# Running a Good Event

Anyone can create a tournament here. Whether anyone plays in it is a different
question.

## Before you create it

**Pick one time control and stick to it.** 3+0 or 5+3, not "something around
blitz". People decide whether to come based on the format.

**Choose the length honestly.** A two-hour arena with eight players is a long
two hours. Start with 45 or 60 minutes and grow it when the field does.

**Set the start time for your players, not for you.** The site shows every start
time in each viewer's own timezone, so you only have to get the absolute moment
right — but that moment still has to be an evening for the people you want.

## Settings that matter

- **Rated or casual.** Rated brings more players, and more of them stay to the
  end
- **Minimum rating or account age** keeps out fresh accounts made to disrupt.
  Restricting too hard leaves you with an empty field
- **A password** makes it private — for a club night, exactly right; for a public
  event, it is why nobody came
- **Variants** narrow the field sharply. Run them when you already have a crowd

## Getting players

**Announce it days ahead**, in your team forum and on your team page. An event
created an hour before it starts is played by whoever happened to be online.

**Be there yourself, on time.** Arenas need a critical mass in the first minutes
to pair well; an organiser who joins late has often already lost the field.

**Run it again.** The second edition of a weekly event is always better attended
than the first. Most events die because they happened once.

## During and after

Watch the tournament chat and moderate it — the rules in
[Communication Guidelines](/page/communication-guidelines) apply. Afterwards, post
the standings somewhere. Recognition is most of why people come back.

For prizes, see [Tournament Prizes](/page/prizes).