How meets work

Every meet in CoachBrighter follows the same shape: you create it, fill it with events, get swimmers into those events, then assign heats and lanes. The one part that changes is how swimmers get in — and that depends on your team type. Understanding this once makes the meet, declaration, and entry articles much faster to read.

The two paths into a meet

High school teams: you build the lineup. You seed athletes into events yourself — nobody declares.

Club teams: athletes and guardians declare the events they want, and you approve them before seeding.

This is the only real fork in the product. Everything downstream — heats, lanes, relays, exports — works the same way for both. (See High school vs club for the full comparison.)

The meet lifecycle

A meet moves through three statuses, shown as a badge on the meet page:

• Draft — your workspace. The meet is hidden from athletes and guardians while you finalize details and events.
• Open for Declaration — club teams only. Families declare and update their events; you approve requests as they arrive. High school meets skip this step entirely.
• Closed — entries are final. Families see their confirmed events, and you assign heats and lanes.

High school meets effectively go Draft → seed → done; club meets add the declaration window in the middle. Both converge on the same final step: building heats and lanes.

Why seed times matter

A seed time is a swimmer's expected time for an event — usually their personal best. Seeding uses it to place faster swimmers together and spread heats fairly. A swimmer can be entered without one, but they'll land in the slowest heat. Seed times from a different course are converted automatically, so a yards best can seed a meters race — see Courses & time conversion.

Where to go next

• Run a high school meet: High School Meets
• Run a club meet: Club Meets
• Run an evaluation without heats and lanes: Run tryouts and time trials