$5 Late Fee

[tacimala]

Had a thought last night that might be worth discussing. Pre-reg for tourneys is a huge help, no questions there, but there isn't that much incentive for players to pre-reg other than ensuring them a spot. The way costs are currently set up, you pay almost just as much in the service fees for PayPal as you do to register the day of. I think that making the day of registration fee a higher cost would help push people to pre-reg more often or raise more cash for whatever that goes towards.

[pickax]

I know Terry has gone with $10 for walk-ups up in Wisconsin. I've considered doing the same because $3 vs $5 is not a large enough delta to really encourage folks to get off their behind.

[pdga#7648]

if you mail a check, it only costs .44 cents. Thats the route I take every tournament, unless a signup page at pdga.com.
but yes, $5.00 probably not enough.

[Jon Brakel]

Some of us have discussed doing no day of registration even if we have room but we have concerns that the word would not spread to the people that don't check the message board.

[tacimala]

if you mail a check, it only costs .44 cents. Thats the route I take every tournament, unless a signup page at pdga.com.
but yes, $5.00 probably not enough.

Yes, but time to write it out, write the check, address it, take it to mailbox, etc. is worth more than the $.44 but yea that's obvious as well.

As for Jon's point, for those that don't check the message board, then a price increase won't be a surprise either!

[Dan Michler]

Clearly some players just aren't going to pre-reg for a variety of reasons.  If your tournament isn't going to fill, then you have to weigh the benefit of your late fee against the cost of losing players who don't want to pay it.

I'm still of the opinion that the cost of playing amateur disc golf tournaments is too high.  In my perfect world, the cost of prizes would be taken out of the entry fee equation.  If somebody wants to donate prizes to sponsor the tournament, great, otherwise there doesn't need to be any prizes.

I am still on board with TD's making money to run amateur events.  I'd just rather they determine the amount of profit that makes running the event worth their while into the entry fee.  Just to throw out some example numbers.... if we have $2 PDGA fee, $2 course use fee, $1 to cover PDGA sanctioning fee, $1 misc.expenses, $4 TD fee...that would be a $10 entry to play a tournament.  If there are 150 players on the weekend the TD can leave with $600 for his efforts.

I'd be fine with going back to buying discs at the store on an as-needed basis instead of having discs thrown at me constantly just because I love the competitive environment of a disc golf tournament.  I don't think I'm the only amateur who would be happier with this scenario that the current status quo.  I've passed on more than 1 disc golf tournament this year because of the entry fee and I'm not exactly in any sort of financial crisis.  I think most other amateur disc golfers are going through the same decision process on a weekly basis, especially since the region has become saturated with disc golf tournaments throughout the spring/summer/fall over the past few years.

For those of you wondering what thread drift is..........

[stpitner]

Dan, your stuff would work for a C-Tier since there's no player pack requirement.  B-Tiers for am's require a $10 value player pack.  Plus the they require a payout of 85% value on C-Tier, 100% value on B-Tier.  Your $10 entry fee would work if it was 100% trophy only, but I don't know what the PDGA's take would be on something like that.

I do agree with some of the sentiments that $10 walk-up fee would turn away more people than necessary - especially if you're not a PDGA member.  I know that not everyone has easy internet access - they have to go to a library or wherever to get their surfing done.  I could see how you wouldn't want to use a public computer to enter credit card info.  I've had people that didn't have a checking account or any credit cards talk to me about the frustrations of the $5 extra fee after mentioning the mail-in option.  Then I offer buying a money order, but money orders cost $1-$2 now to get one.  I could see making the entry fee $30 including the fee, but that would just make payouts or player pack amounts go down because you only have so much money to work with from the start.  It's impractical to think that you would get sponsorship for every tournament to make up the lost expenses there.

One thing that I tried was to boost the perks for pre-reg.  If you pre-reg'd you got $20 player pack instead of $15.  I think it spurned a couple extra registrations, but not a ton.  But again, that extra $5 funny is an extra $3 cash that you need to eat somewhere on the budget sheet.

I guess one could find a happy medium and instead of $10 walk up make it $5 on top of the online price - so $38 - essentially $8 walk up fee.  It still feels a little pricey.  I'd rather have you play than caddy.

[Dan Michler]

Dan, your stuff would work for a C-Tier since there's no player pack requirement.  B-Tiers for am's require a $10 value player pack.  Plus the they require a payout of 85% value on C-Tier, 100% value on B-Tier.  Your $10 entry fee would work if it was 100% trophy only, but I don't know what the PDGA's take would be on something like that.

Clearly this kind of drastic change would require a change in the culture of amateur disc golf, along with a change in PDGA requirements.  Or you can just give away items like can cozies as prizes and value them at whatever you need to value them to meet the payout requirements.  This worked for Peoria in '04...

[Bruce Brakel]

Mostly what a big day-of registration penalty does for me is cause me to think the TD is a rip-off artist and then I'm less inclined to play that tournament.  Same thing with charging a paypal fee that is 2 to 4 times what the paypal fee really is.  Have you ever checked out at the grocery store and then on top of the price of your groceries they charged a "cashier fee"?  Those concepts were pioneered by am-scammers and they are always a big red flag for me.

I can understand charging a day-of fee if day-of registrants actually cost you money or somehow detract from the process for the rest of the players.  Otherwise, that kind of stuff just encourages me to go play the cool new course near me that most chuckers have not discovered yet. 

[tacimala]

OK so maybe reducing the $3 fee closer to the actual fee would also do the trick. Either way, if it weeds out some people that are on the fence and not trying to help forward the professional side of the sport (professional including amateurs playing in sanctioned events) then maybe they aren't built for playing in those events. We clearly have enough players in the region, plenty enough tournaments almost every weekend in the hot season within 150 miles, so why not premier events that inspire you to pre-reg. Brett has started this with the CAC, and I'm truly not trying to downplay anyone else that runs events by any means by using that as an example. My original post was still food for thought, but for the most part has only brought up new food for thought.

And I agree with you 100% Bruce on the rip-off artist comment and fortunately those TD's kill themselves off from running further events, but if you are up front with the fees and explain that they go to pro added cash for B tiers and up or it goes to concrete funds or whatever, then it shouldn't be an issue. If it's not explained at all, then yea, f that. If you don't want to donate, pre-reg.

[stpitner]

The "typical" actual cost on the fees for a $30-$33 entry fee is about $1.75.  I know that with DISContinuum a lot, if not all, of the overages went to the A-Tier added cash.  I can't speak for what all of the other sources have the money going towards.  I can't say mine specifically goes to one fund or another, but it does help subsidize added cash that comes out of my pocket ($420 from this year's IOS #1 added cash was from met, $480 last year at the Irish was from me, for example)

Now you're making me wish I was playing the CAC Taylor, instead of just providing merchandise!