I've just received an email from the LTA to submit any Grade 5 & 6 tournaments I wish to run in the 2017 summer season for sanctioning purposes by 31st January 2017. I've also just been reading the recent posts on the Marcus Willis thread about lack of futures, lack of british tour prize money, too few british tour events, lack of club competition etc etc.
So what I would like to hear are adult competition ideas, that we could help taking small steps towards in summer 2017.
Here are a couple of my recent ideas:
1. Hold regular FAST4 One Day Grand Slam Size Draws - with enough courts (I was speaking to Queenswood, who have 25 courts) you could theoretically run a 128 man grand slam type draw, using the FAST4 scoring format (40mins per match avg) in one day. This should mean everyone who applies for entry will be accepted and you could make it progressive, so that lower rated players play in the morning and better rated players join in in the afternoon.
2. Hold midweek FAST4 evening 8 man draws. Very local, recreational singles tournaments, 3 hours on 3-4 courts, everyone has 3 matches, played 6-9pm or 7-10pm so full-time workers can play after work. If you ran enough of these you could make some type of county or regional play offs.
I don't have the time to run them myself, but the events I have run myself have proven to be financially sustainable with a 50/50 split between club/organiser. Clubs provide courts/lights, organiser provides qualified referee/balls.