• By Sam Parton
• In Blog
• Sep 8, 2014

New Activity Finder and Player Finder

Since forming our our partnership with Ordnance Survey as part of their Geovation programme, we've been busy working on our new physical activity finder for London.

Our goal is to open up sports facilities so OpenPlay becomes more than just about finding and booking them. For example if you have booked a tennis court, why not tell others about it? Whether you are a tennis coach who wants to attract more attendees, organise a social session or just need someone else to fill in to make doubles, OpenPlay is here to help. We realised that a lot of information was already hidden in our booking system so what we?re doing is promoting schools, parks and community spaces as community hubs given the range of activities take place at the same which more often than not, people just don't know about.

How the OpenPlay Activity Finder Works

(1) For the Public

OpenPlay helps bring activities to you. We?re working to remove barriers to sports participation by allowing you to easily search for activities near you such as tennis coaching sessions, drop in netball, pay and play badminton. Where possible we also allow you to book on to activities and ultimately save money in the process.

1. Put your postcode in the search box and choose an activity you want to do. If you start typing we will auto prompt according to the names of activities we have on our database

2. Click on any search results that interest you

3. Book to an activity where we have online booking or contact them directly

(2) For Activity Providers

Activity providers can use our new activity finder to promote their sessions and get more attendees. It offers the following features all from your smart phone or computer:
- Manage attendees online and offline
- Take and manage payments
- Capture customer details e.g. gender, ethnicity, age
- Export your customer lists to help with monitoring

Signing up is straight forward, simply go to the OpenPlay Activity Finder sign up page here and follow the instructions.

OpenPlay Connect - How the Player Finder works

Signing up

1. Create an OpenPlay Profile

2. Click on the OpenPlay Connect Tab

3. Fill in your details such as what sport you want to play, what area you live in, who you are looking for, set your availability and add a photo (a bit like a dating site).

4. When you are ready click save and your profile will appear on our site for others to see and contact you. You are in full control to hide your profile at any time

Find other sports players in London

1. Go to OpenPlay Connect (click here)
2. Browse by sports and locations
3. Message anyone who you want to play with via their profile and that?s it

Feedback

We?re really open to feedback so please email hi@openplay.co.uk with any thoughts, gripes or features we?re missing. We always aim to respond within 24 hours.

By Sam Parton, Co-founder of OpenPlay