Organising a climbing competition can be a great way to promote your club or venue. Graeme Alderson suggests a few ideas to bear in mind at the planning stage.

So you want to set up and run a climbing competition? First of all, it helps to have a purpose to your competition - perhaps to raise the profile of a venue, or a product, or maybe just to provide a bit of fun for climbers in your area or possibly even to help develop your kids club. The whole style of the competition depends upon this purpose or reason.

A friendly local competition will be possible with a significantly smaller budget than a high profile event intended to draw attention to your wall. A development competition for children is much more likely to attract willing volunteers than one that has more commercial aims.

Do not be fooled into thinking that competitions are a money maker. Some events will show a profit and some people will earn a wage out of competitions, other events make a loss and always there are numerous hidden costs that have a knack of eating into that budget! But don't let that put you off - remember why you wanted to promote the event in the first place and if you've made more people aware of your venue, or attracted a couple of new members, then it's all been a success!