Chess Venues

sodacat11

As I wait for the Beast from the East to come calling I have been looking up the chess calendar as well as some past events.
I see that this year's City of Dublin is to be held in the Academy Plaza Hotel which may very well suit some of the organisers but judging on past attendances it isn't all that popular with anyone else. Years ago we used to get huge numbers for the C.O.D but in recent years it rarely goes above 20 for the Masters Section and sometimes this number can drop to as low as 12. This doesn't compare very well to Gonzaga or the inaugural St Andrews event which I am sure will go from strength to strength. Comparisons with tournaments outside the pale; Bunratty and Kilkenny for example are even more stark.
So what does this all tell us? Firstly,people don't mind travelling or staying in hotels or B&Bs, as long as they aren't in Dublin city centre. Venues with free car parking are more popular. Chess seems to be more popular on the southside of Dublin than the northside. Tournaments don't necessarily have to be held in hotels. Prize money is not the biggest consideration for most chessplayers.
Given all the above, could the LCU not be a little more imaginative in it's choice of venue for the C.O.D? It doesn't HAVE to be in the city centre every year. It may be the City of Dublin event but it is run by the LEINSTER Chess Union not the Dublin Chess Union. There are numerous other venues , Stillorgan, Green Isle, Red Cow, St Benildus, Bray, Clontarf, Howth, etc etc that would be much easier for people to get to and would in all probability attract a larger entry. Dublin city centre is a nightmare with it's ludicrous road system and traffic problems, the guerrier infested Red Line Luas, the hoards of junkies, muggers and skangers in the vicinity of O'Connell St and the over inflated prices one has to pay for everything. I'm sure that a venue a bit away from the city centre would be cheaper for the LCU too.

Rathminor

S/C,
Two weeks ago the ICU ran a blitz event on a Sunday evening in the Stillorgan Park Hotel.
Despite it being a Sunday evening slot, the ease of access to the venue resulted in circa 65 players taking part.
This showed that there is a very big appetite for competitions, when the ICU get the venue right, ie easy access, plentiful parking, safe location late at night.

It is substantially more appealing to have a venue with easy access and parking compared to one of the nightmare city center venues, without parking and which are not particularly suitable for juniors, who tend to make up about 50% of the playing field.

Gonzaga/Stillorgan Park Hotel/ St Andrews/ ALSSA/Red Cow Inn etc are way more preferable to a city center venue when selecting a Dublin venue.

The LCU have also done a job job this year of selecting easily accessible venues for their monthly junior events.

sodacat11

Good point about the juniors!
I've never played in the Academy Hotel, and probably won't this year either,but I'm told that the room is in the basement, has no windows and is overheated. Why on Earth is this hotel being picked for the C.O.D? Is it just because some of the organisers live nearby or can park for free in the Teachers Club? It is not too late to switch to somewhere more to the liking of the ICU members.

cdeb

I think another point to consider is where to go to grow Irish tournaments?

Gerry Graham in his Bunratty report said 360 is nearing their capacity, and they may have to close entries at a set point next year. Entirely understandable - the hotel will only take x people.

But the game is growing, so we probably should be planning for tournaments of 500, 600, maybe even 1000 in the coming years. Why not? Bunratty 2012 had 260 players; now it's at 360.

But is anywhere capable of hosting a tournament of 1000 people?

Then you've to consider grading bands too, if we allow that 128 is probably the absolute max size for a 6-round tournament (being one factor more than a 6-rounder is designed to cater for) - and again, Bunratty is getting close there. Are we looking at <1000, 1000-1250, 1250-1500, 1500-1750, 1750-2000, 2000+? Even that, at its max, would only cater for 768 players.

Something to consider in terms of long-term planning. It's tricky, but also a good problem to have.

sodacat11

One way to cope with the ever increasing numbers at tournaments is to keep selecting awkward and unsuitable venues like the Academy Plaza, that's a sure way to avoid too many players turning up!

cdeb

Well quite, but let's be constructive rather than destructive here.

While I'm snowed in and looking for something to put off having to analyse my awful Bunratty tournament, I went and did some analysis on the main Irish weekenders over the past 15 years. It's on the attached chart. I've left out junior tournaments, newer ones (St Andrew's; Enniscorthy) and the Irish weekenders, which are very changeable depending on venue.

Some conclusions -

Bunratty is far and away the biggest weekend on the Irish calendar; on average, it's 50% bigger than the next biggest (Kilkenny). It's near capacity, says Gerry on the ICU website.
Kilkenny is also near capacity; I think they've said before 230 is their tops. A very stable tournament in the past 15 years.
Interesting though that in 2005, Kilkenny was only the fourth biggest tournament in the country. Cork and Galway were bigger, but have dropped off quite a lot in recent years; both are about half the size they used to be. (Cork 2005 was boosted by the EU City of Culture tournament). Neither is confirmed for this year; Cork is provisionally scheduled for October.
Gonzaga overtook Kilkenny as the second tournament in the country last year, and will probably be bigger this year as well. Plenty more room in that hall.
The City of Dublin and Malahide are both twice as big as they were ten years ago. As a result, the Teachers' Club isn't being used as a venue any more (well, that and the African Gospel choir upstairs...), and the ALSAA is nearing capacity as well I think.
Ennis and Drogheda are twice as big as they were ten years ago, albeit that they're still small on a national scale. Limerick and the Mulcahy are growing slower.

The combined weekender attendance is up 20% on 2012 (the earliest year I have attendance stats for all the tournaments). I've also put in the Leinster leagues for comparison - this is the number of teams, where the rest is the number of players, but it's still up 30% since 2012. And all this is in the context of a 50% increase in ICU membership in that time too.

So the question is - could we see another 25% increase by, say, 2025? That would make the biggest tournaments -

Bunratty 415 players. It can't host that many, it seems
Gonzaga 275 players. Probably ok?
Kilkenny 260 players. It can't host that many.
City of Dublin 200 players. New venue needed
Malahide 160 players. New venue needed I think. Though there's plenty of spare rooms in the ALSAA, noise permitting.
Cork 150 players; they've had that and more before.

And then 115 teams in the Leinster leagues - so two further divisions (Bodley West and Bodley Central?)

If tournaments are at capacity, the question then is - do we need a new Supertournament, without trying to detract from the great ones we currently have? If so, where/when could it be? (We could of course instead have more, smaller, weekenders to cater for demand, but I think the bigger tournaments are needed to attract better players, generate more interest, etc)

sodacat11

Interesting that the numbers have grown so much but I suppose with all the coaching of children, the increase in immigrants from chess playing countries and the rise in the population generally this positive trend is set to continue. I would imagine that as numbers increase so will the amount of tournaments so this will help to avoid any over crowding at most events apart from Bunratty and Kilkenny. The new excellent venue that Kilkenny used last year has plenty of room for increased numbers so no problem there. Bunratty would just have to run the tournament over two weekends if the numbers got way too out of hand. Masters and Challengers one weekend and the other tournament(s) at a different date.
For a number of years I used to run a midweek ten player all play all, one game a week, mostly in the same venue although with some leeway for players wishing to play in a home club or whatever. This type of event was ideal for people like me who had to work weekends and miss most of the weekend tournaments. When numbers increase perhaps this type of tournament will begin to spring up again.
I wonder in which rating categories the numbers are growing most ? Juniors I presume?
The recent over 50s tournament was a great success and very well supported so maybe this is another type of event that will increase in popularity.
One thing for sure, better to have the problem of too many active players than not enough of them. I think too that the way the ICU is so well run these days that any problems like over capacity will be well anticipated and efficiently dealt with!

Retd.LoyolaCpt

sodacat11 wrote: »

I wonder in which rating categories the numbers are growing most ? Juniors I presume?

Excerpt from the below membership report from last year - membership was up about 14%:

https://www.icu.ie/system/downloads/000/000/356/7482f69c16100d40be532019fd52733798575296.pdf?1503960994

We attracted 345 new members which compares to 221 new members in 2015-16. Of the 345 new members, 235 were new junior members (around 68%), 6 were new senior members (around 2%), while 104 were standard/oversea/unemployed new members (around 31%).

These numbers have all been growing for seven years with an overall growth rate of 62.85% in that time span. We’ve broken down that figure further to show the respective growth rates at the various levels. The most striking growth has been in our junior membership with an overall increase of 217% - increasing from 134 to 426. However, there have also been strong growth rates in both our senior numbers (96% - from 53 to 104) and our standard/unemployed/overseas numbers (23% - from 564
to 693).

Retd.LoyolaCpt

I think Eugene Donohue has a breakdown of the growth of particular rating bands - or at least a breakdown of the membership by rating. I don't have it to hand.