For those of you who were at our Friday Evening FIDE Blitz Glasgow on 3 June, you can read about the feedback we received and our responses below. We wish to thank those who participated in the feedback as it will help us determine how we will format any future events, should we decide to run another series. We are always happy to take feedback from those who play at our event, and of course those who choose not to attend.
If you are unaware of our Blitz events, we decided to launch a small series of Blitz tournaments after a couple of experimental events earlier in the year.
We conclude with the final Blitz in our current series on Friday 24 June in Edinburgh. If you would like to join us, please visit our on-line entry and payment website.
http://congress.popmalc.org.uk/congress/3/home
The summary follows the format of the questionnaire with a response from us after each section.
The Entry Process
Most of those entered on-line found the process easy to follow.
Response
The on-line entry and payment process has recently been developed and the organisers are aware of some payment issues during its roll out. It is our hope that everyone will enter and pay on-line so that all membership/registration and payment issues can be resolved before the event, thus relieving the work load of arbiters and organisers at the critical time just before the start of the tournament. Manual on the day payments will remain for access reasons.
Schedule
All agreed our start time of 7pm was about right, with only one considering our finish time to be too early. There were no dissenting voices suggesting our format of three playing sessions and two breaks wasn’t agreeable.
We did have one or two suggestions for alternative clock times, including giving black more time.
Response
Our schedule means the last game should finish at 9:30pm, however we advertise a finish time of 9:45pm in case we have any issues causing us a delay. If we believe an earlier finish time would encourage greater participation, by removing one of the breaks or reducing them in length, then we may adjust the playing schedule accordingly.
It is most likely we will stick to the standard 3 minutes plus a 2 second increment as this appears to be a standard for blitz.
Entry Fee and Prizes
The vast majority considered we had this about right, with one suggesting we should have a lower entry fee and one a higher entry fee. One suggested we should decrease our number of rating band prizes.
Response
The feedback suggests we appear to have got this about right. Hopefully we can build upon the numbers to increase our income so that we eventually cover our costs. We were hoping the lower rating band prizes would attract lower rated players, but so far, our Friday evening tournaments do not seem to indicate that we are attracting lower rated players in the numbers our trial events did. Something perhaps we need to analyse further if this continues to occur at future events.
Travel and Venue
Our feedback indicated that those travelling by car to the venue were in the minority.
All our feedback respondents indicated the venue was easy to find and provided an adequate playing venue.
Response
Choice of transport was an important item for us to receive feedback on. We had discussed the option of less central locations, with less or no public transport, in order to reduce our venue hire costs. Clearly, from the feedback we received, the need to locate adjacent to a chess playing catchment area, and within easy access to public transport must be a major factor for us consider in the future when we are choosing venues.
The feedback we received via the form and verbally, indicated there is no reason why we should not use this venue again in the future.
Overall Impressions and Suggestions for Future Events
The response suggests that Friday evening appears to be a popular time for the blitz event, but Saturday morning/afternoon and all day are also acceptable playing options.
Response
The Friday Evening FIDE Blitz team are happy to continue running events on a Friday evening. It does of course leave the weekend free for other activities, or more chess!
Also, we would need to change the name of our organisation if we ran them on other days!!
