Dan Byrom wrote: ↑Tue Nov 28, 2023 11:27 am
JackHurst wrote: ↑Tue Nov 28, 2023 9:38 am
2)
Prizes at Events:
The variation in prizes between events is fine, and I have no suggestions for improvements. Hosts are doing a great job with prizes. While trophies are a nice reward for winning an event, I understand that sourcing them adds extra time and financial burdens for hosts, so their occasional absence is completely forgivable.
It's crossed my mind that Co:Events are much better value for money for stronger players, because over the course of a season they can expect to get a fair few bottles of wine / boxes of chocolates. So I think having extra prizes available for rudest word, toughest opponents, tightest margins etc. are a good thing.
Some thoughts on prizes from a now fairly experienced event organiser:
In my experience prizes are usually a later and lesser consideration for event organisers, precisely because they don't impact everyone. Normally, planning an event goes something like this:
1 - Find and book a venue
2 - Based on the cost of the venue and how many people you anticipate might sign up to your event, set the entry price
3 - Wait for the entries to come in and see what your budget is going to be
4 - If you get more entries than expected so have a decent surplus in your budget after venue has been paid for, start buying some actual prizes rather than just token rubbish
In my recent experience or organising events this has led to:
MK 2022: Entries were lower than expected due to train strikes so there was very little room in the budget for prizes but with it being end-of-year showpiece I thought some prizes should be expected so managed to get some beers and wine by taking free trials at subscription services and just paying for delivery.
Leeds 2023: Entry fees never recouped the cost of the venue so the event ran at a loss, the budget for prizes never even reached 0. No prizes bought. Luckily I got given a goat-themed drink in a goodie bag for a race I did the week before the event so chucked that in.
MK 2023: Entries were initially slightly lower than anticipated so, accounting for late sign-ups, bought some niceish prizes without going overboard a few weeks before the event. Entries then doubled in the last month, inflating the budget considerably. Due to the nature of funding of Finals events there was no need to spend all this as it can save money from the FOCAL coffers for next year, so no extra prizes were bought at short notice.
With MK accounting for two tournaments and some prizes to recognise efforts over the full year, there was little room for spot prizes given the limited prizes bought on the initially expected budget. Had I had more time in the few days before the event this year when entries (and therefore funds) were continuing to flood in, I would have gone out and bought some chocolates to come up with more spot prizes. But I didn't. It did also occur to me that if I were to buy chocolates I would personally only be comfortable buying chocolates that do not contain any animal products. These chocolates are typically harder to come by, more expensive, and less popular than common brands that the recipients of the prizes might find more welcome and better value for money, so I was conflicted about spending eventgoer's money on prizes in a way that they might deem inefficient due to my own personal beliefs.
Basically what I'm getting at with these examples for the understanding of those who have never organised an event themselves is: it's hard to control the quantity and quality of prizes as they can only be bought with the surplus money generated by extra entries, which typically come too late to allow sufficient time to budget for and buy extra prizes, and sometimes don't come at all. Alternatives could be:
- Have a cut-off date for entries (e.g. all entry fees must be paid no later than 2 weeks before event date): I think this would be a shame when it is not necessary for operational reasons as some people would inevitably miss out. I've always accepted entries at very short notice, even when it can cause some organisational headaches (we had to rejig the tables in a hurry at MK this weekend as we had two unexpected arrivals in the half hour before the event started!) as it's always the more, the merrier for me.
- Set the entry fee higher to deliberately allow room to spend money on prizes: I don't like this idea either as I really don't think a significant portion of an event budget should be spent on prizes for the reasons given by others in this thread: they disproportionately go to higher-skilled players. But the money being spent is sourced equally from players of all abilities so in my opinion (discounting trophies, which I think are a justifiable expense within reason) the spending of the money should benefit all entrants equally.
So it's hard to come up with a solution for prizes that will work for any events, let alone most of them. I do think though that where there is a decent budget for prizes it is right to make as many as possible of them available to players who might not win one of the podium positions. Examples of these in the past have been:
- The 'Tuff Luck' award, which can be calculated by Graeme's excellent atropine software
- The 'Tim Down' award, which can be calculated by Graeme's excellent atropine software
- Match of the Day prize, where a prize is given to the best/closest game of the day; this could easily be a closely fought but lower-scoring game between two players in the lower half of the standings for the day
- Best word spot of the day*: this doesn't have to be some fancy anagrammy one, at many events the best spot of the day is a more everyday word from players who aren't winning the event with crazy learned words (examples I remember from some of my events in the past: CIABATTA and MASCARAED)
- Rude word prize*: it's a bit juvenile but it's fun and anyone can win it. Given a lot of the ruder words are 4s and 5s there's a good chance the top players aren't as likely to declare them as players who score lower.
- Random spot prizes: these could be drawn entirely randomly, which is fair but a bit boring, or you could set something up like 'whoever picks a numbers round with a target closest to this number*' or 'closest points total to this number' or 'whoever finishes in this random position' (preferably a position lower in the table!), etc.
* = these are difficult to do in Bristol style events as everyone plays to the same rounds. In Lincoln-style events I really like prizes like these to recognise the standout rounds of the day that most of the room won't have seen, although it does require the host to have time to sift through all the scorecards to check rounds.
Oh and PS. while I recognise my alcohol-free spirits approach at MK this year may have been a bit overboard (but forgivably balanced in contrast to last year's all-alcohol selection), I do think that alcoholic prizes should only make up a very small portion of the prizes. Like, 2 or 3 at most unless there are dozens of prizes. There are many in the community who don't partake in alcohol for a variety of reasons, and it would be pretty awkward if an under-18 won a prize (not sure if this has happened before with whizzkids like Conor, Maus, Ronan?) and only had alcohol to choose from. I think Robbo has done briliantly here with his Robinson's fruit juice prizes. They're quirky and fun and he picks some great flavours!