How to run a padel americano at your club
The complete guide to the process, from the invitation to handing out the prizes, written from the club's side. With the eight steps, the mistakes every club repeats, and which parts you can stop doing by hand.
Before you start: the three business decisions
Almost every guide starts with the draw. The draw is the last thing. The first things are three decisions that determine whether the mixin makes you money or costs you money:
- Which time band you block. A Thursday mixin at 7.30pm takes four courts in your most expensive hour. If that band sells itself, you are losing money. The mixin shines in the hours that do not sell themselves.
- What you charge and what it includes. A fixed price per player (court + balls + prize), decided before you send the invitation. Changing the price mid-season costs you half your entrants.
- Who the organiser is. Somebody has to answer the messages. If it is the receptionist, count their hours; if it is a volunteer member, count on them getting tired one day and the mixin dying with them.
The eight steps, in order
Fix the format and the size
An americano with a closed draw if you want to publish it in advance; a pozo if the group's level is all over the place. Set the maximum number of places from the courts you block: four players per court. The draws by number of players give you the exact equivalence.
Open sign-up, not a chat
This is where everything breaks. A list pasted into a WhatsApp group has no cap, no order and no waiting list: it has the last version somebody copied correctly. Open online sign-up with a real cap and send a link, not a list.
Take payment on sign-up
Whoever pays when they sign up turns up. Whoever says “I'll give it to you there” pulls out. Charging up front cuts last-minute drop-outs more than any rule you write, and it saves you chasing thirty-six transfers.
Let the waiting list do its job
Close the list at the cap and leave the reserves open. When someone drops out, the first person waiting comes in automatically and is notified. Nobody has to be watching their phone on Sunday night.
Close the list and generate the draw
With the final list, not the one from three days ago. The draw generator gives you rounds, pairs, match-ups and courts in a second, and you can regenerate it if someone pulls out at the last minute.
Publish the draw before they arrive
Send the draw to the group the night before. People turn up knowing their court and their first partner, and you save fifteen minutes of people standing at reception asking.
Watch the clock, not the results
A horn every 15 minutes and everybody changes. Each court records its own results on a sheet or on a phone; the organiser only collects them. If the organiser has to walk court to court, the event runs half an hour long.
Standings and prizes in the same place
Games won per player, published before people head for the shower. If you run a prize draw, draw it among everyone who signed up: reward turning up, not winning, and the weaker player comes back too.
The five mistakes every club repeats
The list in the chat
Two people edit at the same time, the second wipes the first, and someone turns up on the day convinced they had signed up. There is no way to fix this with rules: the list has to come out of the chat.
Taking payment on the day
It turns the organiser into a cashier, drags out check-in and guarantees that two or three leave without paying. Charging on sign-up costs the same and removes the problem entirely.
Reserves with no order
If nobody knows who is next, the free place goes to whoever happened to be looking at their phone. The other four notice, and stop putting themselves on the reserve list.
Closing the draw too early
You generate it on Tuesday, someone pulls out on Thursday and you rebuild it by hand five minutes before the start. The draw is generated from the final list, not before.
Changing the rules mid-season
The scoring system, the price and the tie-break criteria are decided on day one and left alone. Changing them mid-season is the express route to a WhatsApp group on fire.
Depending on one person
If it all lives in the head and the spreadsheet of one volunteer member, the mixin ends the day that member gets tired. The process has to be handed to someone else in ten minutes.
From eight steps to two
With a management tool, six of the eight steps stop being anybody's job.
| Step | By hand | With Mixines |
|---|---|---|
| Opening sign-up | Pasting a list into the group | Publishing the event once |
| Enforcing the cap | Counting names by hand | Automatic |
| Taking payment | 36 transfers and a notebook | On sign-up, through your terminal |
| Waiting list | Messaging people privately | Moves up on its own and notifies |
| Generating the draw | An inherited spreadsheet | One button, from the final list |
| Publishing the draw | A screenshot | A message ready for the group |
| Deciding match-ups and courts | The organiser | The organiser |
| Handing out prizes | The organiser | The organiser |
Organiser questions
How much should you charge for a mixin?
The norm in Spain is between €6 and €12 per player, depending on whether it includes balls, a drink and a prize. The healthy calculation: the cost of the courts you block divided by the places, plus materials, plus a margin. If it comes out below your court rate, you are subsidising the event.
How much notice should you give?
Between 7 and 10 days for a weekly mixin. Less and you do not fill it; more and people sign up and then forget. If you take payment on sign-up you can open with less notice, because drop-outs collapse.
What do I do about last-minute drop-outs?
Have a written rule from day one (for example: drop out more than 24h ahead and you are refunded; less than that, only if someone comes off the waiting list) and apply it the same way every time. What does the damage is not the rule, it is applying it to some people and not others.
Do I need software or can I manage with a spreadsheet?
If you run one mixin a month and have a volunteer with time, you will manage. If you run one or more a week, charge in advance and want the event to outlive the person running it, the spreadsheet runs out of road in the second month.
Carry on here
More pages on mixins and americanos.
Back to the main guide: Padel mixins: what they are, how they work and how to run one.