Tournament Entry Fees

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**ryuken87**

I don't begrudge anyone making that money for running a 40k event if it's run well and everyone has fun. $55 is about normal for a 2 day event. In the UK £35-45 is typical which may or may not include lunch or prizes.

I've only ever run 1 day events before but it is very stressful, especially if you have to act as the bye player as well. It's a long 12+ hour day when you have to set up and pack away, and the prep time is also significant.

A table/mat/terrain isn't cheap, buying pre painted is probably £150-250 depending on the quality, and if it's painted by the TO then why shouldn't they be paid for that time and the materials?

**Corrode**

I don't really understand the OP's problem and why you seem to be so insistent on knowing exactly how your entry is being spent. Either the tournament is of a quality you want to attend and you feel the entry fee is worthwhile, or it isn't and you don't. Do you also demand an accounting of how your money was spent when you eat in a restaurant?

**godardc**

Tbh I have never seen a tournament more expensive than 35€ ($40) here in France. And that the European Team Championship qualifications tournaments we are speaking about, not a casual thing. I don't understand how you can pay that much but different countries different cultures.
I paid about 25 for a two days tournaments in my FLGS and we had lunch included and small prices and free objective markers.

Stevefamine wrote:
He has 32 tables of terrain and an event hall he can use for free? Bruv what is this mecca and how do we attend? Your tournament organizer has been gifted a great opportunity.

I've helped run and judge at two GTs with around 50+ players 40k and 50+ players Fantasy before. 80-90% of the cost is renting the space. The one event I rented out a 9000sq ft ballroom at a Westin and the other was 7000sq ft in a Marriott. We specifically had to pay a high per diem/ additional cost to stay longer hours. Friday Night, Saturday, Sunday and they wanted an absurd hourly cost to stay past 6-7pm when we opened the hall at 9:00 am. We then had to rent two uHaul box trucks and load up tables from different games stores + what Gamesworkshop provided for us from their GT tournament circuit at one of the events. Followed by returning the trucks / swiping a lot of personal credit cards and recording who paid for what. This involved a lot of unpaid lifting and help from people who showed up on Friday for casual gaming and setup to get games in early. The events also had a beverage counter where you can buy drinks and grab water bottles.

No one was paid anything but we gave out free event tickets to give to to a friend if you helped setup and judge/organize and meal vouchers. They offered a hotel discount which we had to also had a minimum # of rooms to rent out with the promo code given for the event.

We ended negative at $500 at one event with ticket prices being $55 - the other event with a ticket price of $70 we were negative $1300 without anyone being paid. We had paid the negative difference through a friendly local game store giving out 20-30% off GW product at the event and hosting a stand at the event (similar to what Warstore previously did). prize support involved vouchers to use at that stand/store. We also had a few paid tables were people can sell their product (mdf company, an ebay bits store guy, and so on)

I did not handle the taxes at all.

edit: I will happily pay $100 for a two day 40k tournament with 5 games if its at a nice venue. $20/game is an alright price. 40% painting score? Perfect.

You lost about 1,300$ ?! Was it planned like you knew it was gonna cost you and you still did it or did you thought you would make at least as much as you spent ?
Would you still organize tournaments after these experiences ?

**ERJAK**

Tamwulf wrote:
I'm being savaged on the Facebook page for the event for asking where my $55 is going. And the TO is not answering any of my e-mails. The price doesn't bother me all that much, especially if the quality of the tournament is there, and frankly, I don't think it's there. It sounds all kinds of sketchy and that the TO is about to walk away with a $1000 weekend for little to no effort.

So don't go? Don't buy a ticket? etc. etc. All the other players that are attending are just enabling this behavior. What happens next month? "Hey! Another tournament! $55!"

How about a different question: What is a reasonable price for a two day, five round Warhammer 40K tournament? What do you expect? What do you want? What kind of support? How many judges/players do you think should be there? Do you expect a player packet? Printed out missions? How about prize support? If there is any money left over, what do you expect to happen to it?

'little effort?' Having run tournaments in the past I can tell you an event that size is an enormous pain in the arse that requires weeks of planning and promotion, tons of logistics, and quite a lot of headache. It could absolutely be worth 1000$.

Besides, first law of supply and demand is the price is whatever the buyer is willing to buy at and the seller is willing to sell at. If 55$ is the equilibrium point of their supply/demand graph, then 55$ is what it costs.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

ryuken87 wrote:
I don't begrudge anyone making that money for running a 40k event if it's run well and everyone has fun. $55 is about normal for a 2 day event. In the UK £35-45 is typical which may or may not include lunch or prizes.

I've only ever run 1 day events before but it is very stressful, especially if you have to act as the bye player as well. It's a long 12+ hour day when you have to set up and pack away, and the prep time is also significant.

A table/mat/terrain isn't cheap, buying pre painted is probably £150-250 depending on the quality, and if it's painted by the TO then why shouldn't they be paid for that time and the materials?

I had a tournament of FOUR, let me repeat that FOUR people go so badly sideways that it spawned a dozen memes in my area and I didn't even consider running another event for 2 years.

**Ordana**

godardc wrote:
Tbh I have never seen a tournament more expensive than 35€ ($40) here in France. And that the European Team Championship qualifications tournaments we are speaking about, not a casual thing. I don't understand how you can pay that much but different countries different cultures.
I paid about 25 for a two days tournaments in my FLGS and we had lunch included and small prices and free objective markers.

FLGS means no rent for a big hall, that helps a lot to bring down the price.

**tneva82**

godardc wrote:
Tbh I have never seen a tournament more expensive than 35€ ($40) here in France. And that the European Team Championship qualifications tournaments we are speaking about, not a casual thing. I don't understand how you can pay that much but different countries different cultures.
I paid about 25 for a two days tournaments in my FLGS and we had lunch included and small prices and free objective markers.

That price basically means somebody is donating for free terrain and tables or somebody is paying out of his own pocket to run just for fun of it. But that's not particularly last standing.

Now if FLGS is subsidiading stuff like terrain to help increase own sales that's one thing. But not everybody has that luxury. Those have to do calculation of how much it costs(and each table can easily cost 3 digit sums) and how many players they get and calculate price based on that. That or they are basically paying for organizing tournament.

**Sunny Side Up**

Most tournaments aren't organised for (massive) profits and more a labour of love.

That said, USD 500/day is a pretty pitiful. If you'd be freelancing it as a consultant, software guy or whatever, and you'd charge 500/day you'll probably go broke pretty fast after all expenses, taxes, fees, etc.., given you mostly don't get work every single day of the month.

And that'd just be the time-equivalent of a single guy doing the two days of the tournament itself. If it's 2-4 guys (or girls) doing the organizing, and if they invest time before and after the actual weekend preparing, making terrain, whatever (as a "pure profit venture", not as a labour of love for the hobby), you're at minimum wage pretty quickly if you'd log the hours correctly.

**tneva82**

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Most tournaments aren't organised for (massive) profits and more a labour of love.

That said, USD 500/day is a pretty pitiful. If you'd be freelancing it as a consultant, software guy or whatever, and you'd charge 500/day you'll probably go broke pretty fast after all expenses, taxes, fees, etc.., given you mostly don't get work every single day of the month.

And that'd just be the time-equivalent of a single guy doing the two days of the tournament itself. If it's 2-4 guys (or girls) doing the organizing, and if they invest time before and after the actual weekend preparing, making terrain, whatever (as a "pure profit venture", not as a labour of love for the hobby), you're at minimum wage pretty quickly if you'd log the hours correctly.

True. But thing is that 3 digit per table in cost I figured is just the raw materials. I didn't even factor in any kind of salary for the guy who builds and paints the terrain.

If tournament organizers are expected to universally pay out of their own pockets hundreds if not thousands(for the bigger tournaments) AND time...well while that might work for a while how sustainable that is? Not everybody has FLGS providing space, tables and terrain for free.

**greyknight12**

I think the moral of the story here is that tournaments are not non-profits (though they can unintentionally end up that way!)

**Stevefamine**

edit: I think the OP understand now

**catbarf**

beast_gts wrote:Venue cost? 90% of our entry price is the venue (which includes food).

Stevefamine wrote:80-90% of the cost is renting the space.

Desubot wrote:a venue with proper parking and facilities

Ordana wrote:price sounds normal, rent will be a lot of it.

Crazyterran wrote:having to rent the space

Considering OP said that the venue is being provided for free, I feel like many of the answers given in this thread- saying that the cost of a venue is the biggest factor- are validating OP's skepticism rather than addressing it.

**Hulksmash**

Not really, that's a large part of a larger event. There are a ton of other costs involved including storage of terrain, prize support, staff support, etc.

But I will say personally I don't care what a person walks away with but this cost is the lower end of a 2-day event. And I'm sure as hell not going to run one making 1k in 2 days. Because it's a lot more than 2-days of work. Hell with that. I can't take my wife and kiddos to a 2 hour movie for what I'm paying for a 2-day event.

**zedsdead**

It’s never 2 days of work. Depending on where your starting at prior to the tournament you can literally spend hundreds of hours preparing for a well run 2 day event.

**solkan**

For what it’s worth, there really are two different types of tournaments:

1. The “I’m getting paid by the hour by the store” tournament at a store, where they can basically just take the entrance fees and turn them all into prize support money.
2. Tournaments that have to cover their own expenses.

To be super charitable to the original poster, I’m going to assume they were used to the first type, and this was their first experience with the second type. Although, to be honest, I have no clue where that estimate for lunch for two days is coming from. :-/

Yeah, I remember the days of $5 tournaments held a store. I’m also at this point used to things like $25 entry fees to one day (6-8 hour) events at conventions. But I remember the sticker shock the first time I paid for an event ticket. It passes.

**skchsan**

$1,000 for months' worth of organizing, coordinating & preparing isn't that much of a compensation.

Let's just say, he'd have spent about 100 hrs preparing for this event. Let's assume he spent 2 hours a day, for 50 days. That amounts to $10/hr.

If we were to (with utmost modesty) breakdown the items of labor involved:
-event advertisement (~2hrs)
-follow up to event advertisement (64 people, 10 min per attendee ~10 hrs)
-finding judges for the event (~1 hr)
-finding venue (calling, negotiating, visiting, driving ~5 hrs)
-finding venue that will provide the space for FREE (PRICELESS)
-venue preparation (get there & set things up (~6 hrs for two days) run the event (assuming pure tournament eliminations: 1.5 hrs per bracket, 6 brackets ~9 hrs)

That's already 33 hrs of actual labor. He'd most likely JUST break even after adding up all the expenses.

**Hulksmash**

How much of the data comes pre ironhands nerf where there were 4 or 5 major events prior to the faq? I feel like that's also a factor.

**Byte**

Quoted the OP because it appears few actually read his whole post.

If the venue is free and tables and terrain provided. This is sketch indeed, on the surface

The right question which no body has mentioned that I saw was prize support. Most events turn the fees right around in some kind of prize support. However, a lot of prizes are donated by sponsors. Again a TO job to figure out. Let's be honest most gamers can police themselves so I dont buy the whole paid judge thing. Volunteers with grab bags maybe. At 55$ each. Players should be getting free objective markers or dice or some kind of swag

So your question is valid. Hell I've questioned MVBrant in the past about this very thing and it was MVBrant! (irt venders fees)His charity efforts silenced and humbled me. Now I'm a huge avocate!

So unless dude is rolling the entry into prizes, this sounds off.

$55 per? Venue, table, terrain, west coast pairing, etc. provided. Wth?

Tamwulf wrote:
Local tournament coming up, two days, five rounds, ITC, lunch on Saturday. Prizes advertised, noting specific nor what for. Requires a very strict painting standard that is 40% of your final score. The rest is ITC missions and scoring. West Coast Pairings is being used for registration. There is a website, it's a very simple, one page Word Press site you can whip up in about 10 minutes, with links to ITC and very little info. There is a Facebook page.

Overall cost: US$55.

They are capping it at 64 players, and they have over 40 preregistered.

I asked what I thought was a very simple question: Why so much for an entry fee? Lunch is pizza, but we have to buy our drinks from the game store. Figure $10/person for lunch, so that leaves $45. If the TO prints out a mission packet, figure another $5/person (I doubt it would be that high, but...). That leaves $40 x 64 players = $2,560. Even if they only get the 40 pre-registered players, that's $1,600. Already talked to the store owner, and they are not charging for the use of the space, and as a matter of fact, are offering a 10% discount on all GW stuff for participants.

Is this TO about to walk away with over $1000 for running a tournament?

**Slipspace**

I just don't see how this is in any way sketchy. The TO is welcome to charge whatever they want for the tournament. There's no rule that says a TO can't try to make a profit by running a tournament and it's not like they've kept the price a secret. As an individual you might not think the price is worth it but that's hardly sketchy, dodgy, shady or any other pejorative you want to apply.

**archont**

If you wanna run tournaments,
you need to upfront alot of money.
Consider a 50 person event,

one time costs;
25x gamemat @ 60€ or so = 1.500 ((1.500))
(cheap! putting in labour for table design is exoensive and time consuming)
25x 6x4 game surface @ 25€ or so = 600€ ((2.100))
Terrain, per Tablec 25x @ 150€ only for material = 6.250 ((8.350))
Building Terrain, per Table 2hrs x25 tables x10€ an hour = 500€ ((~ 9.000))
Painting Terrain, dito = 500€ ((9.500))

//
recurring costs, per event;
Personell, working for a nominal 10€ for 10hrs and 2 days, 1 judge, one organizer running around, one secretary to stay on top of results, paintscores et al; = 600€ ((600))
Transportation if you have a buddy with a sufficiently large truck or so, I got a buddy koving both ways for 150€ total ((750))
A properly good booklet, scheduling and rules writing, 10hours all in all ((850))
Having printed Booklets and Reportcards; x50 @ 3€ pp = 150€ ((1.000))
Paying a Cleaningcrew to get the venue back in order and cleaned up ((1.200))
Giving out 4 trophies ((Best General, Runner Up, Best Painted, Best Sportsman)) 40€ per trophy = 160 ((1.360))

misc;
>> prize support?
>> cost of venue? ((in my area of central germany : 800€ per day minimum = 1.600))
>> INSURANCE!!! = 200€ or so
>> depending on venue there may be a need to rent tables or maybe buy them even

first Event I ran, I made 1.500€ negative. ((excluding one time purchases))
Second one I made 400€ minus.
third broke evem
fourth made 1.000€

Before I recoup my investment, @ 35€ (2days), depending on venue, it'll be many more events before I turn a Profit.
I dont do it for profit though.
I do it cuz I got the spare change and love events.
I pay people to run my event because damn well I'm gonna be playing, too, after setting it all up!

55$£¥€ for a two day event is nothing

if you think it's alot, threadstarter:

Go and run your own event! I will applaud you for the effort and the community will be better off for it! :-)