Stay-to-play, also called stay-and-play or required housing, is a rule that teams must book lodging through the tournament's chosen hotels or housing company to take part. Book elsewhere and the team may pay a penalty or lose its spot.
Why tournaments use it
- To earn rebates or commissions on the rooms their block contains.
- To avoid attrition penalties if families book cheaper rooms outside the block.
- To make sure teams can find rooms at all in towns where a big weekend sells the market out.
- To keep teams together and simplify logistics on game days.
Why families push back
The complaints are consistent: the required hotels can cost more than what families find on their own, the programme rarely includes rentals or houses, and a family that wanted a kitchen and a shared living room for the team has to choose between the policy and the trip it wanted. Some teams simply pick a tournament without one.
The alternatives
A tournament can earn on lodging without requiring it. The open version shows real places to stay near the fields — hotels, rentals, houses — on the registration confirmation, and earns a share of whatever families choose to book through it. With Bookend that share is around 6–8% of each booking, with no block to fill and no penalty for anyone.
For the full picture — how rebates are paid, when a managed programme makes sense, and how some tournaments run both — read the stay-to-play guide on this site.