Setting up your tournament on Tourny

This guide walks you through how to set up your tournament on Tourny—from your first step to publishing your event.

By the end, you’ll know how to:

• Navigate the tournament set up pages
• Create your categories
• Add your teams
• Set up your tournament format
• Configure your rounds
• Add your venues
• Schedule your games
• Add the finishing touches
• Publish your event

Navigating the tournament set up pages

There are two main pages you’ll use while setting up your tournament: the dashboard and the manage page.

The dashboard page gives you a clear checklist of everything that needs to be completed. If you’re ever unsure what to do next, this is the best place to look.

The manage page is where the actual setup happens. It has two tabs:

• Manage (Organize) — where you’ll add teams, configure your format, and schedule games
• Manage (Settings) — where you’ll configure your tournament settings

You’ll also see home, teams, schedule, and standings pages. These are the pages your participants will see once your tournament is published. As you work through setup, they’ll automatically start to populate—so you can preview what your event will look like as you go.

Create your categories

With the basics covered, a good next step is to create your categories.

Categories in Tourny define separate competitions within your tournament—teams in different categories will never play each other. They’re typically based on criteria like age, skill level, or gender. Common examples include: Recreational and Competitive, 12U and 14U, or Men and Women.

If your tournament uses categories, you can add them by navigating to Manage (Organize) and selecting the Categories option.

Categories are optional. If your tournament only has one category, you can skip this step and move directly to adding your teams.

Add your teams

Next, add your teams by navigating to the Manage (Organize) page and selecting the Teams option. Once added, you’ll see options to edit or remove teams beside each team name.

If you’re using multiple categories, use the category dropdown at the top of the page to switch between categories and add teams to each one.

You can continue with other setup steps (like choosing your format or adding venues) even if you don’t yet know all your teams. However, avoid fully configuring your rounds or schedule until your team list is finalized—adding teams later will reset parts of that setup.

Warning: Adding or removing teams after your round configurations or schedule are complete will reset them.

Pro Tip: If you know how many teams will participate but not their names, you can add placeholder teams (e.g., Team 1, Team 2) to move forward. Later, simply edit the team names—editing in place will not reset your rounds or schedule.

Set up your tournament format

Tourny supports a wide range of tournament formats, including:

• Round Robin
• Single Elimination
• Double Elimination
• Swiss Ladder
• Round Robin to one or more Single or Double Eliminations
• Round Robin to Power Pools to Single Elimination

If you have a specific format in mind and aren’t sure it’s supported, reach out to support@tourny.ca—we can often accommodate custom formats.

To choose your format, navigate to the Manage (Organize) page and select the Format option. After selecting a format, you’ll be prompted to configure format-specific settings such as tie breakers and team stats.

This is just the first step—more detailed configuration happens when setting up rounds for each category.

Pro Tip: If you need unique formats per category, first choose a default format as outlined above, then use Switch Format in the Format section to update individual categories.

Configure your rounds

Next, set up the rounds for each category. This is where you define exactly how each stage of your tournament works. For multi-round formats (like round robin to single elimination), you’ll also configure how teams advance between rounds.

To get started, navigate to the Manage (Organize) page and select the Round option. You’ll see a structured view of your format with clear steps for each round—work through them in order.

For example, in a round robin to single elimination format, you would:

• Set up your pools
• Configure how teams advance to playoffs
• Set up your playoff bracket

Each round type has its own configuration options:

• Round robin: number of pools, games per team, etc.
• Brackets: first round matchups, bracket structure, optional placement games (3rd place, 5th place etc.)
• Swiss ladder: number of games per team

When configuring transitions between rounds, you’ll define how many teams advance and how they’re selected (for example, top 2 teams from each pool). Tourny then automatically handles moving teams between rounds for you.

If you're using multiple categories, make sure to complete this setup for each one.

Warning: Don’t configure rounds until your team count is finalized. Adding or removing teams will invalidate your round setup and require it to be redone.

Add your venues

Before you can schedule your games you need to set up your venues so that Tourny knows what play spaces (courts, fields, diamonds, rinks) are available.

To set up your venues go to Manage (Organize) page and select the Venues option.

Schedule your games

Space here refers to diamond, court, field, or rink depending on your sport.

Once your rounds are set up and your venues are added, you’re ready to schedule your games. To get started, navigate to the Manage (Organize) page and select the Schedule option.

Tourny offers two scheduling approaches: assigned times and spaces and next available space.

Assigned times and spaces is best if you want a fully pre-built schedule, where every game has a set time and location. This is the more structured approach and is commonly used in sports like baseball, soccer, volleyball, and basketball.

Next available space is a more flexible approach, where games are assigned to spaces as they become available. This allows for continuous play and more efficient use of space, and is commonly used in sports like badminton and squash.

Assigned spaces and times

If you choose assigned times and spaces, select that option and click Manage Schedule to begin. You’ll then have two options: Generate Games or Enter Times Manually.

We recommend using Generate Games, as it automatically builds your schedule. If you already have a fixed schedule, you can use Enter Times Manually instead.

When using Generate Games, you’ll configure:

• Game length
• Scheduling time slots

Time slots define when games can be scheduled. Add one or more by clicking Add Time Slot and selecting the date and time (for multi-day events, you’ll typically add one per day).

The default setup works for most tournaments, but you can customize time slots for more advanced scenarios:

1. Only schedule on certain spaces during a time slot

   • Example: only one venue is available on the second day
   • Use Select Spaces (Diamond/Court/Field/Rink) to remove unavailable spaces

2. Control which categories or rounds play on specific spaces

   • Example: competitive games at one venue, recreational at another
   • Click the gear icon beside a space to assign specific categories or rounds

Once your time slots are set, click generate to build your schedule. You’ll see a summary showing how many games were scheduled.

If not all games are scheduled, you’ll need to either:

• Add more or longer time slots, or
• Reduce game length

Exit the summary, adjust your configuration, and generate again.

Once all games are scheduled, click View Schedule to open a visual view of your schedule. You can make adjustments by dragging and dropping games as needed. When you're done, click Save.

Pro Tip: For more complex schedules or larger edits, use a laptop—the larger screen makes it much easier to manage.

Next spaces available

If you want to schedule games as spaces become available, choose the next available space option.

Start by clicking Order Games. Tourny will generate an ordered list of all your games, which you can review and adjust by dragging and dropping. Once you’re happy with the order, save it.

Next, you’ll be taken to the manage schedule page. Begin by selecting the spaces you want games to be scheduled on—typically this will be all available spaces. Once selected, Tourny will assign the first set of games to those spaces.

As your tournament runs and games are completed, Tourny will automatically assign the next games to any available spaces. This keeps play moving continuously without needing to manually schedule each game.

You can still make manual adjustments at any time. For example, you can:

• Drag teams on or off a space
• Reorder upcoming games

Pro Tip: Take a few minutes to review the manage schedule page before your tournament starts so you’re familiar with the controls available during live play.

Add the finishing touches

Once your tournament is scheduled, the core setup is complete. There are a few optional steps to help you customize and manage your event.

You can customize your home page by adding free-form text blocks to share important information with participants—such as tournament rules, venue details, food options, hotel information, or arrival times.

To do this, go to the Home page, click Edit page, then find the Rich text section and click Add block.

You can also add a sponsors section to your home page. From Edit page, find the Sponsors section and click Add to page. Once added, you’ll be able to manage and display your sponsors directly on your home page.

If you have others helping run the tournament, you can invite them as admins. Admins can submit scores, edit the tournament, and transitioning teams to the playoffs. To invite admins, go to the Manage (Settings) page and find the Admin section.

You can also update your tournament banner from the Manage (Settings) page if you’d like to replace the default image.

Publish your event

Once you’ve completed the finishing touches, you’re ready to publish your event. Publishing makes your tournament publicly viewable and easy to share with participants.

Before publishing, we recommend doing a quick review:

• Check the dashboard to confirm all steps are complete
• Preview the home, teams, schedule, and standings pages to see what participants will see

When you're ready, go to the dashboard and click Pay for event. This will open a payment window where you can enter your payment details. Once payment is complete, you can publish your event.

After publishing, you can share your tournament in a few ways:

• Copy and share the home page URL
• Or go to the Manage page and use the Share option to get a link or QR code

Pro Tip: You can continue editing your tournament even after it’s published.

Your tournament is now live and ready to go!