Why you get confirmed competition times with such late notice…
Ever wondered why you get confirmed competition times with such late notice? Here’s an explanation as to what goes into organising the schedule of a competition.
Basically we have to collect people fees for competition well in advance. We then submit entries shortly after this.
Once entries are received from all gyms, by their final due date the competition provider will start drafting up the first run order with times for all teams. This can be difficult with so many clubs and teams attending, it is so hard to ensure there are no cross overs between athletes and coaches.
What is a cross over?
A cross over is where for example Team A may enter the warm up room at 5.30pm and Perform at 6pm, and Team B enter the Warm Up Room at 5.45pm and Performs at 6.15pm, but both of these teams may have the same coach or an athlete that competes in both of these teams. But coaches and/or athletes can’t be with both teams at the same time. This is considered a cross over. Cross overs become a problem when an athlete or a coach has clashes with other teams they are apart of.
This cross over process is what makes run sheets so hard to put together. It is not uncommon that after the first draft a whole division has to move, possibly even move to a different day.
It usually takes 3-6 possibly even 8 tries to get it right for all gyms, teams and athletes to ensure no one crosses over. Because as you change something for one team, it then might affect another.
This doesn’t even consider last minute division changes for teams that may have lost or gained athletes.
Each Draft takes about 1 week to process and put together. From the point the draft is sent, the Gym Owners need time to read through and find crossover issues, and then they need to communicate this to the competition provider, then the competition provider has to go in and fix it up, which is about a week long process when you have hundreds of teams and thousands of athletes attending a competition.
For example, we may get sent the Draft on Monday and have until Wednesday night to send any issues or crossovers, then they use Thursday and Friday to fix the changes ready for the next draft on the following Monday. This process continues until we reach a run sheet that somewhat suits everyone.
For us here at Infinity we try to give parents a rough guide on the day and time by about the second or third draft as they usually don’t significantly change the times of days past this point, although they still can. But we will not give out exact times until we have the final copy of the run sheet to avoid confusion. Our families already have so much information to keep track of. It would be extremely difficult to not have people confused over having 3 versions of times for each comp and then parents remembering what is the correct time.
For example if we provided times from the second draft that say you meet at 8am, email that out to everyone, then the next draft says 1pm, then the next draft says 10am then the next 11.45am, it will get so confusing and is no help to anyone as those times are completely irrelevant. It is absolutely not ideal to have parents confused over meet times on a day where we absolutely need everyone to be there on time at the right time. This is why all gyms wait to release their times until the final run sheet is released.
We understand there are unique cases where you may really need to know the time due to other commitments, but giving you the time from draft 3 as 10am for example and then by the time we get to the final and it being 12pm is no help to anyone.
Recommendations:
Keep the competition dates free until you know estimated days.
Once you have estimated days, tentatively book other things for your weekend, but still know that competition times can change.
Include buffer time, for example if you are told you will be Sunday Morning, keep the early afternoon free just in case.
I know these recommendations are a big ask, but this is the commitment required for a team sport.
We hope this helps you understand the process a little bit better!
