World Youth Chess Championships 2012

Ever since the Olympic Games have been announced for London there has been the idea of organising a major chess event in London in 2012. It was never thought to hold it at the same time as the games; any publicity would be likely to be submerged. The first idea was to hold the Chess Olympiads here. That was never a likely project to succeed. The costs are too high and England is unlikely to shine in 2012.

The World Youth Chess Championships are the biggest event in the international chess calendar. They consist of Under 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 Championships in which girls can play. In addition there are parallel girls’ championships for the same age groups. For reasons explained later, I would prefer also to include the World Junior Championships which are for players under 20, but this is not a deal breaker.

In 2007 in Antalya, Turkey this event attracted 1453 players, of whom 935 received hospitality. There were 757 accompanying persons, 115 invited coaches and 48 extra ones, 30 officials and 17 bulletin staff. I am working on a hypothetical 2000 players for 2012, 1000 of whom will be invited and 1000 accompanying persons. It is ever-growing, although numbers are likely to decrease for Vietnam this year, but everybody wants to come to London.

Each federation in FIDE (about 150) has the right to send one player to each of the 14 championships and be offered hospitality of bed, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Naturally many federations don’t take up all the places offered, including England last year. Barbados I know sent 3 players and Russia 70.

The event is postulated on the premise that the expenses of the event are paid by the other attendees, that is the extra competitors, parents, coaches and managers. These people are charged more than it costs the organisers, thus defraying much of the cost.

It is not easy to hold a big chess event in London, the last time the British Championships were held here was in 1948.

Venue

I am convinced the only suitable venue is the ExCel Exhibition Centre in the Docklands. Earls Court will no longer exist. Alexandra Palace, Barbican and Olympia do not have adequate hotel rooms in close proximity. The Royal Horticultural Halls are of inadequate size. In addition the people from Olympia said they had a suitable sized hall which ‘might’ be refurbished by then. The Novotel Hammersmith, combined with the Ibis Earls Court and perhaps one other venue, would work. But holding the event in a split venue is most unattractive.

The ExCel Centre is over 30,000 square metres and expecting to grow. Our discussions have been for 5000 (50,000 square feet approximately) square metres. This is hard to visualise. It is about twice the size of the Norbreck Castle Hotel used for the British championships in Blackpool in 1988. My book recommends 2 square metres per player, but this is a World Championship and many spectators will want to wander around. ExCel is basically two gigantic halls with removable partitions. It is extremely flexible. Some of the summer Olympic sports events will be held there, such as the table tennis.
ExCel is situated in the Docklands area and the nearest London Docklands Railway Station is Customs House.

The only possible dates for ExCel are 2 to 16 December 2012.

There are seven hotels within easy walking distance, but the smallest, a boat, may not be there then. This provides about 1400 bedrooms, or approximately 3500 bed spaces. It is unlikely we will be allowed to block off more than 800 rooms. There is self-catering onsite but there are only 35 units. But there are several other hotels a fairly short train ride from the venue. I am researching all this at the moment. This is inferior to Turkey. There all the hotels could be reached by walking along a promenade. But the venue was inferior to ExCel.

The original idea was to house all the contestants in the Olympic Village. Brian Smith eventually managed to bully executives into holding a meeting after about a year! It rapidly became clear this was logicistically impossible. After the conclusion of the Para-Olympics in September, they are stripping out the rooms preparatory to being prepared for affordable housing. This work has to be concluded by the end of 2012. Our only hope would have been if we had been part of the whole concept at least a year ago, before these plans were finalised. This is presumably what happened with Turin 2006.

The cost of everything in England is a very great obstacle. The venue will cost over £315,000. Many of the hotels are four star and bed and breakfast is likely to cost an average of £40 per day (albeit including VAT and this being the 2012 price). It is likely to be best for the players to choose to eat in one of the 20 restaurants on site, with vouchers being supplied of £15 per day rather than provide buffet meals to all. A substantial number of players could live at home and offer hospitality to others. This would diminish the experience somewhat, but also reduce the cost for them.

In Turkey the bed plus full board cost was about 55 Euro. It is likely the market can stand a 25% increase plus 25% inflation. This comes to 81 Euro per day, equivalent to £65.

Approximate Budget

My assumptions, especially regarding VAT, need checking. Sundries is obviously an estimate. There are items such as medals, security, hospitality, transport, website. Contingencies of £200,000 seem reasonably cautious. If there are fewer paying entries and than 2500, the expenses due diminish, but possibly not enough.

It is clear a business sponsor (or group of sponsors) is essential. Cold calling is never successful. We need contacts or to throw a launch party. In my experience we have been quite successful, once we get next to a potential sponsor. Including the World Under 20 means it is more likely the event will be the biggest-ever. Since England started both the World Girls’ and the World Junior, we have a claim. That this event is the most commercially valuable chess event for sponsors was clear to me 30 years ago, before it even existed. It is clearly a very valuable property, but whether it is worth £1.5 million is questionable. The event would be best run from the sponsor’s bank account.

Provided we are ready to do so, we will ask for FIDE’s support in November in Dresden. The event has only been arranged at two year’s notice heretofore. However, it is likely they will be willing to break with tradition as they are always keen to be connected with the Olympic Games.

We need four years to prepare for this event and derive the maximum benefit the event can give to British chess. Our youngest contestants won’t even have played chess yet. We badly need fresh administrative blood and hopefully this event will lead to some coming forward.

It would be foolish to rely on me as the main organiser in 2012, though this could be rethought in 2011. If we do not have any suitable organisers resident in England, then it may be possible to hire one in from another country or to hire an experienced organiser in other fields. We have gone down that route before with mixed results.

The above budget does not include several very expensive optional items. These include: junior chess development for the next five years and production of 11 TV programmes of broadcast quality.

Stewart Reuben