Read THIS Mr. Ball Bernie, You think you know so much, you don't know sh!t about pool, the players or life in general..
Again, I am being faced with some mean spirited controversy, so I elected to write a semi short article regarding hosting a NATIONAL tournament. National events differ considerably from local and state. I hope all who are interested will appreciate what I have to say.
Each and every tournament is different. It all completely depends on what property i.e. hotel, resort or casino and the area with which you are dealing.
The sport of pool is unbelievably difficult to promote. It's very hard to get good sponsors outside of the industry. Sponsorships inside the industry are tapped out, so if you don't have a long standing relationship with the business, you are out of luck. Can you imagine if you were a billiard related company, how many tournament directors and others would be banging down your door to get free merchandise from you? It's even hard to barter in this industry; everyone wants to barter and when that happens, nothing gets paid.
When we secure a beer/liquor company, this just means that they will work with the host location to give THEM better prices on their purchase for the incoming customers. So, when you see that we have a beer special of $2.00 per beer, this just means that the company has lowered the cost of the beer so the host can sell more at a volume. In addition, the beer/liquor company will supply signs and other items for the event with the name of the event and the special that they are pushing for that weekend. I was lucky to be able to get Budwesier to sponsor Earl Strickland for the Midwest Expo/Open. They completely took care of hosting him.
Let's first talk about what is required for running and promoting a successful event.
The major issue is to get the word out and make this tournament one that all would like to attend. This takes time and money, and someone has to do it. When you are running major national events, it's a full time job. If it's a smaller venue, it's still an unbelievable amount of work to do.
The tools of the trade consist of: a good computer with a high performance copier; one that has the capacity to keep enough memory to host a small city, a fax machine and small copy machine to duplicate registration forms with attached checks for your records, a gold card for one of your local office supply companies for the huge amount of reams of paper, pens, toners, cartridges, clips, file folders and so on..... Then there are the posters and other items that need to be done professionally at a huge ADDITIONAL expense.
Ok, here's the fun stuff... The monthly phone bill! Wowzers, would you like to trade? They have been in excess of $900 per month when we did the expo.
Furthermore, there is maxing out your credit card or savings account to hold the host hotel, resort or casino. Did you know that the host area requires a deposit ranging from $1,000 to $25,000 depending on where you are having the event? Remember, you don't get any interest accumulating while this money sits in the hands of the hotel. Also, there is an additional cost of insurance that the hotel requires to cover any damages occurred during the event which is in excess of thousands of dollars a year. If you don't meet the requirements of your room count, you loose your cash! You never get enough comped rooms to cover you and your staff. It's always additional rooms for which you end up paying, and there is no break for us since we have to pay the same rate that you do! Then there is paying the staff and feeding everyone. In some cases, we get some free food, but in most cases, we get discount tickets for staff. I like this comment I have heard from several, "Oh, they get a real nice suite in which to stay!" Sure we do, but who has a chance to use the thing? All you do is pass out from near exhaustion when you get to it.
Advertising... Ah yes the display ad! Let me give you a few figures here. For national coverage magazines, you bet you can expect to pay in excess of $600 to $1,500 for half and full page ads, and COLOR IS ADDITIONAL per month! For local state magazines papers, the cost of these range from approximately $75.00 to $600.00 and once again COLOR IS ADDITIONAL per month!
If you don't advertise like one promoter I know who didn't, you sit back and wonder why you're not getting the players. You loose your shirt and swear off ever doing another event while bashing the promoters who bust their hind ends to get the word out about their event. Jealously and sabotage run rampaged in this profession.
Here comes the bills for the banners and other related computer ads. First, let's find a good webmaster.... Oh boy that's a doozy. Finding someone who will update your site on a regular basis before the deadlines expire is priceless. Personally, we have gone through 4 webmasters to finally find a good one. I am not saying all webmasters are bad, don't think that.. I am just saying that finding a good one is hard to do, and you get what you pay for. Now these people don't work for free, so you have that monthly bill to add to your ever growing pile of bills per month. Webmasters can charge from $75.00 and up per month to maintain your site and at least $1000.00 to design it! Now, here comes the bills for the banner ads you have running on all billiard related sites. They start at $100 per month. Another cost is owning your domain name along with yearly fees of maintenance of the web site.
One can't forget direct mail! That's cost of paper, toners and stamps. If you have a mailing list like mine, we are talking 1000+ players at 37 cents each. That's $370.00 plus the cost of toner and paper, envelopes, stickers, and my time!
When you are hosting a national tournament where anyone can play, you have to reach all ends of the world to get the word out. It takes all of the above and more to make something like this happen. It takes at least a year of planning.
Now that you have some information (I could go on for pages), let's talk about the cost of bringing in the pool tables. For example, for a 40 table event (that's one truck load), you can expect to pay a minimum of $150 and up for each table. You can't just call and say I need 10 tables; it's a truck load or nothing. Now this does not apply to those who own their own tables, although I feel I am speaking for those who do, and they would NOT want to deliver only 16 or so tables. It's not worth their time..... This is why it has to be a truck load. Now let's add the cost of hanging the lights which in most cases is additional. Now let's add up the cost of the stolen cue balls and racks of balls in addition to racks and broken mechanisms. As the tournament promoter, I am responsible for all of the balls. When they get stolen, and they do on a consistent basis, I have to pay for them!
One can't forget tournament direction...... In my case, I do NOT play pool, I just promote the sport. Most of you know that Bob has played for many years so this is something that we felt we could do together. Bob wants to participate in the tournament, and I have other things to do during our event like "putting out forest fires with a garden hose."
I did tournament direction for about a year with Cecil Messer and GMPA Productions in Indiana. I found out quickly that it was something I did not want to do. It's an unbelievable amount of stress and tempers can fly quickly in addition to a lot of hours and many different personalties with which one has to deal. I will not disclose other tournament directors fees, but I can assure you that it can be in the thousands of dollars.
Here's another issue that most don't realize, if you are working a full time job and trying to promote a national venue, you can just expect to loose time and money. For example, Bob is an independent construction contractor. During the expo, I can't even tell you how many times he had to take days/weeks off and negotiate the contract or promote the tournament in some fashion. He did not get paid for all that time off!
Registration fees. Depending on what type of event you are promoting, you can expect to pay $10.00 and up for each event. This money goes to paying all of the above that I just mentioned. Registration fees can be adjusted to how many people are in the field. The more people you have in the tournament, the less you need for registration fees. You never know your final count until the day of the actual event. How many of you pool procrastinators show up last minute and expect to
enter? That is why a late fee was instilled. This was to help get a more accurate count of people who were dedicated to playing in the event were guaranteed a spot. The extra money from late fees helps pay all of the additional costs to the last minute entries. Whether or not you realize it, this causes another delay to the actual start time.
Since people are doing math these days, calculate some of the larger Vegas events. I think it may surprise you. Before you can do the math, you need all of the expenses in order to get your figures correct. I find it as a complete insult when people tell me they know how much I made because they did the math. HA! Ask me for all the records and bills associated with the event then open your mouth. My events have been successful because they worked, although I am in arrears for the promotion. This is something that takes time to establish because it is a business.
Added Money~ For example: In the expo, we added a total of $15,000. In the 8 ball, we added $31.00 per person, and we could do that from the other additional resources that accompanied the expo. With the Windy City Open, there were NO other resources to rely upon. Any added money had to come directly from our pockets.
Our intentions from the beginning of starting these events was to start a business. We were well aware of all of the hidden costs associated in running events but elected to go forth to establish the business. We expected to put money into the business at first and within a reasonable period of time start to make money from it. Should we not make money at some point? Would you work 24/7 with no pay?
100% Payback... The money has to come from some place to pay everything. You cannot expect for the promoters who DO NOT have cash sponsorships to be able to bring to you a 100% payback event. It's impossible. You cannot expect for the promoter to pay for all of the things I just mentioned out of pocket. I hope that some of you can understand this. We are working extremely hard to promote the sport with great hotel rates, food and beverage specials, and other fun things for you to participate. We do our very best with the payouts and the money that is available. With continued support and trust from this industry, we hope to continue to bring you these events.
In addition, I would like to thank all of you who have supported us. Our sincere appreciation goes out to you.
Eydie
You too, have nice taste. 
