Running an Event, Start to Finish

Category: Organiser Audience: Club organisers and committee members

Overview

This is the single page that walks you through the whole life of an event on Horsify — from creating the listing, to building the running order (the "draw"), to running the day live, to entering and publishing results. Each phase links out to a deeper how-to if you want the detail.

The journey has four stages:

1. Create & set up your event, classes, tickets and entry form → riders can enter.
2. Build the schedule — generate a draw / running order and publish it to riders.
3. Run the day live — start the event day, handle scratchings and late entries, keep riders informed.
4. Enter & publish results — score each class, finalise placings, and push results to the public page and season leaderboards.

You do almost all of this from the event's organiser pages, reached from Organiser Dashboard → your event.

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Stage 1 — Create & set up the event

Create the listing

Start from New Event on the Organiser Dashboard (/organiser/dashboard) or the Events list (/organiser/events). This opens the create page at /events/new.

You choose a setup method first:

• Start from a Template — pre-built event types (Show Jumping Day, Dressage Day, One-Day Event, Pony Club Gymkhana, Extreme Cowboy Race, Clinic/Social, etc.) that seed starter classes for you.
• Create with AI — upload a flyer/schedule (PDF or image) or paste text, and Horsify extracts the details for you.
• Import from Nominate — paste a nominate.com.au event URL to pull the details across.
• Create Manually — fill the form yourself.

All paths land on the same form. Every new event is created as a Draft (visible only to your organisation) so you can keep working before you go live.

Pick the event kind — this drives everything downstream:

Event kind	What it's for
Competition with classes	Riders nominate horses and enter discipline classes (the main eventing/showing/dressage path).
Ticketed event	Sell tickets, no classes (clinics, socials).
Free RSVP	Free, register-interest events.

Key fields: Title, Description, Disciplines (required for competitions), Start/End date & time, Organising organisation, and Venue. Times are interpreted in the venue's state timezone. Optional settings include total capacity, Require manual confirmation (hold registrations for approval), stabling/day-yard offers and fees, and registration help text.

For multi-day or multi-session events, tick Complex Event (Multi-Session) — this unlocks the Sessions setup on the edit page.

Subscription note: organisations need an active plan. Limited Plan lists external-only events; Basic Plan unlocks full Horsify ticketing and payments.

→ See Create Events and Edit Events.

Add classes (divisions)

For a Competition with classes event, set up what riders can enter on the Competition Classes page (/events/{eventId}/classes) → Add Class.

Per class you set: Class name (from discipline-specific options, e.g. "60cm", "Preliminary", or a custom name), Discipline, Entry fee, optional Member entry fee (discounted for your members), Prize money, Capacity, age limits, Max entries per rider, guest-rider eligibility, a Test PDF link, and — for multi-session events — the Event Session the class belongs to.

In Horsify a division is a competition class. The Division Entry List (/events/{eventId}/divisions) is a reporting view of nominations grouped by class, not a separate thing to set up.

Sessions, tickets and the entry form

• Sessions (multi-day): on the edit page, the Event Sessions section (shown when Complex Event is on) → Add Session for each time slot / day. A session can be ticketed and tied to an event ticket.
• Tickets: the Event Ticketing section adds ticket types (name, price, optional member price, early-bird sales window, quantity, deposit vs full payment). Then choose Payment Methods (Cash on Day, Bank Transfer, Online Payment) from those your organisation accepts.
• Entry form: decide what riders fill in at entry. Assign a reusable Entry Form Template (/organiser/entry-form-templates), or build a per-event form under Advanced: manage per-event forms (/organiser/events/{eventId}/entry-forms).

→ See Entry Form Templates and Custom Form Fields.

Helpers & volunteers (optional)

Clubs run on volunteers, so Horsify can collect helper sign-ups as part of entry. On the Helpers page (/organiser/events/{eventId}/helpers), the Jobs & sign-ups tab has two parts:

• Ask entrants to help — choose Don't ask, Ask (optional), or Require an answer (riders must pick a job or explicitly decline before they can finish entering).
• Jobs needed for this event — list each job and how many people you need (e.g. 2 × Gate steward, 3 × Pencil / scribe). Riders pick from these at checkout. Jobs come from your organisation's reusable catalogue, which Horsify seeds with common roles (gate steward, scribe, timer, canteen, poo patrol, …) the first time you open the page.

You roster those volunteers onto jobs once the running order exists — see Stage 3 — Run the day live below.

Publish so riders can enter

From the edit page's Quick Actions, use Save as Draft while you work, and Publish when ready. Publishing validates the form and (for complex events) warns if you have no classes. Once Published, the event is public and riders can enter; a few core fields (title, disciplines, venue) lock while published — flip back to Draft to change them.

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Stage 2 — Build the schedule (the draw / running order)

Everything schedule-related lives on one page: Event Scheduling (/organiser/events/{eventId}/scheduling), reached from the Scheduling tile on the event.

It has three tabs: Configure & Generate, Preview & Adjust, and Saved Schedules.

Generate the draw

In Configure & Generate, set your rules: event start time, minutes per entry/class, number of rings and their names, and options like Randomise draw numbers, Optimise for rider breaks, and group-by-class. Then press Generate Schedule.

Horsify builds a draft draw for you — assigning draw numbers, ring allocations and computed start times — using deterministic scheduling rules (so it's repeatable, not random each time).

Multi-day events use one schedule per day. The Configure panel shows a day-picker; generate and save a separate schedule for each day. Each day goes live independently.

Review, adjust, and let AI help

In Preview & Adjust you can drag riders and whole classes to reorder them within a ring. Horsify flags clashes in a Conflicts panel (riders with too little break, a horse needing rest, duplicate draw numbers). Two AI-powered helpers assist here:

• Resolve conflicts with AI — reorders riders within each ring to clear clashes, keeping your manual moves where it can. (Classes never jump between rings.)
• Optimisation suggestions and a plain-language explanation of the scheduling decisions.

Save and publish to riders

Save with Save (keeps it a draft) or Save & Publish to Riders. On first publish you're offered a Notify riders option (on by default) that emails entrants that the running order is live — sent to confirmed registrants who've opted in to event updates.

You can Export a running-order PDF, and a steward's gear-check sheet PDF, from the schedule.

Bridle numbers tie in here: when a rider is added to the draw and their horse has no event bridle number yet, Horsify auto-allocates one. You can also allocate in bulk or edit inline from the Entry List via Allocate bridle numbers or the per-rider pencil edit.

→ See Event Results Management for the running-order/results relationship.

What riders see

Riders open My Running Order at /events/{eventId}/running-order (or /rider/running-order/{eventId}). Only Published/In-Progress schedules are visible — otherwise they see "Schedule Not Published Yet". A rider's own rides are pinned to the top with a "Your ride" badge, and they can jump to the full draw, switch days, and download the public PDF. Dressage running orders show a Bridle # column.

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Stage 3 — Run the day live

"Live" is a state of the schedule, not the event. On the Event Scheduling page:

• Start Event Day moves that day's schedule from Published to In-Progress. (Only one schedule per day can be live — starting one demotes any other live schedule for the same date.)
• When you're done, Mark Complete closes it (a completed schedule is locked).

While a schedule is live, a live-edit sidebar appears so you can adjust on the fly without unpublishing:

• Needs fitting in — riders entered for the day but not yet in the order. Add to draw slots them in (pick a ring if you have several).
• Scratched — riders withdrawn after publish stay pinned in the order, shown struck-through with a SCRATCHED badge, so their draw number isn't reused. (You scratch a rider from the Entry List.) Horsify closes the time gap and re-times the following riders automatically.
• Judge breaks / arena changes — insert a break into a ring and every following start time shifts.

After a live change, use Update all riders to email and/or push a "running order changed" notice to affected riders who've opted in.

You can also Share to Facebook the public running order.

Roster your volunteers

Once the draw exists, switch to the Allocate helpers tab on the Helpers page to build your roster. Each job shows how many spots are filled (e.g. Gate steward 1/2); a Volunteers panel lists everyone who signed up, the job they asked for, and their ride times so you can avoid rostering someone while they're competing. Riders who declined appear under Can't help this time. Use + Add helper on a job to assign a volunteer.

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Stage 4 — Enter & publish results

Results are entered on the Results page: /organiser/events/{eventId}/results. Results unlock once a schedule for the event is Published/In-Progress/Completed, so entries appear in draw order ready to score.

Scoring

The scoring form adapts to the discipline. Horsify supports the common Australian formats via a class's scoring type:

Scoring style	Disciplines (examples)	Winner
Score (high wins)	Dressage, Reining, Campdraft, Cutting, Working Equitation, Extreme Cowboy	Highest score/percentage
Penalties (low wins)	Show Jumping	Fewest faults
Time (low wins)	Barrel Racing, Endurance, Harness/racing	Fastest time
Position only	Showing, Hacking, Led classes	Judge places by hand
Combined	Eventing / Tetrathlon	Combined-phase scoring
Points	Series / Pony Club formats	Highest points

Manual entry: open each rider's result and record score / penalties / time / points as the class demands, plus flags like eliminated or retired. Scratched riders appear struck-through and carry no result. Results move through Pending → Provisional → Final; Finalise all sets a whole class to Final in one go. Once a result is Final it can't be edited or deleted.

Import from a spreadsheet: the Results Import Wizard (Upload → Review → Done) takes a .csv or .xlsx, fuzzy-matches each row to a nomination (you resolve any ambiguous ones), and commits as Provisional. You can download a fillable scoring sheet, record scores on the day, and import it back. For score-based classes, placings are recalculated automatically on import.

Dressage has a dedicated flow (/organiser/events/{eventId}/dressage): create score sheets per entry (session + division + entry + test template + judge), print blank sheets with per-sheet QR codes, and have judges score movement-by-movement on /dressage/score-sheets/{sheetId} — with coefficients, collective marks, error-of-course handling, handwriting/ink capture, and offline tablet scoring that syncs when back online. Sheets flow Draft → Submitted → Locked with a full audit trail.

→ See Event Results Management.

Placings, points and Overall

• Placings are auto-calculated for score- and points-based classes (ties share a place; eliminated/retired get no placing) and set by hand for judge-placed disciplines.
• Season points use a default placing table (1st = 10, 2nd = 8, 3rd = 6, 4th = 5, 5th = 4, 6th = 3, 7th = 2, 8th = 1) and feed your organisation's season leaderboard, which is built automatically from finalised results.
• Overall (multi-day): for summable disciplines (e.g. Extreme Cowboy points, dressage %), an Overall tab sums each rider+horse's per-day scores across the event and ranks them highest-first.
• Results are grouped into divisions by class name + discipline + scoring type, with filter tabs per event day and an All Divisions tab.

Publishing results

The public results page (/events/{eventId}/results) shows only Final results — as you finalise classes, they appear publicly with per-division tables and, for multi-day dressage/Extreme Cowboy, an Overall column. Riders see their own results under /my/results (with dressage detail sheets). Finalised results also feed the organisation's season leaderboard, which is built automatically from your results across the year. (Event series standings are a separate feature and are not fed automatically from results — see Event Series.)

Exports available: running-order PDF, gear-check sheet PDF, dressage score-sheet PDFs (with QR codes), and the fillable results scoring sheet. There is currently no placings-certificate or prize-money payout generation, and the public page reflects results as you finalise them rather than a live per-second feed — the live public surface during the day is the running order and the season leaderboard.

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The workflow at a glance

Stage	Where	You do	Riders get
1. Create & set up	/events/new → /events/{id}/edit, /classes	Listing, classes, tickets, entry form, helpers; Publish	Ability to enter
2. Schedule	/organiser/events/{id}/scheduling	Generate draw, adjust, Save & Publish	Running order + start times
3. Run live	Same scheduling page	Start Event Day, add/scratch riders, breaks, Update riders	Live running order, change alerts
4. Results	/organiser/events/{id}/results (+ /dressage)	Score, import, Finalise	Public results, Overall, leaderboards

Related pages

• Create Events · Edit Events
• Event Results Management
• Entry Form Templates · Custom Form Fields · Entry List Exports
• Event Series · Event Series Leaderboards
• Event Cancellation · Event Waitlist\n\n---\n\nSource: wiki/features/EVENT_WORKFLOW_GUIDE.md \nLast synced: 2026-07-19 22:03:33 UTC