corin_brown
Eagle Member
What's up with this? In this day and age?
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I'm planning to play in a C-Tier later this month w/o online registration. The TD says that I can mail him a check or call him with my CC number, or just pay morning of. I'd rather do online registration but I guess they don't want to hassle with it so I'll pay morning of.
How about a C-tier with 30 players, only 4 of whom bother to pre-register? The TD might think it not worth the trouble of setting up.
As a TD, I went to online registration a couple of years ago. Before that, I did not have internet access at home, which complicated things.
I ran a team play tournament last fall, in which only 24 people signed up, none of which were through the online system.
But I agree with the general premise. It's surprising to find a tournament without online registration and, at the very least, makes you wonder why. Maybe there's a good reason, but you wonder what it is.
But the OP says the TD in his case offers to take a credit card over the phone, so if he has means of accepting that kind of payment, the lack of an online option is a bit baffling.
I know this is going to be a shocker to anyone reading this (as it's 99% likely that you're reading it online), but there's a whole host of disc golfers out there who don't do internet. No computer, no smartphone, no nothing. I in fact, registered a guy from my league online for an area tournament since he had no access to the internet.
As a TD who has run several sanctioned and non-sanctioned events over the last 3 years, I can only speak from my perspective. I would LOVE it if an event could be run with online pre-registrations! Unfortunately, in my experience, disc golfers, for whatever reasons, hardly ever pre-register. As someone said already, it is very discouraging for a TD to go to the trouble to set up pre-registrations only to have 35 players show up and only 3-4 pre-register. (Happens more times than I care to mention). I've tried making tournaments pre-registration ONLY and you still get those who show up the day of and want to play or risk losing players who don't want to commit to playing in advance.
My personal opinion is, I'd rather run all pre-registration events and if you don't want to pre-register in advance, then fine, don't play. No one is holding a gun to your head to make you. It's a choice. It does make the TD's job much easier, less stressful and makes the tournament run smoother. I suppose there will always be the fair-weather disc golfer who wants to wait and make sure the weather is going to be "perfect" for them before they decide to play. Or the disc golfer waiting to see if a "bigger and better" tournament pops up in the area before deciding where to play.
I've just learned not to worry about it.
I know this is going to be a shocker to anyone reading this (as it's 99% likely that you're reading it online), but there's a whole host of disc golfers out there who don't do internet. No computer, no smartphone, no nothing. I in fact, registered a guy from my league online for an area tournament since he had no access to the internet.
What have you been charging for day-of registration? We have been doing $5 and we still get plenty of people that pay that rather than register ahead of time.
This is interesting. I've played in the SoCal points series (all PDGA events) for only three years but there hasn't been a single event that hasn't sold out before the deadline, sometimes months before the deadline. It's always a frantic, anxious scramble to sign up. In fact the event at La Mirada this Saturday sold out all 100 spots within 24 hours of opening for business. Looks like the interest in regional tournaments from region to region is disparate. I still wish registration for all the SoCal events would be available online.First suspicion would be that the TD has no means to receive online payments (no paypal, etc). Of course, that wouldn't prevent him from using a service that handles transactions and sends him a check, such as DGU. Maybe he's simply trying to avoid dealing with the fees (either eating them or building them in to pass on to the players). Could just be a general distrust of technology. Even in this day and age, those people exist.
But the OP says the TD in his case offers to take a credit card over the phone, so if he has means of accepting that kind of payment, the lack of an online option is a bit baffling. Though unless there's a genuine fear that the event is going to sell out, I don't see the problem with handling the majority of sign-ups on tournament morning. If the guy prefers it that way, so be it. It's not like he's saying no pre-reg at all. He's just eschewing online payment.
Bottom line is if you want to pre-reg, cut a check and mail it to him (or call him with a CC). Boo hoo if it's slightly more inconvenient to you.