Running a tournament
From setting up your club to the final standings. This page follows the order and answers the questions a tournament committee asks most often.
The order
- 1
Club and volunteers
Create your sports club and invite the people who help. Each gets a role, so the scoring desk can enter results without reaching the finances.
- 2
Tournament and categories
Put in the dates, the venue and the categories. Per category you choose the entry fee, the number of places, who it is for and how it is played and scored.
- 3
Publish
Open entries. A public tournament can be found on playtour.nl; an unlisted one is reached by its link or its invitation code.
- 4
Draw, schedule, play
After entries close you draw each category, schedule onto courts and times, and the desk enters the results. The final standings arrive with the last match.
Everything by subject
Four subjects side by side, so you do not have to scroll past all of them to reach yours.
Setting your tournament up
What is the difference between a tournament and a category?+
The tournament is the event: the name, the dates, the venue. A category is what somebody enters: men’s doubles 35+, the 10 kilometres, the recreational group. Entry fee, capacity, closing date, format and scoring belong to the category, because they differ within one tournament.
Can I charge a different entry fee per category?+
Yes, each has its own amount and may be free. That is exactly why the events list shows no price against a tournament: there is rarely only one.
How do I restrict a category by age or level?+
Through the category itself. You set the age, gender and level, and PlayTour only admits entrants who match. The conditions are shown to the player beside the category too.
Can I limit how many categories one player enters?+
Yes. It stops somebody entering five categories that are all played on the same day.
How does a waiting list work?+
When a category is full, new entries go onto a waiting list. If somebody withdraws, the first on the list moves up and is notified.
Draw and playing schedule
Which formats can I choose?+
Groups, knockout, double elimination, Swiss and mass start. You can put them in sequence too, for example groups first and then a knockout with the top two from each group.
How are players seeded?+
PlayTour proposes a seeding from the ratings it knows, and you change what you want differently. You can also seed entirely by hand; the proposal is a starting point, not a decision.
Can it take courts and times into account?+
Yes. You record which courts, tables or pitches exist and when they are available, and the planner treats them as real resources. A match with no court, or on a court already in use, is reported before you publish.
And players who cannot play at certain times?+
You can ask about availability as they enter. The planner takes it into account and tells you when it cannot be solved, so you see it before the playing schedule goes out.
Can I still move something after the draw?+
Yes. Moving one match by hand gives you a tick box for telling the players involved, and it is off by default, so you can make ten corrections without sending ten emails. Rerun the whole playing schedule and everybody whose times changed is emailed automatically. Every change goes into the log.
Scores and results
How is my sport counted?+
You choose the scoring per category: adding points, sets and games, counting down as in darts, time, distance, judges’ marks, placement, or relative to par. That is what makes the standings right without anything being built in per sport.
Who may enter results?+
You decide through the roles. You can keep it to the referees or leave it to the courts. Every entry records who made it and when.
A wrong score was entered+
It can be corrected. The standings are recalculated and the correction stays visible in the log, so what happened can be followed afterwards.
Can the scoring desk work on a screen of its own?+
Yes. There is a separate view for the desk, meant for a tablet or a laptop beside the courts: only the matches still to be entered, large enough to use standing up. Who may reach it is set per volunteer.
Are standings updated automatically?+
Yes. Group tables, rankings and who goes through to the next stage all follow from the results entered. Nothing has to be retyped.
Money and administration
How does the entry money reach us?+
The financial overview shows, per tournament and across the year, what has come in and what is still outstanding. Collecting entry fees online is coming soon; until then you record yourself when something has been paid.
Can we sell more than entries?+
Yes, on the largest plan. It lets you offer extras alongside the entry, for example a tournament shirt, a lunch or a place at the evening meal, each with its own price and stock.
How does a refund work?+
You can refund an entry, for example when a category does not go ahead (coming soon). The player is notified and the refund appears in the financial overview.
Can we have our own terms accepted?+
Yes. You can attach your rules and terms to the entry. Somebody agreeing is recorded, including which version they saw.
Who can see our data?+
Only the people you invited, and only as far as their role allows. One club’s data is fully separated from every other club on the platform.
Set up your first tournament
The free plan gives three tournaments at a time and fifty participants per tournament. No card, no notice period. If your question is not answered above, email us: we build this platform with the clubs that use it, and a question you have is often exactly what is missing from the explanation.