The 2011 Can. Open - Tackling the Problem
Kevin Spraggett, in his blog, seems unaware that the very classy and " successful " 2010 Can. Open was not successful financially - it lost money - organizers' money. It might be noted that the 2009 PwC Toronto Open, also a very classy event, with foreign GM's for a weekend 5-round tournament, also lost money.
Now, I am not aware of the CO's from 2006 - 2009 ( Kitchener, Ottawa, Montreal, Edmonton ) losing money though.
But I think Canadian organizers are clearly, and somewhat legitimately, concerned about holding another high class CO - and they are showing it by putting in no 2011 Can. Open bids at the CFC Toronto July AGM.
Despite Kevin's opinion, I think there is a problem. And Bob G. is right to open the debate about it. Bob G deserves some credit for tackling an immediate and concerning 2010-11 problem, and doing it in the open in a consultative way. And he is getting some CFC member support for his view that maybe all CO's do not have to reach the highest standard every year - that there is room some years for a more limited CO, if that is the type of bid that comes in. Can. organizers should be aware of whether such an option is available to them.
Bob A
A minimalist's Canadian Open - 2001
I was approached by Mt Allison University in 1999 about the possibility of having the 2001 Canadian Open in Sackville, in the summer time, with the students gone home, not much more than a ghost town.
We ended up advertizing a $13000 prize fund (based on 160 players) and 3 Grandmasters that we (or at least those of my age group) thought would be attractions: Kevin Spraggett, Larry Christiansen, and the late Tony Miles.
We ended up with 169 participants, and if we subtract the local 15 from Moncton (less than 30 minutes away) we have 154 players, most of whom (minus the invited masters, and gas guzzling commuters) had to shell out for accomodations, travel, food, for the tournament package we put together. The residence rooms were reasonably priced (I can't remember if there were food packages or not), and I suspect the local food joints were all resonably priced.
So my question is, approximately how many people did we pull in from outside the Toronto area this year; or by using the same formulas, for other years. Is bigger, better ?
Obviously everyone likes bigger and better, but we can't continue on with good organizers having to lose money.