Bigger is not always better as evidenced by Peckleball Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah. Open since early 2023, Peckleball Palace was Salt Lake City’s first indoor pickleball facility.
Owner Russ Morgan said having three courts allows the facility a lot of opportunities and attracts a lot of players with nearly 3,000 account holders after only two years in business.
“Our main goals is we want people to come here and enjoy playing pickleball,” Russ says. “And being a smaller facility lets us try and do different things!”
Here are four ways you can take advantage of owning a smaller club too!
Free Lessons
Peckleball Palace offers free lessons – and loaner paddles – to anyone looking to try out the sport. After registering and renting court space, one of their pros works with the new players to teach them the basics and get a feel for pickleball. It’s a low-risk way to try something new and since they are already registered it’s easy for them to come back again and play
Free Demo Paddles
Before investing in a better paddle or simply buying their first one, Peckleball Palace is happy to loan a demo paddle to prospective buyers from their pro shop. With only three courts to manage it makes it much easier to work directly with players and help them try out a variety of paddles to find the one that’s perfect for them.
Private Events
“We get a lot of calls from people inquiring about renting the space,” says Russ. “We’re happy to rent all three courts and do our best to accommodate every request. Most often these groups want to host a private tournament and they typically have a lot of fun.”
If you own a smaller club or are interested in offering some courts for private events, Peckleball Palace has hosted quite a variety of groups.
“We’ve put on birthday parties, family reunions, an after-prom tournament where students changed into their athletic wear here and played until midnight and corporate team bonding events,” Russ says.
A club this size makes it affordable for local groups to host an event as well. Russ said some memorable groups were a group that graduated high school 10 years ago that hosted a prom and even played in their dresses! Another local group held a Christmas party where players dressed as, and played in, characters from their favorite Christmas movies.
Part of the private tournament hosting includes Russ keeping score through the Swish Tournaments or Picklehit scoring app. Players simple report their scores and the app does the rest.
Peckleball Palace makes it even easier for groups by allowing them to bring in their own food and drinks.
Tournaments and Round Robins
It’s hard making every pickleball player happy. However, Russ has learned that by offering a mix of round-robins and tournaments at a variety of DUPR levels, he can make a lot of pickleball players happy!
“Some people don’t like playing in tournaments because they don’t want it to affect their DUPR, and that’s where round robins are great,” Russ says. “They allow for tournament-style play without worrying about DUPRs.”
The club recently hosted a Back from the Dead tournament that was very well received. The double-elimination tournament allowed everyone more playing time – and second chances!
Round-robin nights are also gaining in popularity. Most recently 14 people played 12 rounds with the intent of playing a different person every game. With a waiting list for this event, Russ plans on hosting more.
He advises clubs to keep trying different events and styles as they can take some time to catch on.
“I’ve had to cancel tournaments and then I keep trying and tweaking them a bit and by the second and third offering they start to fill,” he said.
He’s working on a 4.0 – 4.5 level tournaments and says he’s found a bit more success working with 3.0 tournaments. It’s all about trial and error and finding the sweet spot!
Pickleball facilities come in all sizes and all can be successful by finding their niche and strengths, just like Peckleball Palace.
