English Chess Forum

I saw recently a little known tournament charging £60 entry. I saw at the time they had 2 entries with 3/4 days to go to the start. I said is this really the entry fee. They said yeah. I said no wonder it’s not got any entries. For lower sections how is £60 justifiable? We should all stand up and refuse to pay this amount. Especially when there are much better tournaments all over the uk with better conditions and venue etc that are charging £40 ish.

What are peoples views on £60 entry fees for non fide rated tournaments that never get high entries in your first place.it’s getting out of hand. I can afford it but principle makes me say no way. I should add they never got more than 3 and a few of there sections were cancelled.

Out of interest, what was their prize fund like? It's a high entry fee, but not an unreasonable one if you also have high prizes.

I vaguely remember entry fees were around £30 around the turn of the century, lets say 1998 (first prize around £300 back then)

Now if you take a 2,5% average CPI rate over that time (from actual data) then today you'll get £53 with £550 first prize, as an equivalent

So you could argue the £60 is a like-for-like entry fee, but I do suspect prize funds have been squeezed as well; so the only theory is that costs have increased significantly more than 2.5% per year over the same time period to justify keeping prizes lower

Lee Bullock wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 26, 2024 8:49 pm

We should all stand up and refuse to pay this amount.

I should add they never got more than 3 and a few of there sections were cancelled.

So it seems people did decide £60 was too much, or there was some other off-putting factor.

From what I can see, some organisers can successfully run tournaments with entry fees of £30 - £40 so I see no reason to pay more.

Something else to watch out for is unreasonable terms and conditions. I saw one event recently that said that if the organiser rejected someone's entry the organiser would deduct any costs they incurred in doing so when refunding the entry fee.

I always look at the relationship between the prizes and the entry fees. An event local to me, which I would otherwise have played in, was asking £50 fee (for 5 x 60 +30 games) with £150 1st prize, per section. Not in a swanky hotel, either. We acknowledge paying those entry fees at supporting events at the British, essentially to support the overall event, but not for a modest event in a community hall. I think this is the crossover between events traditionally run by volunteers, and those run as a business by organisers. Nothing wrong with the latter, of course, but the market should set prices, which seems to be the case at the event flagged by Lee.

Graham Borrowdale wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 27, 2024 1:12 pm

I always look at the relationship between the prizes and the entry fees.

Even twenty five or thirty years ago, some Swiss tournaments in the USA would have entry fees measured in hundreds of dollars. But they offered prizes measured in thousands of dollars, tens of thousands even.

My impression is that entry fees for UK tournaments have edged upwards, but prize money hasn't. There can be a noticeable difference between tournaments, generally once a year, run mostly by local volunteers and tournaments that seem part of a regular circuit. The 4NCL tournaments have managed to combine reasonable entry fees with attractive prize funds. Perhaps the commission from the sale of hotel rooms makes a difference, although they are becoming less frequent.

Alan Walton wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 27, 2024 11:17 am

I vaguely remember entry fees were around £30 around the turn of the century, lets say 1998 (first prize around £300 back then)

Now if you take a 2,5% average CPI rate over that time (from actual data) then today you'll get £53 with £550 first prize, as an equivalent

So you could argue the £60 is a like-for-like entry fee, but I do suspect prize funds have been squeezed as well; so the only theory is that costs have increased significantly more than 2.5% per year over the same time period to justify keeping prizes lower

Yes, massively so I think

Venue hire is up considerably; when we had the annual Rapidplay at Bury years ago, the cost of hiring the Town Hall rose to a point it was uneconomic

Since then, there's the issue of equipment, with digital clocks expensive; and the lack of sponsorship too

It's pretty easy for anyone to offer to help with their local congress, and thus find out the cost pressures that everyone is under

"Venue hire is up considerably"

That's probably the main factor - venues are desperate to recover what they lost during Covid lockdown. Hotels are probably still dealing with the backlog of wedding receptions.

Lee Bullock wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 26, 2024 8:49 pm

I saw recently a little known tournament charging £60 entry. I saw at the time they had 2 entries with 3/4 days to go to the start. I said is this really the entry fee. They said yeah. I said no wonder it’s not got any entries. For lower sections how is £60 justifiable? We should all stand up and refuse to pay this amount. Especially when there are much better tournaments all over the uk with better conditions and venue etc that are charging £40 ish.

What are peoples views on £60 entry fees for non fide rated tournaments that never get high entries in your first place.it’s getting out of hand. I can afford it but principle makes me say no way. I should add they never got more than 3 and a few of there sections were cancelled.

Three entries for the entire congress??

Personally the low prize/cost ratio is a huge turn off for me and it rules out about 90% of events. It feels like tournament prizes these days have become a pretty token thing, unless you happen to live on the doorstep the travel and accommodation costs+ high entry fees are going to ensure that in a lot of cases even the first prize winner is going to make a financial loss.

Fortunately, for organisers, chess had received a huge influx of new players over the past 4 years who are unaware of how low things have fallen and seem to be willing to pay the fees but whether it will be sustainable in the future is debatable.

The entire suite of HJCA promoted events adopt a standard entry fee of £30 with a typical prize fund of £300 apart from the Hampshire Megafinal.

This includes those that are FIDE rated.

John Upham wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 27, 2024 5:03 pm

The entire suite of HJCA promoted events adopt a standard entry fee of £30 with a typical prize fund of £300 apart from the Hampshire Megafinal.

I've never seen why junior events should have cash prizes at all. Trophies should suffice.

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 27, 2024 5:29 pm

John Upham wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 27, 2024 5:03 pm

The entire suite of HJCA promoted events adopt a standard entry fee of £30 with a typical prize fund of £300 apart from the Hampshire Megafinal.

I've never seen why junior events should have cash prizes at all. Trophies should suffice.

The young ones (i'd say up to about 9) quite like trophies but children in years 5 and above much prefer a BACS payment.

Also its much easier to manage monetary prizes in the event of ties and other difficulties.

IM Jack Rudd wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 27, 2024 7:50 am

Out of interest, what was their prize fund like? It's a high entry fee, but not an unreasonable one if you also have high prizes.

Hi Jack.

IN EACH SECTION
Winner £160
2nd £100
*** Rating U1800 £80
*** Rating U1500 £80
*** 20+ participants in the section.

So high potential of being lower as they will never get high entrants with £60 entry.

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Three entries for the entire congress??
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Yes. 4 counting 2 of the sections. The open went ahead. Other 3 sections were cancelled.