Strengthen the ongoing dialogue between the clubs and the local administration about the usage, utilisation, and allocation. With HallMonitor activity registration, you can open a dialogue based on facts and have the users take joint responsibility.

Documented in a pilot project supported by The Danish Foundation for Culture and Sports Facilities, LOA, improved dialogue with clubs about the usage and allocation of sports facilities is something all local governments and administration is one of the reasons mentioned for rolling out activity registration. (Danish source: Strategiske potentialer i registrering af aktiviteter, juni 2021, Idrættens Analyseinstitut, Peter Forsberg & Daniel Hayman).

The reason is that a vast array of capacity surveys has shown that booked times go unused.

In departments throughout the country, it has turned out to be difficult to open a dialogue, as the basic utilisation data was inadequate. With activity registration in 23 local governance areas (supported by LOA, report June 2021), the councils were afforded a far more precise and current overview of the utilisation rates of their sports facilites. In many local governance areas, this created the foundation for a good dialogue with the users.

With activity registration, local governance areas are now able to digitise the work of revealing available hall times and allocate fairly among the clubs in their area. HallMonitor can afford insight into how much demand there is on individual facilities in real-time and collate the activities with booking systems.

In Odense clubs play along

The starting point for the allocation of hall and pitch times has previously mostly been based on last year’s allocation in many local governance areas. To a large degree, clubs have been able to keep times when they apply again. A lack of data as a foundation has further made it difficult to allocate times to new clubs or others mid-season.

Odense Council, who was originally part of the pilot project, has since worked systematically with HallMonitor, has today achieved a good dialogue with clubs who has moved away from the thinking of “we usually”. Today, the clubs are cognisant of registering unused bookings, and they are generally not interested in having too many bookings they do not use. At the same time, they can see the purpose of creating room for everyone at the facilities.

“To a very high degree, we experience that the clubs are much better at showing up for the bookings they have made. They are aware that we receive a notification on whether there are people present at the time of booking. They also know that it is bad message to send if they repeatedly do not attend their booked times. Especially when they simultaneously ask for more hall times or an expansion of facilites. If they do not use their times, there is a real risk that they will be allocated to someone else,” says Rasmus Vestergaard Tander, Leisure consultant, Odense Council.

A product of the analysis with HallMonitor is that Odense Council requires clubs to be cognisant of only booking times they will use. The Council has further revised its allocation principles for hall times, so that grass root movements are also considered when hall times are allocated.

Read the whole case: Targeted effort to reduce pressure on facilities.

‘Less waste – more play in Lyngby Taarbæk

In the local governance area of Lyngby-Taarbæk, HallMonitor activity registration has made it possible to increase the utilisation rate at various sports facilities with 10 percentage points in the period from 2021 to the end of 2022.

In 2021, under the header of “Less waste more play”, Lyngby-Taarbæk Council launched a systematic gathering of data in a period of 16 weeks. Among other things, it turned out that more than 7 out of 10 booked times were not attended. That was running counter to the council’s challenges of supporting local clubs.

“The project confirmed our assumption of times going unused. It might be because the trainer was sick or there was a game during the weekend, and therefore Thursday training was cancelled. But because there was no formalised culture to unbook, it has not happened, and the bookings have gone to waste,” explains Jakob Kloster Pedersen, Lyngby Taarbæk Council.

A concrete measure born from the project is that on a weekly basis there is follow-up on various clubs. If they do not use a booked time, they receive an email. If there are several non-attendances, the department contacts the club, who in the worst case can lose their reservations.

“We can take the dialogue with a given club on a factual basis. The dialogue specifically is essential to achieve real change. In fact, it has turned out that the oversight has made it possible for big clubs with many members to optimise their use of times, because they have become cognisant of there being bookings they have not used,” Jakob Kloster Pedersen says.

Read the whole case: Lyngby-Taarbæk has optimised the use of hall times markedly.

4 advantages of digital activity registration

Among clubs, there is good support for digital activity registration with the purpose of increasing available capacity and achieve a fairer allocation throughout the season.

1. Fair allocation of times
Activity registration makes it easier to allocate the hall and pitch times for clubs they actuall need. This provides a fairer allocation of times, rather than based on “we usually”.

2. Room for new clubs
If requests for times at facilities occur during the season, the administration has a better view of where times are available – among these; times at facilities that are booked, but unused.

3. Easy adaptability throughout the season
It is far easier to allocate times for shorter periods, making the allocation of hall and pitch times adapted to the needs of the clubs throughout the season, depending of the time of year.

4. Easier access for other citizens
It is easier to book/gain access to facilities without being a member of any club.