Congresses not passing on game fee discount to entrants?

[PaulJackson]

Organizers of ECF graded congresses no longer have to pay the grading fee, entrants now have to be either silver/gold ECF members or pay the £6 pay to play fee. Are congress organizers going to pass on this discount to their entrant's entry fee?

I've just looked at the upcoming Leicester congres, the entry fees have increased in a couple of sections, although the prize money in those sections has increased slightly in line with that. The total prize money has increased by £190 but if the same number of people enter those sections that did last year (70) then the increased entry fee for those sections would be £140. However if the same number of people enter the congress that did last year (102) then the congress is saving a game fee of £2.90 per person, which is over £300.

In the past ECF members were able to get a discount off their entry fee as game fee wouldn't need to be paid by the organizer for that member. If the game fee doesn't have to be paid by the organizer now then shouldn't that saving be passed on to entrants still?

I haven't looked at any other congress entry fees yet but I'm interested to see if they will pass on the saving to their entrants or not.

[Mick Norris]

You mean this one?
http://www.leicesterchess.co.uk/

"English players in the FIDE Open section must be Gold members of the ECF. All players in the Major and Minor must be Silver members of the ECF, or upgrade to Silver membership, or pay the £6 ECF Pay to Play fee."

[PaulJackson]

You mean this one?
http://www.leicesterchess.co.uk/

"English players in the FIDE Open section must be Gold members of the ECF. All players in the Major and Minor must be Silver members of the ECF, or upgrade to Silver membership, or pay the £6 ECF Pay to Play fee."

yes?

Organizers of ECF graded congresses no longer have to pay the grading fee

Are congress organizers going to pass on this discount to their entrant's entry fee?

[IM Jack Rudd]

There's no particular reason a supplier needs to pass on a discount to its customers (this is a general point, and not one restricted to chess tournaments). I'd be surprised if the demand for entering chess tournaments were price-elastic enough that lowering the entry fees made economic sense.

[Alex Holowczak]

The Birmingham Rapidplay has an entry fee of £22, with a £6 discount for ECF Silver (or above) members. So we are passing the discount on. (Various junior discounts apply.)

The Atkins has gone the other way, and said that the entry fee is £x, but if you're not an ECF Silver (or above) member, then the entry fee is £(x + 6).

Two ways of skinning the same cat.

[Mick Norris]

Organizers of ECF graded congresses no longer have to pay the grading fee

I'm obviously missing your point

Organisers don't have to pay game fee any more for non-ECF members, but have to pay £6 per player for non-ECF silver (or above) members

So they often but not always used to charge £x, or a reduced entry fee of approx £x - game fee for ECF-members

They now charge £x, or a reduced entry fee of £x-6 for ECF silver (or above) members

The players don't pay the Play to Pay fee to the ECF, the organisers do

[PaulJackson]

The Birmingham Rapidplay has an entry fee of £22, with a £6 discount for ECF Silver (or above) members. So we are passing the discount on.

How are you passing the discount on?? If an ECF member enters they get a £6 discount which means they pay £16. Last year the entry was £16 when the organiser had to pay the game fee and ECF members got a £1.50 discount off their entry and only paid £14.50.

If you increase the rapidplay entry fee by £6 and then give a £6 discount that is not 'passing the discount on'

[Alex Holowczak]

The Birmingham Rapidplay has an entry fee of £22, with a £6 discount for ECF Silver (or above) members. So we are passing the discount on.

How are you passing the discount on?? If an ECF member enters they get a £6 discount which means they pay £16. Last year the entry was £16 when the organiser had to pay the game fee and ECF members got a £1.50 discount off their entry and only paid £14.50.

If you increase the rapidplay entry fee by £6 and then give a £6 discount that is not 'passing the discount on'

The entry fee has gone up by about £1 this year for reasons nothing to do with the membership scheme - notably an increase in venue costs. Had the membership scheme never have happened, then one of two things would have happened:
(1) The entry fee might have been even higher than £16.
(2) The prize money would have decreased.

Personally, I think £16 is as much as I'd want to charge for a one-day Rapidplay, so the prize money - which is very generous at £1,000 across the four sections - would probably have come down.

[Roger de Coverly]

I'm obviously missing your point

Last year's entry form is still on this site.

Last year, they wanted £ 25 for the Open and £ 23 for each of the other two sections. There was a £ 2 discount for ECF and Leics members.

This year, they again want £ 25 for the Open, but there's no discount and you have to be a Gold member. The price for the other two sections is £ 25 each, but an extra £ 6 for non Silver members.

So if you aren't a member of the ECF and you wanted to play in one of the two lower sections, last year it would have cost you £ 23 and this year £ 31. Even if you are a Silver member, last year would cost you £ 21 and this year £ 25. So the costs of the two lower sections have been increased by £ 4 for members and £ 8 for non-members, whilst the top section has increased by £ 2.

Last year's Game Fee would have been £ 2.90 for 5 rounds, so it wasn't all being passed on in full. In effect the entry fees have been increased by £ 4 for each tournament, but the Open is only £ 2, perhaps because the ECF have removed the additional charge to have it FIDE rated. Non-members would have had to pay an extra £ 3 on top of this, which seems to have become £ 4, perhaps because the membership discount wasn't passed on in full anyway.

[PaulJackson]

Organizers of ECF graded congresses no longer have to pay the grading fee

I'm obviously missing your point

Organisers don't have to pay game fee any more for non-ECF members, but have to pay £6 per player for non-ECF silver (or above) members

So they often but not always used to charge £x, or a reduced entry fee of approx £x - game fee for ECF-members

They now charge £x, or a reduced entry fee of £x-6 for ECF silver (or above) members

The players don't pay the Play to Pay fee to the ECF, the organisers do

Previously your entry fee to an ECF graded congress used to include the cost of the organizer having to pay the ECF to grade your game. If somebody was an ECF member they would often get a discount because it saved the congress organizer money because game fee wouldn't have to be paid. Now the organizers don't have to pay the ECF to grade the games but I'm seeing that some congresses are still charging the same entry and not passing the savings back to the entrants. Last season people were telling me they expected the entry fees to go down.

[Roger de Coverly]

Personally, I think £16 is as much as I'd want to charge for a one-day Rapidplay

I'm not going to disagree with that, but you are charging £ 22 for a non-member or not the right type of member. If you have any sort of ambition to attempt to attract new, returning or casual players, it's the headline cost to non-members which is the driver.

[Sean Hewitt]

Hi Paul,

You're fortunate that the organiser of this congress reads the forum

The game fee bill for the Atkins congress last year was £54 - not £300. Don't forget there was no game fee for ECF members last year, Leicestershire is an MO, and that the majority of players in the congress last year were ECF members. We lost a small amount of money running the congress in 2011.

We want to break even. In order to achieve that either entry fees have to go up, costs have to come down or we have to get more players. This years costs have (inevitably) gone up so what we've done is put the entry fees up a bit, but we've also increased the first prizes in each section to (hopefully) entice a few more entries.

It seems to be working so far as we have more entries now than we did this time last year. If this continues we will be able to offer more grading prizes as promised on the entry form.

Have we done something wrong?

[Ian Kingston]

Have we done something wrong?

Yes - my fiancée doesn't think that me taking a half-point bye on the Saturday afternoon in order to get married is an acceptable notion, so I'm blaming you for the clash of dates. Otherwise, obviously, I'd be there.

More seriously: to draw any conclusions about this issue would involve comparing the changes in a significant number of congress entry fees from last season to this, making assumptions about what the entry fees would have been in an increased game fee regime. More work than I'd fancy doing!

[PaulJackson]

we've also increased the first prizes in each section

Apoligies, I hadn't realized the prize money has been increased in the open section too, I had been told it was just the bottom 2 sections.

Have we done something wrong?

Not that I know of. ECF members don't get a £2 discount and have to pay £2 more, but slight increase in prize money and congress made a loss last year. That sounds reasonable to me.
I was interested to know if any congresses were going to be passing on the savings made by not having to pay game fee. I understand the Leek congress be doing this which I think is very commendable of them.

[Roger de Coverly]

More seriously: to draw any conclusions about this issue would involve comparing the changes in a significant number of congress entry fees from last season to this, making assumptions about what the entry fees would have been in an increased game fee regime. More work than I'd fancy doing!

It's not difficult. If Game Fee had gone up by 20p per game, that adds £ 1 to the entry fee for a five round Congress. If the previous 50% discount for rapid plays had continued, the extra entry fee would have been 50p.