Publicising Go Tournaments

This page is in two parts, before and after. Elsewhere, there is a Tournament Organisers’ FAQ.

Before the Event

As a tournament organiser you need to do the following (among other things, these are just the ones that require liaising with us):

1. Pick a date so as to avoid a clash
2. Get details on to the master list of tournaments
3. Get details on our website calendar and tournament list
4. Get an entry in our newsletter calendar
5. Have an tournament flyer available
6. Optionally use our automatic registration system
7. Arrange for the necessary Go-playing equipment

Choosing a date

If you are planning a tournament and wish to choose a date for it, first look at tournament list and select a suitable empty spot. Preferably select an empty weekend, as there are less than 52 events per year, and a date that is not near another event in your area. When you have chosen it you should check with the tournament coordinator (tournament-coordinator at britgo.org) that it is acceptable and get to get it reserved on the calendar. Your event can be shown as provisional until you confirm the details. Note that most tournaments are annual events, so when planning an event more than a year in advance please be aware of this as events are not normally listed more than a year in advance, if they are annual events, unless a confirmed date is known.

It has been pointed out that it is easier for young players to attend multi-day events if they happen during the school holidays. The easiest way to discover when the school holidays are is check the web page of your local authority.

Getting the details listed

To achieve steps two to four from the list above, you need only tell the tournament coordinator about your event. He will add it to the list of all current tournaments and on the list of forthcoming tournaments and other events. The Newsletter gets its information from the website, so there is no need to inform the Newsletter editor separately. Provide as much information as you can includung an email contact, but also a contact phone number is often helpful.

If you need a tournament flyer added to the tournament listing then just supply a PDF file for this to be uploaded to the website. Alternatively produce your own web page and tell us the URL to link to. A link to a map page is always advisable.

We can also set you up on our automatic registration system, by creating a suitable entry form page and list of entrants.

Circulating entry forms

We no longer circulate entry forms, expecting entrants to get information from the web site.

Arranging equipment

Another service covered by the tournament levy (a fee paid by all tournaments to us) is use of the our tournament equipment. You're event and contact details will be passed to the equpment organiser to arrange this.

Web publicity

Providing your own web page for an event is a good idea, because as well as us linking to it, you can also get local listing sites to point to it, and people can find it by web searching. Several events have had journalists find their event through their web page.

You may also announce your tournament on the Gotalk e-mail list. We request that limit the number of emails you send to the list be kept within reasonable limits. (One should probably be sufficient plus a reminder near late entry date).

Local Publicity

You can promote Go, and your local club, by getting a story about your tournament into the local media. The local press are always looking out for stories, especially with photographs. It is not hard to write a basic press release. The key elements are the phrases “Press Release: For Immediate Use” (or embargoed, but in any case you send it out a few days before the event); “Photo-call: (specific time and place)”, so they know when to turn up; a few paragraphs making up a half-written story about your event, which they can buff up; contact details for you, of which phone number is the most important. Fax this to the paper, marking it “for attention of” (name) if you have a contact there, otherwise “News-desk”.

Pictures taken with a digital camera can be emailed to local newspapers together with a press release. This saves them doing any work and can result in good coverage in the local papers.

Local TV: may need more advanced warning to get a camera crew there.

Local Radio: are always hungry for interviews.

After the Event

Make sure the web news editor (web-news-editor at britgo.org) gets a report of your event so that you will get a write-up of your tournament in the news section of the website and into the BGJ tournaments column.

If you have used the GoDraw program then you can get results to the web and ratings people easily by simply emailing your tournament file (.gdt) to the results officer (results at britgo.org). You will normally find the file in C:\GodrawSys\Tours and it will normally have a name including the year like MiltonKeynes_10.gdt for example.

When you do send the file it is helpful to include peripheral data such as location, komi, and time limits as these are needed for the ratings system. If you have new people entering the tournament as No Club, it is helpful for purposes of identification to state their nearest town.

You can follow up local paper publicity by faxing them the main results. The point of this is to have them use the information to complete a story based on an earlier press release, or to use as classified results on a sports page.

It is good practice to follow up any local publicity by asking whether it has generated any inquiries. Even better, though, is to try to get your contact details into the original story.

Please send any press releases to our President, who will collate a database of the best (for putting on the web subsequently) so that people do not have to reinvent the wheel all the time.

Dealing with the results if you do not use the godraw program

You are encouraged to use the program because it encapsulates all our/EGF rules for doing the draw. Such is the complexity that it would take a long time to do the draw manually sticking rigorously to all the rules. However if you do wish to run your tournament using the traditional card and pencil method then please review our handbook on doing the draw.

We will still help you to get your results to the website and to the EGF ratings system if you do the following:

1. List each player’s Name, Grade, and Club.
2. For each round produce one or more sheets of paper listing the draw and the handicap allocated if any.
3. Circle the winner’s name on each board.
4. Post a copy of the sheets to the results officer (results at britgo.org).

Of course 1. and 2. are standard practise if you are doing a manual draw. On getting this information the results officer will enter the draw and results into the GoDraw program and produce the files which for onward dispatch. The turnaround depends on the number of players and the number of rounds but should only be a few days.

You can, of course, carry out this last step yourself (which is greatly appreciated) if you wish by downloading the program. Then all you need to do is email the file as described above.