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Setting up your tournament on Tourny

Updated

This guide shows you how to set up your tournament on Tourny, from a brand new event to a published one. It covers:

  • The pages you'll use during setup
  • Categories
  • Teams
  • Format
  • Rounds
  • Venues
  • Scheduling
  • Finishing touches
  • Publishing

Prefer short videos? Each step also has its own getting started guide.

The setup pages

You'll do most of your setup on two pages: the dashboard and the manage page.

The dashboard is a checklist of everything left to do. If you're not sure what's next, check there.

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

  • Manage (Organize): format, teams, venues, and schedule, plus optional extras like admins, sponsors, and tournament info
  • Manage (Settings): tournament details like name, dates, banner, and visibility

You'll also see Home, Teams, Schedule, and Standings pages. These are what participants see once you publish. They fill in as you work through setup, so you can preview your event as you go.

Create your categories

A category is a separate competition inside your tournament. Teams in different categories never play each other. Categories usually split teams by age, skill level, or gender, like 12U and 14U, Recreational and Competitive, or Men and Women.

To add categories, go to Manage (Organize) and select Categories. See Manage categories for the details.

Add your teams

Go to Manage (Organize) and select Teams to add your teams. Each team has edit and remove options beside its name.

If you have more than one category, use the dropdown at the top of the page to switch categories and add teams to each.

You don't need your full team list to keep going. You can pick a format or add venues first. Just hold off on finishing your rounds and schedule until the list is final.

Set up your tournament format

Tourny supports a wide range of tournament formats, including:

Running a league instead? Create the event as a League to use season formats, with or without playoffs.

Have a format in mind that isn't listed? Email support@tourny.ca. We can often set up custom brackets.

To pick your format, go to Manage (Organize) and select Format. Once you choose one, you'll set format-specific options like tiebreakers and team stats. The finer details for each category come later, when you set up rounds.

Configure your rounds

Rounds are where you decide exactly how each stage of your tournament works. If your format has more than one stage (like round robin to single elimination), you'll also decide how teams move from one stage to the next.

Go to Manage (Organize) and select Rounds. Your format is laid out as a series of steps. Work through them in order.

For a round robin to single elimination format, that means:

  1. Set up your pools
  2. Choose how teams advance to the playoffs
  3. Set up your playoff bracket

Each round type has its own settings:

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

Between rounds, you choose how many teams advance and how they're picked, such as the top 2 from each pool. Tourny moves the teams into the next round for you.

If you have more than one category, repeat this for each one. For step-by-step instructions for each format, see the format guides.

Add your venues

Before you can schedule games, Tourny needs to know which courts, fields, diamonds, or rinks you have. Go to Manage (Organize) and select Venues to add them. See Manage venues for how to name each space.

Schedule your games

Once your rounds and venues are set, you're ready to schedule games. Go to Manage (Organize) and select Schedule.

In this section, a "space" means a court, field, diamond, or rink, depending on your sport.

There are two ways to schedule:

  • Assigned times and spaces builds the whole schedule up front, with a set time and place for every game. It's the usual choice for baseball, soccer, volleyball, and basketball. (Generated schedules guide)
  • Next available space sends each game to a space as soon as one opens up. Play runs continuously and spaces don't sit empty, which suits sports like badminton and squash. (Dynamic assignment guide)

Assigned times and spaces

Select assigned times and spaces, then click Manage Schedule. You'll get two options: Generate Games or Enter Times Manually.

We recommend Generate Games, which builds the schedule for you. If you already have a fixed schedule, use Enter Times Manually instead.

With Generate Games, you set:

  • Game length
  • Time slots

Time slots are the windows when games can be played. Click Add Time Slot and pick a date and time. For a multi-day event, you'll usually add one per day.

The defaults work for most tournaments. For trickier setups, you can customize a time slot in two ways:

  1. Use only some spaces. Say only one venue is available on day two. Use Select Spaces (Diamond/Court/Field/Rink) to remove the spaces you can't use.
  2. Choose which categories or rounds play on a space. Say you want competitive games at one venue and recreational games at another. Click the gear icon beside a space to pick its categories or rounds.

When your time slots are ready, click generate. A summary shows how many games were scheduled.

If some games didn't fit, you can:

  • Add more time slots, or make them longer
  • Shorten the game length

Close the summary, adjust your settings, and generate again.

Once every game is scheduled, click View Schedule to see it laid out. Drag and drop games to make changes, then click Save.

Next available space

Select next available space, then click Order Games. Tourny lists all your games in order. Drag and drop to change the order, then save.

That takes you to the manage schedule page. Pick the spaces you want games on (usually all of them), and Tourny assigns the first games to those spaces.

From there, each time a game finishes, Tourny sends the next game to the free space. You don't have to schedule games one by one.

You can still step in at any time to:

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

Add the finishing touches

With your schedule done, the core setup is complete. The steps below are optional.

Add info to your home page. Share what participants need to know, like rules, venue details, food, hotels, or arrival times. Go to Manage (Organize) and select Tournament Info. You can also go to the Home page, click Edit page, find the Rich text section, and click Add block. See Customize your home page.

Add sponsors. Go to Manage (Organize) and select Sponsors. Or, from the Home page, click Edit page, find the Sponsors section, and click Add to page. Your sponsors will then appear on your home page.

Invite admins. If other people are helping you run the tournament, invite them as admins. Admins can submit scores, edit the tournament, and move teams into the playoffs. Go to Manage (Organize) and select Admins.

Change your banner. To replace the default banner image, go to Manage (Settings).

Publish your event

Publishing makes your tournament public so participants can find it. Do a quick check first:

  • Make sure everything on the dashboard is complete
  • Look through the Home, Teams, Schedule, and Standings pages to see what participants will see

Then go to the dashboard and click Pay for event. Enter your payment details, and once the payment goes through, you can publish. See pricing for the per-event cost.

To share your tournament, either:

  • Copy the home page URL, or
  • Go to the Manage page and use Share to get a link or QR code

That's it. Your tournament is live. Next, read Running your event on Tourny to get ready for game day.

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