I will be hosting a tournament in a area that has not seen chess in a long time. I moved to this area in August and immediately saw that chess tournaments were not being held in the southern part of the state. Hopefully I will get some participants and change the chess climate in this area. My goal is to get tournaments in the area but long term is to have weekly events. This is difficult though since it is a area with limited financial resources. If anyone has any ideas please comment.
Looks like there are only 3 current members within 25 miles of your tournament, 26 within 50 miles, 75 within 75 miles and 134 within 100 miles,
2 of the 3 within 25 have played in an OTB tournament in the last year, 18 of the 26 within 50 miles, 45 of the 75 within 75 miles and 72 of the 134 within 100 miles.
An email blast will likely reach half or so of them due to opt-outs and players with no email address on file. (That stat is several years out of date, I don’t know if it has gone up or down since 2020.)
I was thinking the same thing but the opt-out would make it difficult. Thank you as always.
Email blasts aren’t that expensive. The Georgia Chess Association might be able to help promote it, too.
I had some conversation with them but they have abandoned the southern part of the state. So I am on my own to show them that this part of the state is worth it.
Good luck!
Unless you can get very local players to participate you are in an extreme chess travel disadvantage. If someone has the choice to play in town at well established events or travel to a startup, it is seldom going to work well. Travel costs & time alone is often enough for folks to decide on where to play.
I just had a tournament in a wonderful new chess center on the other side of the county from where most tournaments are played and I only got 4 to play with most comments for non-participation was the 30-50 minute travel vs the 10-20 minute travel.
If you offer something unique you might get folks to travel? We have several Friday daytime (mostly retired guys) events and folks do travel to participate. $3-$5 to cover expenses and some nominal – prizes. I’d say that half the folks travel >30 minutes to play in them.
From what I’ve seen, you might need to work on creating a chess ecosystem in your area. Get schools to offer after school chess, which then creates tournament players. Parents are motivated by the idea of having their child excel or potentially having a young Hikaru on their hands. Have adult venues like bars or game places do casual unrated chess to create feeders for tournaments. There are probably lots of casual players that could be candidates for beginner tournaments but would feel crushed if they went in and lost to a bunch of 1500s. I would think about how to develop that ecosystem as a whole with a focus on beginner events and knowing that only a small percentage will eventually make it to higher levels.
My club has some events each year with Pizza! The club foots the bill but asks for donations. But yeah, it is an established club with a track record. You might be bringing a lot of pizza you paid for home with you…
hmmm…. require pre-registration? That way you know how many pizzas at least…
I like the idea. Pre-registration is not really a big deal yet in a small area like this with very little chess. So far though I do have 7 people registered from surrounding areas.
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(Going through a similar thing for my club. Gladly, it definitely has more active uscf chess players in the area.) Since you already committed to holding the tournament, I recommend having flyers detailing where the club meets weekly. (Talk to a coffee shop, bar, food hall, or etc and set up a night for weekly meetings.) Setup a facebook page or something online with the details. I also recommend an eventbrite recurrent event for these weekly meetings, to hammer down the SEO game.
Talk to your local paper and a local radio, about them doing a blast before or after the event. Take pictures.
Also hold non-uscf events!! Shepherdstown Chess Club had a puzzle night last year, where prizes were just coupons/discounts from local businesses. (None of our uscf members came, but it was packed event.) We have plans for a chess variant night next.
Also want to mention they may be causal chess scene at the local senior center, churches, college, or even smokeshops/bars. (You’d have to ask around but they usually exist or existed within the last 4 years.)
I partnered up with my local tourism center and flyers are out online and to the public. I will not do non uscf events for many reasons. Prizes will be my normal 80% based on number of entries. Funny that your commenting on this because you played in one of my events a couple of years ago when I lived in Columbus Ohio.
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Some ideas / things I’ve done twenty years ago. Though I’ve been fortunate to be in a city that is filled with lots of schools with chess programs. But I got chess going at a school that didn’t have a program. I taught for an hour after school every Friday. Then I started a “free” class in my house at Sunday nights. I asked everyone to bring $10 for pizza and I taught lessons. Adults would bring their children and then stick around themselves. I started having tournaments eventually. Very cheap ($10). The first times there were trophies. I still run 3-round tournaments once/week at a restaurant on Friday nights with small prizes. A couple of years ago, I had 4-10 players / night. Now I usually have 14-22 players/night. And to me, it’s good. But what are you after? What I mean… I remind them that the fun of chess is playing live games in person. Instead of expensive tournaments that have large prizes that are kind of exclusive, my goal is make tournaments fun. $10 entries. That’s cheap entertainment for 3 hours on a Friday night. I want to make it so children and adults who want to enjoy chess can come and have fun almost every week.
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I like your idea but I stay away from scholastics. I prefer opens. Unfortunately certain people ruined scholastics for everyone.
No, I purposely don’t do scholastics. I often have about a 75% school-aged and 25% adult mix.
The parents ask me doesn’t it intimidate the kids to be playing adults. My reply is nowhere near as intimidating for the adult playing the 2nd grade girl.
I prefer a good mix of adults and kids. I do not like to play favorites with either. Plus chess should be all and many focus to much on scholastic. Adults deserve the same opportunities as scholastics.