Help and advice

I have organised over 20 international LGBT squash tournaments (including Eurogames, OutGames and Gay Games). It can be a more complex process than you might think - using tournament structures from local tournaments often doesn’t work. Players travel large distances to take part, they want to be sure of getting a good number of games; their playing level is often difficult to pin down in advance, there’s a large range of levels and ages, and so on. If you have any questions about organising an LGBT squash tournament, or need any direct help, drop me a line on squashinformation ((at)) gmail.com.

Frequently asked questions

• How many courts do I need to reserve / How many players can take part / How many hours per day do I need to reserve the courts? This is a fairly simple (!?) maths equation to get guideline figures. Experience tells me to reserve 25 minutes for each (best of three) match, 35 minutes for best of five matches. You would usually want to ensure that each player plays at least three matches (one-day tournament) or four or five (two-day tournament). However, those involved in knock-out rounds will play more matches than the minimum. So take the number of matches you want as minimum and multiply by 1.5 for the actual number per person. Let’s assume a one-day tournament. Your squash centre has 7 courts which you can hire from 9:00 to 18:00. 9:00 to 18:00 is 9 hours (without break) which is 540 minutes. Allow 25 minutes per match = 21.6 matches per court. Multiply by 7 courts = 151 matches. Multiply by two (because there are two players on the court for each match) = 302. If you want each player to play 3 matches, multiply that by 1.5 = 4.5 matches per person. Thus: 302 divided by 4.5 = 67 participants. This is the maximum because there is always a certain amount of wastage (empty courts etc. because people need to be able to rest between matches) A new example: let’s assume you have 40 participants and 10 courts and you need to know for how long you will need to hire them. You want each person to play a minumum of 3 (-> 4.5) games. 40 participants * 25 minutes per match is 1000 minutes. Multiply by 4.5 matches for each person = 4500. Divide by two because there are two people on the court at the same time = 2250. Divide by the number of courts (10) = 225. Divide 225 minutes by 60 to get 3.75 hours. So, with wastage you’d probably get everything done within 4 or 4.5 hours. Simples! If you can’t work it out, drop me a line!