Organizing tournaments and special events takes lot of preparation, and running the actual tournament can be challenging! Here is a quick guide to help you manage your tournaments and events.

STEP BY STEP CHECKLIST FOR ORGANIZING TOURNAMENTS & EVENTS
You can use this helpful step-by-step plan for organizing your tournaments and special events. The sections below the checklist discuss each step in more detail.

 Draft a Preliminary Tournament Schedule 

• Start with a Draft Schedule - but Expect it to Change! 
• Pick Tentative Dates for your Event.
• Add opening and closing events, and expected activities.
• Setup Brackets and Pool Play Competitions, or at least block out times.
• Fill Out the Schedule to determine how many playing locations will be needed.

 Organize Your Contact List

• Your Draft Schedule will help your meetings with other event organizers go smoothly.
• Organize your event staff (Officials, Web Admins, Presenters) into a contact list.
• Pre-meet with any presenters to verify they are ready and have everything they need for their part of the event.
• Make a List of Possible Sponsors & Donors.
• List Participants (Players and Coaches) or Estimate How Many you expect to attract to the tournament 
• List  event staff like officials, food vendors, etc. 
• Organize Your List of Potential Spectators, Ticket Purchasers, and other Fans so you can send updates and newsletters. 

 Determine Actual Dates and Locations

• Hold Prep Meetings with Organizers to Firm Up Schedule.
• Locate Potential Venues and Solidify the Dates fo Your Tournament.
• Assign the responsibilities of all your staff members.

 Set Up Registration and Payment Forms

• Create Online Forms for Various Types of Participants.
• Provide Links to Hotels, Directions to Venue.
• Determine Required Documents such as disclaimers, medical forms, birth certificates, etc. 
• Determine how payment will be collected with be managed.

 Set Up a Website to Share Information

• Share Information and Updates on a website.
• Create a Sign Up list for participants.
• Post Your Logo, and Post Banners for You Sponsors, if needed. 
• Post  Payment forms for Ticket Sales and Registration Forms.

 Use Messages and Emails to Promote and Manage Your Event

• Use your contact list to message staff and schedule their time.
• Message players and coaches to keep them updated. 
• Send a newsletter to gauge participation and make sure there are no conflicts with other events.
• Send Newsletters to announce the event to your mailing list. 

 Update Your Scores, Schedule on your Website

• Post Event Results & Photos During the Event
• Send schedule change notices if needed

Sounds daunting, but let's review how you can manage your event in more detail using HomeTeamsONLINE. The HTOtournaments feature combines special event and tournament management with our  sports management system HTOsports to provide scheduling, registration, website, messaging and email seamlessly!

HomeTeamsONLINE provides a complete Tournament Management system. You can get an entire special tournament event set up in minutes! The tools are designed to be flexible and you can easily edit and change things, even during the actual tournament!

Go to the TOURNAMENT page and click "add a new tournament to get started. Each tournament is a special event that can hold many tournament brackets, pool play, round robin and other events. Name your tournament and pick a tentative date and duration. You can now start setting up the overall event schedule or start setting up brackets right away! 

This creates a panel for that tournament. Now you can add brackets (which can be pool play and round robin as well). You can start working on a bracket right away, or click "event schedule" to access tools to plan your entire event.

Let's add a bracket called "Seniors Curling" - click add bracket and type the information in.

Once you have added a bracket, you can see it in the "bracket" view. This lets you quickly "sketch" out your overall schedule for various competitions you may have planned, such as pool-play, and elimination brackets for different events. A detailed list of all the games is created automatically, and each game is labeled with the bracket letter ID.  In this example we chose C for this bracket, and the games listed will also be designated with a C. 

Once your added the basic bracket information, you can now start setting up the bracket, including auto-created the complete schedule for the bracket. You can create elimination brackets, pool play and round-robin matchups. You can enter the team names in the bracket or in the schedule, and they will automatically stay in sync. You can always manually enter your information, but there are several tools to set things up very quickly. 

Use the SETUP feature for your bracket to adjust the number of teams, locations, and days to quickly compare options. The "time settings" allows you to adjust the typical game length and the start and end times for each day.  This allows you to create a schedule for your bracket in minutes - you can make adjustments later and manually edit this "draft" schedule and bracket later. You can shift the times and even the day of games. This lets you set up very quickly, while your complete schedule is created automatically.

The "day"view lets you see how your games are distributed so you can see at a glance if you have any time conflicts. Weekly and monthly views are also available for planning your month and entire season.   

By clicking the pencil next to the number of TEAMS dropdown, you can paste a list of your teams and apply to update your bracket automatically. Note that you can paste more teams than your bracket size, for example to keep them as standby if a team drops out, or deciding whether to expand the bracket later.

If you have teams in your HTOsports site you can add teams from your league, or from a specific division within your league.

You also can paste a list of available locations for your event. Each bracket has its own list of locations, so you can list only the locations being used for that bracket.

Once you enter your locations they appear on the dropdown on the schedule listed below the brackets. You can make any manual adjustments that you need as well, if you want to reschedule a game, etc. 

Create  registration forms for your event. Customize your form for all of your needs and even collect fees through merchant services like PayPal, Venmo, Authorize.net, and Stripe.

Here is an example of the registration form editor. Notice you can add input fields, payment options, and even image uploads to handle any registration requirements you may need. You are not limited to one form - you can make forms for each sub-event, as well as additional forms for staff, officials, food vendors - whatever your event requires! 
 

Registration forms will be available to participants, and you can provide several payment options. Registrant reports are available, and you can download registrants into mailing lists as well.

The Message Center is an easy to use tool to send out and email and/or text. You can also use the Mailing List Tool to organize emails such as Newsletters as well.

A website will allow you to have a place on the web where visitors can find out all the information about your tournament and even register or make their own accounts to manage their own information. 

A website has many features such as:

• Share Information and Updates
• Create a Sign Up list 
• Post You Logo, and Post Banners for You Sponsors
• Post Ticket Sales and Registration Forms
• Post Event Results & Photos During the Event
• Photo Albums of the Teams, Games and Event Activities

For example, you can activate a simple "Join or Mailing List" option to have fans and other participants register for your lists, so it will be easy for them to receive updates and view the event schedule.