I want to organise a chess tournament at my school for an afternoon, making it open for everyone who wants to join, Have you got any pointers of what I should think about when organising or ideas of what would make people interested in it? I've got the local chess club interested and got a few ideas of who would be able to sponsor with prizes.

The first thing is how to pair it. Is this rated or unrated? I'll assume unrated, in which case pair them by grade level.

If you want to increase interest within the school create some flyers and post them wherever you can.  

Oh, and if this is your first time running a tournament it may be a good idea to see if you can find someone from the local club who has experience to help out. 

Ok thanks, The school is the swedish "gymnasium" which is equal to highschool, ages 16-18. Many are interested in just playing a game but can't find so many to play against during the school hours (Different schedules) Grade level is a good idea of how to divide them, are there any other ways?

Another pairing option is alphabetical, by last name. Probably the simplest as you may not know everybody's level of playing strength. 

Since this is an unrated event, try to maintain an upbeat/positive environment. Make sure everyone is having a good time, and you will want to be a little lenient on tournament rules especially with younger, or first time players.  Make sure experienced players understand that you may not enforce touch move with beginners. However, you will want to explain the importance of this rule to newcomers, so they don't abuse it in the future.

If you nead more people for the tornament, try postin chess problems in the cafiteria and around the school, then tell them they will find the ansers at the tourniment, It usualy gets Chess players attention

No problem with the chess interest:-) Who said chess was dead! But your idea is a very good one.

I've already got 50 people interested in playing, and even then I haven't gone out to the whole school

 The organising is working out well, Now just trying to fix sponsors for prizes, any ideas? The technical university isn't interested, but I could maybe try the whole university. Who else is usually interested in reaching out to clever youths in their later teens?

many computer related companies as they are looking for the "new up and comers" or even ask the chess club to donate a set... but dont tell the players what the prize is... it s all about conning them into it!!!

Thanks! Has given me many ideas of how I'm going to get prizes Of course I'm not going to tell them what the prizes are, it's supposed to be a surprise

More tips are always welcome, not only for me, but for anyone else who wants to start a tournament...

When I played a blitz tourney in Germany years ago they had an interesting concept for awarding the prizes. There were 51 players in the event and 30 prizes! They arranged all the prizes on a table and at the end of the event first would get to pick any prize (only one) he/she wanted, second got second pick.....and so on. The prizes varied a lot......from chess equipment to fine wines /cheeses  gift certificates etc. I founf this interesting as I had never seen it done like this before or since.

Bet no one chose the German wine. 

Lol:-) sounds like fun prizes

Another interesting about this blitz tourney is that they made a round robin out of it! Yes! I had to play 50 games of blitz! ( 5 0) I was exhausted when this event was over needless to say.

ouch, 50 games is alot. Well the tournament is on wednesday, wish me luck so that everything works out well:-)

Wow, 50 people's alot! Good luck with the tournament.

Good luck!  Let us know how everything goes, and post everything you did and any tips you have for other people who are thinking about organizing a tournament.

Well the tournament went well:-) we were around 20-25 people. The local chess club helped out with the set up and they seemed to have fun. The main problem I think was that it took three hours. I think many would have prefered play less games as we played quite a few games before the finals were played. Also when I talked with others who didn't play, the main reason was that they felt that they didn't know enough about chess. I think chess tournament is a pretty scary word for many, even though they would like to play. How can a tournament become less scary for others? any ideas?

My very first chess tourney was a "quad". In quads the players are put into groups of 4 selected by ratings , then the members of each 4 player group play one another. Each person plays only 3 games. There is a prize for first in each group. I found this to be far less frightening than the big open swiss type events and the time control in these quads were usually fast. Normal was 30 min per player .

That was a good idea, but as these were people with no rating at all it was a bit hard. But it would of probably worked better if it was groups of 5 instead of 10 that was the way we did it here.

ya