tmagchesspgh:
What number of advanced entries do you think would be necessary to justify using these various paying systems?
Our club has never used advanced entries as part of its registration process. In the past, when I directed for other chess clubs, the number of advanced registrations was never more than 40% of the total entries. Even with registrations on site, it never seemed to affect the timing of pairing of a first round by more than 10 minutes.
I can see requiring advance entry if you need to have a bigger room or more tables and chairs, but for the most part this seems to be unnecessary for many local organizers and another reason for a player to reject playing in a tournament. In this era of work, players may not know that they can play until the day of the event. I would rather give them the option of playing rather than punishing them with an extra fee.
As a player, if I see that an event has a $10 or more on site entry fee compared to the advanced entry fee, I ignore the tournament. I am a fairly active player and will put up with a lot, but a large disparity between the advance and the on site fee leaves me cold. For that extra money, I can do other things, like go to a movie or buy a double mushroom pizza.
When my only cost is 3% (because the other fees are passed onto the players) I don’t see it as a big deal. For many tournaments that’s $2 total on the EF, not much per player. So I’d use them to save the time/effort.
Also - some sites (many libraries for example) do not allow money to be collected/distributed on site. So, this type of arrangement and PayPal prizes would solve that.