The organisers of the Polocrosse Extreme cup, which ran in June 2013 have revealed that the event showed a loss of over two and half thousand pounds and they are questioning whether they can run the event again in 2014. The Head of Polocrosse Extreme, Iain Heaton, said that they were disappointed with the result, which he said really came from low income figures rather than any over expenditure on costs. Iain said “We knew before the event even ran that we were going to be struggling to break even but we didn’t think it would be as bad as this. We will have to think long and hard before organising another tournament next year.”

Polocrosse Extreme has also published figures from its first tournament in 2012 which showed a loss of just over £1,200. The plan was to try and recoup that money and a make a bit more in 2013 but now the event has lost nearly £4,000 in two years. A breakdown on income and expenditure shows that total costs for the event were £10,503. Iain commented, “The original budget was for the costs to be £11,350 pounds so we ended up being a few hundred pounds under on costs but that wasn’t really that useful seeing that revenue only totaled just over £8,000.”

On the subject of the detail of the costs he added,” We do run with a high cost base and we know that. The scoreboard costs us £500 and the marquee has to be hired in. We also do things like the officials’ lunch and try and make the prizes really good. I think we would be reluctant to try and cut costs by removing things from the event as the whole point is that we do more than all the other tournaments.”

With regard to the income streams Iain said, “Revenue was disappointing on all fronts really. Tournament entry fees were lower than budgeted, we should have set player entry fees higher, we were actually cheaper than all other tournaments this year which with hindsight was stupid, we were trying to be too nice. We thought we would have more players playing but there do seem to be less players at tournaments currently. Also we let the UK squad and a few other players play for free so actual entry fees were slightly lower than you would expect from the player numbers at the event but I don’t regret doing that, one of our stated aims is to help develop polocrosse and these freebie entries were designed to do just that. However, if we do run next year entry fees will go up and may be as much as £50 a head to cover the basic costs we incur.”

The organisers reported that with regard to secondary income streams, both the bar and car entry income were lower than budget. Iain said “The weather definitely didn’t help we had done a lot of local promotion, there was a lot of local hype about the event and then we end up with the worse weekend of the season in terms of weather and obviously people didn’t fancy coming along to watch in that.”

He had more to say on the subject of the bar income, “Obviously lower spectator numbers impact on the bar as well but we think that a fair number of players didn’t really support the bar and just used a “Bring your own booze” policy to the party which is a bit annoying really when the bar was set at the same prices as other tournaments like Arden where we know the bar does very well. I think this is something we will have to look at if we run next year. Maybe the answer is to say entry fees are £60 a head and we don’t care what you do at the party but whether that is a bit unfair to all the players who don’t really drink at the party much. I don’t really know at this stage.”

Officially the event is co-hosted by Polocrosse Extreme and The Granary Estates, (who own the venue and take responsibility for organising areas such as the bar and infrastructure) and the 2012 loss was split between the two parties. However, Iain said that this year the loss will probably be borne by Polocrosse Extreme as they feel it is unfair to see Granary Estates lose money two years in a row when they are not directly involved in polocrosse.

With regard to 2014, he said “Obviously from an pure event point of view we had great fun running the Polocrosse Extreme Cup in 2013 and would love to do the same in 2014. We consider ourselves the leader in a tournament revolution which is taking place in the UK and are delighted to be in that position. We set a trend in 2012 and now are helping people such as Platypus Polocrosse with running their inaugural tournament in a few weeks time. However, 2014 is going to have to make financial sense as well because we can’t keep sustaining losses like this.” (Editor’s note: We had to just undergo another financing round to fund this loss, luckily we have generous/ slightly stupid shareholders!)

Iain concluded, “We need to sit down and look at the 2014 plan in more detail. We will being talking to players and listening to them over the rest of the 2013 season to understand what they want to happen and whether they have any specific views regarding areas such as entry fees and then hopefully we can come up with a workable plan.”