7 Tips for Successfully Organising Your Sports Event

https://warwick.ac.uk/services/sport/content-hub/feed?newsItem=8ac672c7992c6dc601992ed02bdb072b

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This guide can help with organising a tournament, a corporate sport event, school or youth group sports events, and more! Simply follow the 7 steps to kick off your event planning right away.

1. Define your sport and participant numbers

When you are thinking about how you can fill that hour, make time for warming up, engaging in your exercise, cooling down, and stretching.

Whilst it seems obvious, when you are wondering how to create a sports event, starting by considering your sport helps you to plan with finer details in mind. Is your sport a team sport or for individuals? How many people will be competing or in attendance? Understanding your sport and the number of participants is important as it influences how much resource you will need to bring to this event from cost to staffing.

Whether team or individual, make sure you have your participants (and their emergency) contact details so you can ensure a clear line of communication throughout the planning, execution, and reflection stages of your event.

three people gathered round a climbing wall

2. What facilities do you need for your sport?

From indoor to outdoor, courts to the climbing wall, or even a pool, after you’ve defined the number of people participating in your sports event, it’s time to consider what spaces you need to ensure everyone is having fun. Plus, make it clear how these spaces can be accessed when you are sending out communication to your participants to help ease any worries about getting to the location.

If you want to see our fantastic facilities, get in touch to book a tour of the Sports and Wellness Hub.

3. How do you plan an events schedule?

Timetabling in advance is essential to ensure you have a smooth and successful sports event. Having a clearly communicated schedule that you are able to promote not only eases the minds of competitors or attendees, but also helps to add structure and clarity to your day.

Make sure to have at least one printed copy on hand and try using a QR code at your event that links to the timetable. Even with the best preparation, it’s invaluable to leave some time in case things do end up running behind schedule.

While you are planning your schedule and your event, also pull together your favourite photos from similar events you have hosted. Access to visuals like this will help inspire your event (from its structure to its atmosphere) as well as being a handy asset that you can use for promoting your event in advance via email, online, or social media.

4. Where do I start with safety?

When you are wondering how to organise a sports event, your top priority should always be to protect the safety of your participants. This includes health and safety as well as safeguarding. Start by building a safety briefing into the introduction to your event to help establish protocol.

All activities have their own level of safety and risk, and a risk assessment done well in advance can help you to ensure that you have the best possible safety measures at your sports event. A risk assessment can also help to define what you might talk about in either a safety briefing or prior communication.

If you’re working with children, you also need to make sure to know who your responsible adults are. This is especially important if your event is in an unfamiliar environment, which is exciting for children but might also mean they are disoriented. Your responsible adults will not only help to steer your group in the right direction, they will ensure everyone is having a good time, which is especially important when things are getting competitive and stakes can be high!

indoor climbers adjusting their harness and rope

5. Catering and accommodation

If you’ve booked Warwick Sport’s facilities for your event, you have easy access to a wide range of cafés and restaurants on the University of Warwick campus.

If your event is starting early or finishing late, why not enjoy the option of staying nearby? Cut journey time out of your day by booking yourself a comfy room at our fantastic on-campus bed and breakfast accommodation at Warwick Conferences.

6. Travel and Parking

Whether you’re staying over or not, travel and parking can be a make or break on how your participants remember your sports event! You want to be sure that your facilities are conveniently located, easy to get to, and have enough parking to accommodate all of your athletes (whether they are coming by coach or in cars). This way, people aren’t held up on the day driving around seeking out a space.

If your attendees are coming by public transport, make sure you’ve signposted them to bus stops and link to timetables so that their travel plans are made easier.

7. Finishing touches

You have the ability to go above and beyond at your sports event by planning something truly memorable, and those finishing touches will make all the difference in how your event is enjoyed! Take a look at this list of ways you can help your event to have impact:

Make fun and coordinated signage to help guide your attendees or to be a focal point for group pictures.
Create an event hashtag for sharing on social media.
Curate a playlist for your athletes to compete to.
Organise some fun prizes to help motivate your athletes.
Plan extra entertainment or socials to break up your event.