Meet Setup: Events and Meet Event File – SwimTopia Help Center

Meet Events, including individual, relay, diving and individual/relay event groups can be imported or manually created, edited and deleted from within your Meet Templates or directly within the meet itself.

This is located under the Schedule tab.

Creating Events - Meet Event File Import

The most efficient way to get your meet events into your SwimTopia team site, is to import a Meet Event File from Meet Manager if you have one. (This is also the only option for multi-session meets at this time, ➞ See Multi-Session Meets)

Manual event creation is an option if you do not, or when you need to create grouped events (described below).

From the Schedule page, click the green Add Swim Meet menu at the bottom of the page and then Import Meet Event File.

Upload the ZIP or EV3 file. This will create the meet, all the events, and any rules included in the Meet Events file. If your file includes qualifying times, these will be imported as well ➞ See our Qualifying Times article for more on this topic.

» Time-saving Tip: Once you have uploaded your file, we suggest saving this as a Meet Template so you can apply this template to future meets created. To save this "meet" as a Meet Template go to the Meet Setup > Events, click on the Template menu then select Save As Template.

» Note: As you can see from the screenshot, this is also where you would go when you've created a new meet and you want to apply a Meet Template you have saved.

Creating Events - Manually

As mentioned, manual event creation is an option if you do not have access to a meet event file, or if you want to add events, such as grouped events.

➧ Option 1: Create Events in a Meet Template

You can do this one time by creating a Meet Template with your events from the Schedule > Meet Templates area, and then apply this template to your meets ➞ See the Meet Templates article for additional details.

➧Option 2: Create Events in a Meet

You can create your events directly from within your meet - Schedule > Select Meet Name > Meet Setup > Events subtab.

» Tip: If you choose this route, we highly suggest using the "Save As Template" option once complete so you can then "Apply Template" to additional meets to save you time.

» Note: If your meet is linked to a Meet Template locked by your league, you will not be able to Add/Edit Events unless you are allowed to Unlink Template to do so. Check with your league before unlinking templates. Changing events can cause errors when merging entries and uploading results if teams do not have matching event lists.

Individual Events

Select Individual Event from the Add Event menu, make your selections and Save. Repeat for each event.

Event Number - Based on the last event#, but you can assign another # as needed.
Competition Category - Options are Girls/Women, Boys/Men, Mixed
Age Range - Based on the Athlete Age Groups set up in your Settings > Athlete Age Groups, but will also allow for "Open" and "Custom" options.
Distance - Includes the range of 25 - 1650 but also allows for a custom distance.
Stroke - Freestyle, Backstroke, Breaststroke, Butterfly, Individual Medley
Bonus Event - Do not count against meet/session entry limits
Non-scoring - Events marked as non-scoring will have places awarded, but no points in the meet. A "Non-scoring" label will display next to the event in SwimTopia and the points column will remain blank for these events in Meet Maestro.
Description - An additional description of the event can be appended to the stroke name, or optionally replace the stroke name

Relay Events

Select Relay Event from the Add Event menu, make your selections and Save. Repeat for each event.

The differences between the Individual and Relay Event menus is in the Distance and Stroke options:

Distance - 100 (4x25), 200 (4x50), 400 (4x100), 800 (4x200), Custom
Stroke - Freestyle Relay, Medley Relay, Backstroke Relay, Breastroke Relay, Butterfly Relay

Diving Events

Select Dive Event from the Add Event menu, make your selections and Save. Repeat for each event.

The difference between the Individual, Relay, and Dive Event menus is that dive events have "Number of dives" and "Height" options instead of Distance and Stroke:

Number of dives - 3, 4, 5, 6, 11 or Custom
Height - 1 Meter, 3 Meter, Platform

➞ See our SwimTopia Diving Support Overview article for more details on these features.

» Hy-Tek Meet Manager/Team Manager Users: Be aware of the number of dives we support, since these systems either allow for any number (MM), or provide options for 5,6,11 only (TM). If you or the meet host attempt to upload an entries or results file into the SwimTopia meet with counts we do not support, the file may not be imported. You need to correct the counts to match the events in the SwimTopia meet at this time.

Grouping Events (a.k.a "Combining Events")

Event Groups provide a way to reduce the time required to run a swim meet. With this feature different age groups and competition categories can be combined (and seeded) into a single event, so long as the stroke and distance is the same. Swimmers from multiple groups will be seeded together, with the events swum together, but the results are scored separately.

Typically this would look something like an event #8 Boys 10&U 100 IM event, with sub-events for 6&U, 7-8 and 9-10 age groups, which appear as #8A, #8B and #8C.

» Note: This Event Group feature is equivalent and compatible with the "Multi-Age Event" feature in HyTek Meet Manager.

➧ Seeding-Place-Points

When events are grouped in this way, all swimmers from all events in the group are seeded together and race against each other, yet placing and points are still awarded as though the events were raced separately.

➧ Benefits

Grouping events can help fill empty lanes, thus reducing the number of heats in the meet. When the events are seeded based on time, Event Groups also help to minimize the duration of each heat. The result—fewer, faster heats—can shave precious minutes from the meet timeline.

➧ Event Grouping vs Combining Heats

Even though some teams call this "combining events," our event grouping feature is NOT the same as “combining heats” which usually occurs after the meet is seeded when teams wish to reduce the number of heats in a meet by combining semi-full heats, and often only mixes ages and/or competition category in the slowest heat. Usually, event groups are defined as part of the standard schedule of events, often by league rule.

See ➞ Combining Heats in Meet Maestro for how you can do this once your meet is merged.

➧ Creating Event Groups

Option A: Creating New Grouped Events

An event group can be created from scratch via the Add Event menu.

Examples:

Option B: Grouping Existing Events

Existing events can be grouped by selecting the checkbox next to each one you want to group and then clicking the Group button (provided they are the same stroke and distance).

» Note: The grouped event is an “event” that also needs a unique Event number. You can combine events with letter suffix, for example #12A and #12B into a new grouped event #12, but you cannot group events #12 and #13 into a new event group #12, because #12 is already taken. You must either renumber the existing event (we recommend adding an ‘A’ suffix), or you need to choose a new unique event number for the group. You will not be able to include letters when creating the grouped event.

As an example, if you wanted to group events 1 & 2 together and they were already created, you would need to first delete event or rename the initial one to 1A. Then Select both 1A & 1 and group with the new group labeled 1.

➧ Meet Maestro and Event Grouping

Meet Maestro can run and score meets where multiple age groups or competition categories swim the same event together. For example, some teams mix all their older girls or boys together to race, so swimmers of similar speeds swim next to each other, but they want the age groups broken out for place ribbons and scoring.

Meet Maestro smoothly handles this situation, allowing events to be swum as, for example, the 11-18 Girls 50 Free, but scored and placed for the 11-12s, the 13-14s, and the 15-18s.

» Important Note: Even though "event grouping" is supported in Meet Maestro if done prior to the merge, you cannot create, edit or group events within Meet Maestro.

Qualifying Times / Time Standards

For meets where specific qualifying times must be achieved, you can configure the events in yards, short course meters and long course meters, as needed

➞ See our Qualifying Times article for more on this topic.

SwimTopia provides a user-friendly interface to create your own Time Standard Sets containing Qualifying Times designated per event, or use Time Standard Sets shared by your league. This time-saving feature is highly recommended to expedite your setup for any applicable meet

➞ See Time Standards: Team Setup and Management for more information on this topic.

Editing/Deleting Events

Use the pencil icon to edit a meet event, or select the event and then the Remove button if you need to delete one.

An existing event group can be split into separate events by clicking the pencil icon and then the Ungroup button.

Downloading a Meet Event File (EV3)

When you have at least one event present in your meet, you'll see the option to Download Events File. This meet event file can be imported into any system that accepts EV3 files.

» Note: Meet events must match exactly for meet entries to merge creating your Meet Maestro meet.

If your league is not sharing meet templates, you should download and share the Meet Events file with all competing teams before merging meet entries or accepting their meet event files (if they are not using SwimTopia).

We also advise sharing this file when the meet is being hosted by a team using another system. They can use the events file to confirm you are set up correctly based on the events list they have in their system, OR they can share their event file with you to compare with what you have in your meet or to use to create your meet (if not already created by you or your league).

➧ Meet Event File Details:

Meet info: name, start/end date, location, elevation, course code, maximum number of allowed entries, etc
Event info: stroke, distance, event type, athlete ages, qualification times, etc.

➞ Next Topic: Meet Setup: Entry Rules

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