Congress Fees Again

[Sean Hewitt]

Following on from the congress fees topic, I have a question.

We normally run our graded sections with an entry fee of £25 (ish) and a prize structure of £250, £125, £75 plus grading prizes and get about 30 players. [Let's call this [OPTION A]

I'm trying two alternatives at forthcoming events

£20 entry fee, prize structure £200, £100, £50 - I expect we'll get 30 ish entries [OPTION B]

and

£22 entry fee, prize structure £120, £60, £30 - with players allocated to sections of 12-18 players (so if we got 30 entries there would be two sections). [OPTION C]

My question is what do people prefer? Which option would make the more likely to enter?

OPTION A - Higher entry fee, higher prize money, 1/10 chance of winning a prize

OPTION B - Lower entry fee, mid-range prize money, 1/10 chance of winning a prize

OPTION C - Mid range entry fee, lower prize money, 1/5 chance of winning a prize

Bet now!

[Ljubica Lazarevic]

From my point of view, a swing of £5 is not going to affect my decision to play a tournament. Expensive accommodation, venues that are only accessible by car, and stuffy church halls will.

[John Sargent]

I'd personally be most interested in option B. It's probably easier to say this given I'm not usually in any position to win prize money, but it's generally accepted that a chunk of the prize money at a tournament will be offset by travel and accommodation costs, etc. - so the £50 lower prize money wouldn't affect my wanting to enter at all even if I was in a position to challenge for some of it. The lower entrance free, however, will always attract more players which may mean a more social and fun tournament.

[Gareth Harley-Yeo]

I like the idea of option C so I've gone for that one, although B sounds good too. I don't think the majority of people sign up to e2e4 events for the prize money as we can be fairly certain this will be collected by one of the GMs playing, so lower entry fees should in theory attract more players.

Out of interest, who do people look at first when they open an entry form, the entry fee or the prize money?