Getting people to play polo

Any advice on how to get people to play polo would be highly appreciated!

We, in Vienna, have been struggling now for quite some time to get more people play polo.
We have a core of 4-5 people that play regularly (basically those that went to Geneva) but cant seem to get more player into bikepolo.
Every now and then someone joins but at same time it kinda seems like someone else stops playing for whatever reason.

On a good Sunday we manage to have up to maybe 8-9 players, which is always freakin awesome but only rarely the case.

In average, we probably manage to play on 2 sundays a month, cause we cant get enough players to come on the other sundays.

Geneva, which is much smaller residents-wise, has a great polo community it seems, I´d love to have the same thing in Vienna.

Can someone please fix this and move it to the polo section? Thanks

EDIT:
Forgett it, fixed it myself!

how big is the fixed/messenger/other-bike community in Viena?
put some posters in the bike shop abouet where and when do you play?
make a blog/forum/mailing-list where people can go without the necesity to go face-to-face first, to get info.

my 2p

sounds almost exactly the same situation we have in birmingham. it's been that way for a year, despite our efforts.

stuff we've done/plan to do:

print flyers and hand to pretty much anyone on a bike, leave in bike shops etc
start a beginner-friendly blog (this site is too dry for a newbie) - birminghambikepolo.com
play polo on a court adjoining the sky-ride (mass-pariticipation bike ride) and encourage people to try it out
attempt to get some coverage in free newspapers/magazines/culture websites
attempt to organise a mid-size tournament which you can push to spectators
get in to universities to flyer (especially at freshers weeks)

good luck, it feels totally futile in brum, the situation has actually got worse since we started doing this stuff!

I do not really have experience with bike-communities in other cities, so can´t really comment on how big the viennese community is. I wouldn´t call it small though.

More and more fixie riders (in fact, the austrian fixed gear forum is called "singlespeed + bikepolo"...).
Messengers regularly watch us play polo but do not seem to be interested in playing.

We play not too far from the city center. Couple of people said that they would try it out and play, but the court is too far away. We are looking for a new one right now.

Forum / Mailing list already existing with links to pictures.

Flyers are a good idea. Gotta work on them during winter and hand them to people beginning of spring.
A tournament would be a great to attract people, but not much fun with 3-4 teams max :(

Good luck to you guys too danwentskiing.
You scare me by saying it has gotten worse ... -.-

chloroform ?

obtain ponies

A tournament would be a great to attract people, but not much fun with 3-4 teams max :(

you guys are pretty centrally located though - if you got good courts etc you could attract people from all over europe!

give a couple of month notice an teams from south Germany, noth Italy, Switzerland...etc will go

Facebook? I found out that way, never heard about it till I was looking for some cycling activity groups to join. Also, agree with getting the LBS involved :)

See if you can get in to any local universities as they will probably have a bike club, We managed to get a stall at the recent Freshers fair in Sheffield where lots of people were interested and took details, although as yet nobody extra has turned up but we remain optimistic.

See if you can get in to any local universities as they will probably have a bike club, We managed to get a stall at the recent Freshers fair in Sheffield where lots of people were interested and took details, although as yet nobody extra has turned up but we remain optimistic.

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ok in retrospect i dont know who this message benefits but im leaving it as it is

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Same here, we got a stall, and some interest but only 2 came & one came back again. Freshers fair, if I remember rightly, was a blur with EVERY club seeming like excellent fun, the truth: i returned to none. I think you need a follow up event, if the army can do it so can you...

• How public is the arena you perform in?*
  My favourite newcomer saw us in the most studenty park in mcr on a really sunny day and thought it looked fun & after playing said it was the best game ever! Our most common venue attracts no-one(1%) passing, by being a bit too tucked away but so very close to where people would stop to look all the time.
  
• How do you communicate with interested people?*
  I bombard 15+ people with texts, with very good result maybe 3 or 4 people come (who aren't in forum loop).
  We have 2 (soon to be 3, maybe) groups here in MCR, forumengers and kids/parents ( third group is a splinter group with main objective being MAXIMISING fun), who both prefer a different scene. Our group of polo doesn't involve ourselves with the kids much (being used to swearing and drinking in polo and also unable to be on a bike at 9am saturday), though there is some cross-over. the important thing being polo growing away from us is no bad thing at all and whilst it isnt our thing it IS polo and a chance to practice with different people
  

so, in messy conclusion: recruit, communicate well, more polo (would a different polo scene flourish?)

This is very useful. Thanks.

Throw a Tournament...seriously. We doubled our regular player numbers here in Christchurch New Zealand just from the interest and exposure we got from one well organised tournament...which was open to newbie players.

Thanks for all the input guys.
Will see what I can do.

Handy thread dudes, Cheers

1) the personal approach: pester every single one of your friends who rides a bike and bully them into coming. They then may realise what they've been missing
2) let someone play on your bike, this totally changes your experience of polo. Someone who first tries it on a properly set up polo bike will have a totally different opinion to someone who tries it on a normal bike and then will be far more likely to come back

Small update:

In the meanwhile we setup a Facebook Group, updated our website and had an article on Bikepolo in one of austrias most read newspapers (didn´t get us new players though).

We also have access to an awesome court on weekends now:
https://picasaweb.google.com/104804489712081601792/Poloplatz#5600170928456077346

For 2012 we have planned to offer a "course" at the "university sports program", present bikepolo at "day of sport" and maybe hold a small tournament. Our new court is next to the Danube and we have space to build another court with small boards. Would be great if we can make this happen.

There is also Bikepolo beeing played in Styria, Linz and Wr. Neustadt now.

Vienna still lacks players but we have a larger "core" base now with about 8 players who play at least once a week. Unfortunately we still face the problem of people trying out polo, returning two or three times and then stopping for unknown reason.

Anyways, we played polo on friday, saturday and today. Terrific end to a great summer full of polo!

Check out:
http://leagueofbikepolo.com/forum/organizing-polo/2011/11/08/advice-for-herding-the-cats-in-my-county#comment-89723

Someone mentioned advertising on cragslist and similar sides, sounds like a great idea!