How are clubs currently handling registrations, payments, and communication?

Running Chess Tournaments
1

I’ve been working with a local chess program and noticed that most clubs and organizers are still managing things across multiple tools, usually some combination of Google Forms, email, spreadsheets, and separate payment methods.

It works, but once events get even moderately sized, it can become difficult to keep everything organized, especially with registrations, communication, and tracking payments.

I’m curious how others here are currently handling this:

  • Tournament registrations

  • Communication with players

  • Payment collection

  • General event organization

Have you found a setup that works well long term, or is it mostly a matter of piecing together different tools?

2

There are some newer systems that handle registration, payments, tournament operations, and related tasks.

I’ve been building this one and have had success both myself and with other clubs using it: TournaChess

A couple of others worth checking out are Caissa (solid, reliable, has been used heavily in my area for a while) and ChessNut (haven’t used it myself, but another nice option worth checking out).

3

I am still doing small (4-40 player) cash only with Swiss-Sys/Chess Roster - simple email me if you will be playing & I don’t pair until you are checked in/paid. – I would probably just turn on Chess Roster collecting $ and pass the cost on to the players if it got too crazy to manage. I am use to pairing with Swiss-Sys and it is what the two groups I help with TDing use (they both have forms for registration that takes them to paypal for $ semi-custom? - they both use constant contact for communications).

I don’t have a lot of incentive to change my workflow. Although I have gotten some pressure to start taking personal venmo so maybe that will be my big change.

There are so many options out there now for pairing and/or registration and more on the way.
I think folks will have favorites and they might not even be optimal for their workflow.
I also think newer entries to the market space have a lot of inertia to overcome for folks that have been running things for a long time.

4

Checkout http://chessnut.club. where it has a pro version and a midgrade version.

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