How much does a typical chess tournament cost?

Breaking down my visit to Hungary.

To play the Rigo Janos memorial in Hungary which was located in Balatonlelle, next to Lake Balaton (the largest lake in central Europe) the costs broke down as follows:

Train from Alnmouth to Crawley: £64.90

Taxi to Little Foxes hotel: approximately £20

One nights stay at Little Foxes: £60.75

Return flights with Wizzair from London Gatwick to Budapest: £230.16

Airport bus and then Metro to Budapest Deli: approximately £5

Train from Budapest Deli to Balatonlelle and then return: approximately £14

Bus and then Taxi to Russ Hill hotel Charlwood: £23

One night stay at Charlwood hotel including breakfast: £68

Train from Three Bridges to Alnmouth: £104.

So the basic costs were: £589.91.

I did receive a reasonable fee for playing in the event as an invited Grandmaster, but this did not completely cover the costs. And I should also mention that the organisers covered my hotel. But there wasn’t any prize money, which is typical for all-play-all tournaments.

Obviously I’m not factoring in the costs of food. I would estimate over the 11 day trip, I probably spent an extra 4-500 on food and drink. But that’s my choice, if I had gone to the supermarket every day and eaten as cheaply as possible rather than gotten more expensive restaurant meals, I could have lived a lot cheaper.

So say you live in Hungary which means your pay for the travel is very cheap (or who knows, you could be lucky enough to live at Lake Balaton itself) and you go to the supermarket every day during the tournament and you deprive yourself, then you can end up with a decent profit from the event as the cost of the train ticket from Budapest to Balatonlelle is quite cheap in comparison to the extortion currently taking place on British railways. Similarly, if I lived in London, the cost of the event would have also

been a lot less as I wouldn’t have had to splash out on hotels and expensive train tickets. Perhaps I should have flown from Edinburgh or Manchester, but the flights may have been more expensive.

I don’t play chess tournaments really for the money and I certainly didn’t do that in Hungary. Really I was there as a chess tourist, going to a nice place that I had never been before, taking part in a creative activity. It also gets me out of the house. But it does make you think and realize why so many established and older Grandmasters have effectively giving up playing chess tournaments now, instead preferring to pump out lessons online at minimal expense. It really is becoming too expensive to play chess over the board.