Pre-reg and other random thoughts from a TD

[pickax]

An upfront word: None of this is meant to be directed at any individuals.  The purpose of this entry is to remind me of what I need to do next year and to provoke discussion on the art of running tournaments.

A couple of weeks ago I ran the Oswego Spring Fling and opted to make this a pre-registration only tourney. This is the direction I see many other tournaments going.

As a TD, pre-reg only helps everything just run more smoothly. Leaderboard cards can be done ahead of time, no long lines at registration, PDGA membership and ratings can be checked, etc. These little things help a tournament start on time with fewer surprises. As a player, I like knowing that I'm in already if a tournament is getting full and that the tournament should have a smooth start.

Having said that, there are some items that when running a pre-reg only tournament that need to be addressed. Because of my occupation, I have near constant online access. It is easy to forget that this is not necessarily the case for much of the disc golf population.  Talking to some pros at my event, they mentioned that some players are completely off grid for a variety of reasons. I also encountered some players who do not have a checking account, so even mailing in a registration takes a bit of extra effort. Yes, these players could pass their funds to a friend or family member who could make the remote payment, but the process is not easy. If something is not easy, many will just find something else to do.

I don't know if this was an issue for me or not, but some might have been hesitant to send money to a relatively unknown TD for a tournament that has not previously established itself.

In declaring my intention for pre-reg only for the Spring Fling, there was heavy lobbying by various parties to allow walkups. Knowing that I wanted to make sure everything ran smoothly, I was hesitant and continued to publicly declare that the tournament was pre-reg only. I'm not sure how many times I'd was asked about it on different message boards. I don't think any of those players attended.

I do know that those who contacted me personally were taken care of. For those that might be too timid to contact the TD directly, you will find you will get far better customer service with a direct phone call or email than posting on a message board. It gives the TD the chance to take the steps necessary to make something happen.  TDs can be creative.

Ultimately I took a few walkups each day with an extra fee that went directly to the fund a local club is using for course improvements.  I tried to make sure it was clear to those players where that money was going.

Online signups have fees ranging from $2-$5. From the TD perspective, I'm not sure if I preferred online or mail-in reg. The online pre-reg was great from a tracking and safety perspective (i.e. I didn't have to worry about returned check charges). It also made refunds simple. Unfortunately, using a tool like PayPal takes a bit of time to get the money out.

So if a walk-up fee is going to be imposed, it really needs to be larger than the online fee or there is no financial disincentive for a player to procrastinate and attempt getting in as a walk-up. There may be some that disagree with the whole concept of a walk-up fee, but it is really no different than an online fee. It just changes who's getting the money.

With a pre-reg only tournament, one is bound to get some no-shows. Some of these are for legit reasons, others...let's just say it is a question of priorities. If you know you aren't going to make it, contact the TD ASAP.  But don't expect to get a hold of the TD on the phone on the day of the tournament (and especially after the checkin period is over). There are things that he will be busy doing. But if you do call, leave a message with your name and number. My wife took a couple of calls the morning of the tournament but the players did not give their names. I'm not sure what they wanted, but I might have been able to address them after the round started. Next year I need to have a no-show policy determined ahead of time. I don't need to be trying to formulate one while calculating payouts during the first round.

I also need a late check-in policy. I realize that my checkin was on the earlier side, but players were lax on getting their behinds over to Tournament Central.  Once checkin is done, a TD needs to get the players assigned to holes and score cards made out and run first time tournament players meetings and run general player meetings.  Players that don't make the checkin time slow down everything for everyone else. Also since I was running threesomes, late checkins and no-shows made it difficult to make sure there were no twosomes without slowing down everyone with potential foursomes.

I want to make sure that I run smooth tournaments that players enjoy and want to come back to play again. For those that played the Spring Fling, thanks for giving me a chance. I hope you come back next year (with a friend or two as well).

For those that played Saturday, I realize I made a few mistakes at the start of the day (mainly in that I started the player meeting too early and rushed through it was well). Sunday I was much more relaxed.

[Bruce Brakel]

There is nothing wrong with running tournaments for players who have the ability to pre-register.  I played 20 sanctioned tournaments last year and 5 required pre-registration.  But, we don't have a culture of pre-registration.  Players do not expect local one-day tournaments to be pre-registration only.  Even when our tournaments are full-full-full we have people walking up who want in and are clueless that it filled 12 hours ago. 

I think the TD or tournament decision-makers have to decide how important it is to the process to go pre-reg-only and how important it is to the process to get in as many players as possible.  It is not unreasonable to start off thinking that pre-reg-only is the way to go, and then decide to allow day-of because pre-reg-only is not working for you.  It is also not unreasonable to require the day-of players to pay what the pre-reg players paid, counting on-line processing fees. 

We are planning on getting to Bevier by mid-afternoon Friday and we will be taking pre-reg there, then. 

[Dan Michler]

Split-day tournaments in Illinois do not fill often which is why some of the players feel the pre-registration is unnecessary and perhaps do not take it seriously and assume they can get in at the last second (and they are usually right).

For 1 day events such as Pitner's Channahon last year or Brett's Adler tournament this year, the chances of filling are greatly increased which makes pre-reg only a much more viable option.

There is no doubt that pre-reg only tournaments are run much more efficiently time-wise, which is not only appreciated by the TD, but also by the players.  I like the pre-reg only.


This is off the topic, but I think hanging flyers at all the local courses for your event goes a long way to bringing out the local player base and increasing attendance.  I'm only mentioning it because I haven't seen many flyers for tournaments recently (other than the CAC).

[Bruce Brakel]

On the off-topic, posting flyers draws in a few players, but not nearly as many as you get when you hand flyers to players.  When we have had flyers posted for months, we get casuals saying, "How do people find out about tournaments, anyway?" and I tell them, "They read the stuff posted on that board over there."     I like to read the stuff on the disc golf course kiosks, but I think I'm the one. 

If you want to bring in new players, and let casuals know to play somewhere else next weekend, this was very effective back when I ran MDGOs at Kensington:  The weekend a week before the tournament, before playing a round, walk the course backwards and hand out a flyer to every player on the course that wants one.  That only takes about 20 minutes.  If you have the feet for it, do it again after your round too. 

The other effective thing I've done with flyers is pass them out in the parking lot at times when players are congregating in the parking lot at the tournaments before my tournament.  The flyer then goes into the car and there is a chance it gets read later.  I'll also drop a flyer through the partly open car window.  Flyers under the wiper really annoy some people for some reason.  If you do that, you'll chase away the easily annoyed from your tournaments, which might be a good thing.   

An effective flyer also uses large print and has minimal information. 

We used to pass out so many flyers, we developed an acronym for face-to-face tournament promotion.  If you ask Kira this weekend, "What does FITHOP mean?" she'll tell you, "Flyers in the hands of players."  But for a chuckle, ask jer what "SOYBAD" means.   

[duain]

i think mike did a pretty good job on the oswego event as does the whole ios crew on their events. playing in prereg only tournaments everything runs very smooth, cause there is time to get things ready ahead of time, which is every tds ideal objective.

most players on the other hand like to make the last minute choice of playing depending on variables in there life at the time. which can bring out more players, but also create a lot of on the spot work for the tourney crew. which is why a day of fee to register sounds feasible for the extra work.

having played in both ios/pitner tourneys and some non ios tourneys, ive come to the understanding we are spoiled by the behind the scenes day of work done to create the smooth flow we are use to with ios and scott.
the non ios/pitner tourneys i played seem to take forever to start and get organized, they are still fun to play, but it makes for a long day and headaches for some.

i would offer prereg, with a day of reg extra fee to go to the tds disc club. anywhere else you go for something the motto goes if we do more you pay more.

[Jon Brakel]

In skate board video game "Skate 2" you skate in a tournament at one point. There's a fat old guy at a card table setup beside the skate park and you're standing in line to register. The guy in front of you asks when the tourney starts and the old fat dude says "Starts? When does it start? It starts when it starts man!!!!" That's the feeling I've gotten when playing other tournaments (when I could play). Now I'm the old fat guy at the card table but I KNOW when it's gonna start man!!! 

[4u2nv]

I had the opportunity to play a tournament this weekend in Michigan that was pre-reg only but you didn't need to pay online.  This tournament filled completely and had people on a waiting list.    Those on the wait list had to check in like everyone else but didn't have to pay money until they were garunteed a spot after the end of registration.  Some people obviously didn't show and some of the people on the wait list got to play.  It was one heck of a day.

Ace pot was $5 each person and at the end of the day there was a throw-off for $440.  I am sure larger ace pots like this are more apt to draw people too.

One more thing that I found was interesting is that a $15 discount was given to anyone that brought a woman to that ended up playing in the tournament.  They did this to try and increase participation from women.  I found it to be an interesting concept.

[Bruce Brakel]

Cashless pre-reg was an innovation of mine at Byron and the Disc Golf Union guys are using it too.  Basically, you can reserve a spot for nothing but you have you check-in early.  This works for the TD because instead of having a reg rush in the last twenty minutes, the cashless pre-reg guys all have to show up early.  It fulfills all the legitimate purposes of cash-paid pre-reg except one.  It is a pretty good system for generating pre-tournament buzz and pre-reg activity. 

[Tom McManus]

I had the opportunity to play a tournament this weekend in Michigan that was pre-reg only but you didn't need to pay online.  This tournament filled completely and had people on a waiting list.    Those on the wait list had to check in like everyone else but didn't have to pay money until they were garunteed a spot after the end of registration.  Some people obviously didn't show and some of the people on the wait list got to play.  It was one heck of a day.

Ace pot was $5 each person and at the end of the day there was a throw-off for $440.  I am sure larger ace pots like this are more apt to draw people too.

One more thing that I found was interesting is that a $15 discount was given to anyone that brought a woman to that ended up playing in the tournament.  They did this to try and increase participation from women.  I found it to be an interesting concept.

What was the weather like?  Let me know how this works on a day when raining.

[Chainmeister]

Good point Tom. I think Krupicka would have gotten killed if he had done this with Oswego.  Ya gotta pay to reserve a spot. Otherwise its like thte spin classes at my local park district. People sign their names for every class whether they are going or not.  The list gets full and the class is half full.

[Bruce Brakel]

It works fine on a rainy day.  A bunch of people don't show up.  You give their spots away long before registration closes.  You don't have to deal with the issue of whose lame-ass excuse for not showing up is genuine and didn't his mother die last year when it rained?  

The reason why cashless pre-reg works for the TD is because people are like sheep.  Why does everyone go to Bowling Green ams with its lame payouts and funky weird surprises every year?  Because everyone is going.  Cashless pre-reg allows you to put up a lot of names on pdga.com making it look like your tournament is a big deal which turns out to be a self-fulfilling thing.  

[Bruce Brakel]

Two years ago for Byron I had 110 on cash-less pre-reg, a full field.  It rained and was 40 degrees.  80 of the 110 showed up.  I gave the other 30 spots to other people who showed up. 

[Tom McManus]

Two years ago for Byron I had 110 on cash-less pre-reg, a full field.  It rained and was 40 degrees.  80 of the 110 showed up.  I gave the other 30 spots to other people who showed up. 

How many people attended Byron last year?

[Bruce Brakel]

What's the point?  Last year we had great weather and it was a bust.  The management spent the entire summer chasing away disc golfers and disc golfers no longer wanted to have anything to do with that course.  The players decided to play the glow tournament instead. 

[airspuds]

looks like IN State Champs going pre reg only