How many players should I invite for two courts?

Eight play at a time. Invite ten to twelve: the extras cover the usual drop-outs, and with rest rounds everyone still plays most of the evening.

What do I do when someone cancels an hour before?

Take the first person off the waiting list. If nobody can come, redraw for the smaller number — with seven on two courts you play one court plus a rest rotation, or move everyone onto one court and play longer rounds.

Should I collect the money before or after?

Before, if the club takes it up front. State the amount at sign-up and collect when people confirm. Collecting afterwards means chasing people for a week.

How do I handle very different levels in one group?

Use Mexicano, or tell the draw the levels so it balances the teams. What you must avoid is a court where one pair wins 24:3 — both pairs stop enjoying it at the same moment.

How long should a social evening be?

Two hours is the sweet spot. Ninety minutes works for a weeknight; three hours is a tournament, and people who came to socialise start leaving after the second.

How to organise a padel social night: a working checklist

A padel social is not a tournament. Nobody is seeded, nobody gets knocked out, and the person you most want back next week is the one who came alone and left knowing four names. Almost everything below is about protecting that — and about protecting the organiser, because the evenings that die are usually the ones where organising stopped being fun.

Book the courts before you invite anyone

The court is the constraint, not the people. Clubs release prime evening slots weeks ahead and they go fast, so book first and fill the slot afterwards. A half-full evening on a court you hold is recoverable; a full list with no court is not.

Two courts for two hours is the standard starting point. It holds eight comfortably, up to eleven with rest rounds, and two hours is long enough that people feel they played and short enough that they come back.

Ask the club whether the booking can be cancelled and by when. That answer decides how late you can afford to keep sign-ups open.

Invite more people than fit

Somebody always drops out. Plan for it instead of being surprised by it: invite roughly a quarter more than your capacity and keep a waiting list in the order people signed up.

A waiting list is not bureaucracy — it is the thing that saves the evening at six o'clock when someone's train is cancelled. When a spot frees up, the first person on the list gets it, and nobody has to negotiate.

Say the capacity out loud in the invitation. Two courts, eight spots, first come first served: that one line prevents both the silent overfilling and the awkward conversation later.

Sign-ups: one link, no accounts

The list has to live somewhere everyone can see. A chat thread does not count: by message forty nobody knows who is in, and you end up counting names by hand and getting it wrong.

Whatever you use, it must work for the person who has never seen it before, on a phone, in ten seconds, without creating an account. Every extra step costs you players, and the players it costs are the newcomers — exactly the ones you want.

Collect the level too, even roughly. You do not need a rating system; knowing who is in their first month and who plays twice a week is enough to keep the matches from being one-sided.

If you take money for the court, put the amount and the payment method in the same place as the sign-up. Chasing eight people for eleven euros each is the most tedious part of organising, and it is entirely avoidable.

Pick the format before the evening, not on court

Americano is the default for a reason: partners change every round, points are individual, and nobody is stuck. Mexicano uses the same scoring but draws each round from the standings, which suits a group with a wide spread of levels. Fixed pairs are for when people arrive as pairs and want to stay that way.

Decide the round length before anyone arrives. Two hours split into eight rounds of fifteen minutes leaves time to rotate between them; twelve-minute rounds give you nine or ten and a faster evening.

Say the format in the invitation. People who have played Americano relax; people who have not will ask, and answering once in the chat beats explaining it eight times on court one.

The draw is the part that goes wrong

With sixteen players on four courts there are billions of ways to arrange a single round. You need six of them in a row where nobody repeats a partner, nobody sits out twice running, and the teams stay roughly even.

Done by hand, in a car park, while fifteen people wait, this is guesswork — and the usual result is that the same four people play together all evening without anyone meaning it.

Draw the rounds in advance. If the numbers change at the last minute, redraw: it takes seconds, and it is the difference between an evening people rebook and one they quietly skip.

During the evening: keep the score visible

Scores written on a phone in someone's pocket are scores nobody trusts. Post them where the group can see, round by round, and disputes stop before they start.

Start the next round on time even if one court is still finishing. Whatever the score is when the clock goes, that is the score — this is how clubs run it, and it keeps eight people from waiting on four.

Finish with the standings and a photo. The result posted in the chat that same evening is what fills next week's sign-up, more than any reminder you could write.

Running one this week?

MyPadel takes the sign-ups from one link, draws every round, keeps the score and gives you a picture of the result for the group chat. Free, and players need no account.

Set up a game

FAQ

How many players should I invite for two courts?: Eight play at a time. Invite ten to twelve: the extras cover the usual drop-outs, and with rest rounds everyone still plays most of the evening.
What do I do when someone cancels an hour before?: Take the first person off the waiting list. If nobody can come, redraw for the smaller number — with seven on two courts you play one court plus a rest rotation, or move everyone onto one court and play longer rounds.
Should I collect the money before or after?: Before, if the club takes it up front. State the amount at sign-up and collect when people confirm. Collecting afterwards means chasing people for a week.
How do I handle very different levels in one group?: Use Mexicano, or tell the draw the levels so it balances the teams. What you must avoid is a court where one pair wins 24:3 — both pairs stop enjoying it at the same moment.
How long should a social evening be?: Two hours is the sweet spot. Ninety minutes works for a weeknight; three hours is a tournament, and people who came to socialise start leaving after the second.