I were doing more than 1 event per year, I would want more compensation. I was just interested in what was considered “proper” by my peer group.
Talking with the USCF members that have been in the area for years, they wanted tournaments and did not care to talk about the prize money. The prize money has not been a major issue, as the players have accepted the plus-score tournament.
What is more important to the players, is the time control of the tournament. The players you will have with a G/30 event is going to be different with the group of players at G/90. If the area has not had tournaments in years, there is not much for you to base the time control of the tournament. If you are going to have a large prize, it would be best to have long time controls past G/60. If you are going to have a small prize with a small entry fee, have a time control around G/30 to G/60.
Talk with the other directors in the area of the state, and make sure you talk with the directors within 100 miles from your site. Time controls and prize awards, in time any time control with accepted prize awards will work. If a director has G/90 events all the time, going with the same time control is only going to make you and the other director trade off the same limited number of players. If a director has G/90’s in the area, it would be a shot to try G/60 events. There are some chess players that hate G/90’s as they feel it is to slow; just as there are chess players that hate G/60’s as they are to fast.
Just talk with the chess players, understand the chess players, and talk more so with the class players from 1000 - 1600. Talk with the directors in your area, make sure you do not copy each other with the same clone tournaments. Study the area you have, understand what you got and mold the players. In time, after a number of tournaments, the players are going to accept the time control and the prize award.
I think players change their minds often, especially when they favor a set of tournament conditions, but then do well in other conditions. For example, a player claims to like nothing longer than game/60, but because there are no other tournaments in his area, he plays in a game/75. He wins 1st place. Next year this happens again. I think he’ll answer the survery differently now.
I survey my tournament participants on a regular basis to get their thoughts on changes that I’m thinking about making to my tournaments (for example, last month I asked about how to handle cellphone noise). I try and find a legal and happy medium between all the responses.
I think that with many players the bottom line is “Whatever combination of conditions that result in my winning, do that”, is their unspoken desire. I’m still waiting for the day that a player who wins each of their games, comes over to me to complain about playing conditions…hmmm.
I think that there can be as much that is out of the TD’s control that can affect tournament participation, as that which he can plan for. Having said that I think that getting advice and doing your homework is still critically important. In January of last year, the combination of 1) a blizzard, 2) being the week after a class N tournament in the same area, and 3) a change in playing site, all culminated in my only having 7 players. Each of these could have been planned for (yes even the blizzard, by not scheduling tournaments during the winter in Missouri)… live and learn.
I run a small High School club. We run a few rated events each year. We sometimes attract peers from other schools in the area. So we run small tournaments, usually QUADs and OCTOs.
So, I say its all about “quality, not quantity!” I tend to set up a G/30 3RR QUAD or 3SS OCTO with a low EF. Whatever the EF, the payout is 2EF in a QUAD = 50% or 4EF:2EF in an OCTO = 75%.
If more people show, we run multiple QUADs or OCTOs. We even accomodate non USCF members in unrated sections running at the same time, in the same place and under the same conditions as the rated sections. This builds interest in becoming a USCF member and trying a rated event.
