Running a larg-scale meet

[AZtumbler]

Hi everyone,
New here and I just was wondering. For those of you who have had experience running a large-scale meet at your gym, what are the things that you would definitely tell a gym that is putting on their first large-scale meet? I'm talking a three day meet, three gyms going at the same time as far as scale. We have run meets before out of our gym but are planning a much bigger one next year. It will obviously be held outside of the gym due to the size. What are things that you never anticipated, would do different? Things that work for your meet. I appreciate any and all tips/ideas.

 

[gymdog]

Probably one of the biggest things is to iron out your score running system. If you're using the electronic scoreboards, it's definitely a must to check the software ahead of time, work out your input system, make sure everything is up to date. I think you have to renew stuff with it (if you want technical support at least) and sometimes people are borrowing those from other gyms, etc, so it's really key to have all that work out, because scoring glitches are a nightmare and can significantly delay meets. Getting the scores online as quickly as possible is also always appreciated, and sometimes that's not always straightforward (might need to export files to Excel, etc) so you want to figure out ahead of time who has the skills to do that.

Work out a basic ranking system for positions. Some positions are best done by people who know what is going on in gymnastics. So you want your experienced people in those positions. Others, anyone can do, but adults will be preferable, so you want to allocate your adults to those. Finally you have the jobs that kids can do, i.e. walking the cards from one table to another or such.

Be ready to be firm with people. There's plenty of opportunity for people (parents, coaches, people who work at the venue, photographers, whatever) to try and do things that'll interfere or cause problems. You have to have a take charge person who can deal with these people professionally but firmly so they don't cause issues.

That's just really basic, I mean, if you have any more specific questions. Definitely be reasonable about times and try to start and finish on time. If there's time at the end before scores are in (inevitable) plan to have a handstand contest or music and dancing or some other kind of activity so everyone is not just sitting around. People get really antsy. It is better to have them watching their kid do something when they drove five hours or whatever, than to have them sitting there wondering what is taking so long. Personally in lieu of doing a goody bag full of useless things I would rather see a meet director spend the money to give each kid a healthy snack such as a water bottle, granola bar, and banana. But people are looking for something that starts and finishes on time, not a lot of downtime, parents LOVE the scoreboards with the kid's name, gym, score but my experience with those hasn't been great. But everyone is videotaping nowadays, they love to get those establishing shots so if you can make the march in really great or something especially for the younger kids. But on time is key. On time. On time.

 

[mumoftwogymnasts]

From a parents perspective, I agree with gymdog on time is the key, to the parents at least, saying what a great meet it was. I understand that stuff happens as the day progresses and it is easy to get off schedule, but there is nothing more frustrating than getting up at the crack of dawn, getting everyone organised, fed, driving to a meet, arriving at the designated time... and then everyone stands around for 30-45 minutes. Starting on time creates a great first impression.

Providing information beforehand is also helpful to families and gymnasts. For example we have been to meets where there was little or sometimes no food available. The gymnasts had food packed, the rest of us either had to choose to go hungry or drive 10 minutes to the nearest shopping centre. If we had known beforehand we could have been better organised.

 

[gymcoach34]

a different meet director for each gym where the meets are held-and plan ahead & stick to your schedule. the only thing that should hold you up is an injury that takes a long time to clear (hopefully, THAT won't happen!).

Also awards for each meet in another room, FOR SURE. That keeps things running on time. Also back up the electronic score boards with hand flashers at each event in case you need them.

Hopefully your gym has run at least 1 or 2 big meets out of gym before taking on this huge task....

 

[Gymdad2]

I have two different opinions about the electronic scoring displays. As a parent I love it and would like to see it at every meet. It really does make a meet much more enjoyable. As a scorekeeper (which I have been at many meets we have put on) it just adds another layer of stress to an already stressful job. I agree with the poster who said make sure that there are flashers at every station as a back up. Also, once you have all of your equipment set up, test, test, and retest. Make sure that you have one person in each gym who really understands your software and hardware and who can trouble shoot on the spot. Make sure that you have a back up laptop loaded any ready to go, as well as at least one backup printer for each gym. This person also needs to know how to update your gymnast entries in the software because there will always be late additions/scratches and changes. Because of last minute changes, be sure that your scorekeepers are set up and ready to go well before march in. Another thing - make sure you have arranged for enough power for all of your equipment, including any needed extension cords and tape to hole them in place. Good luck.

 

[Panda-girl's Mom]

Our gym usually runs a large meet annually everybody is required to sign up for a comittee either decorating food or scoring. The gymnasts on the team are also required to do jobs like running scores to the score keepers selling 50/50 s or flashingscores and squad leaders. The team usually puts on a little show while waiting for awards. One problem is keeping the younger girls on the team occupied for long times while their parents are working. I found this difficult because I was stuck at the score table for 3 days while my 8yo was unoccupied a lot of the time so maybe the parents of younger kids could be doing other things instead of scoring. For food all the gymnasts got fruit and animal crackers for coaches we put out picky foods that could snack on between coaching and judges got meals. I think it is also nice to have vendors that parents can buy send outs for their gymnast. Adequate seating is also needed for a big meet I hate going to meets where you pay a big admission fee and you have to stand for 4 hours.

 

[gym law mom]

One of the biggest things to me is to get volunteers locked into this as soon as possible. You always find people that will say this is a great idea and they'll help only to get close to the meet date and those folks are nowhere to be found.

Get committte chairs committed now, have regular planning meetings and have them get their volunteers in line way ahead of time.

 

[KJinMD]

Big Meets

I have worked on a number of large meets, mostly running the electronic scoring. While there were a few rough moments here and there, we learned that a full test weeks before the first meet of the season helped tremendously. We pulled out all the wireless score-entry keypads and turned on the electronic scoreboards and did both a test to verify everything is in good working order. Because we switched back and forth between mens and womens meets, we had to make sure the addresses on each device were properly set up for the right apparatus. This is very important if you are borrowing equipment from another gym to ensure all your device addresses are unique. This also gave us time in case something has to be shipped back for repair before the meet. Also by pulling everything out and running a test, we were able to conduct hands-on training for all the parent volunteers doing data entry alongside the judges. At that time we provided handouts with all instructions for everyone to take home and review and feel more prepared for working at the meet. We learned to test with the exact laptop computer that would be running the system and to also have a backup ready to go too.

As for food mentioned in this discussion, we always had a big concessions stand because it was so profitable for our team organization. We had a concessions chairperson and assistant chairs, and they arranged for purchasing cases of drinks and snacks as well as renting equipment for things like hot dog rollers, small ovens for baking cookies, etc. The more meets you run, the better you can plan your purchases as you can keep track of quantities of items sold. We also arranged with local pizza shops for deliveries of pizza that was then sold by the slice.

For our big meets we made it a requirement that every gymnast's family work a certain number of sessions. It was a logical determination - figure out all the tasks that need to be done, factor in the number of sessions held over 2-3 days, and divide by number of families. We also gave fair warning many months in advance and basically told all parents that they should just plan on working the meet on those dates. Without everyone's help, we could not have run the meets. Members unable to volunteer the required number of sessions had to pay a financial penalty.

We used to pride ourselves on having meet results printed out within minutes of the final gymnast in the last rotation each session, in order to minimize the waiting time until awards. We didn't have much time for things like handstand contests or things like that seen at lots of meets.

One other note - we used to keep some extra gifts handy for birthday gifts. The scorekeeping system highlights if the gymnast's birthdate is the date of the meet and during the wait for awards we would announce 'happy birthday' and give the gymnast a t-shirt or something like that. When you run a really big with 400+ gymnasts, chances are you will have someone with a birthday over that weekend.

Hope this helps!

 

[AZtumbler]

Running a large-scale meet

Thanks everyone for the tips! Keep them coming.