Building Your Event Day Schedule

Your event listing on events.vex.com includes an agenda. Teams read it to work out when to arrive, when they will leave, and whether they can attend at all, so it is one of the first things they look for. This article helps you build that agenda: what it needs to show, what a typical event day looks like for each program, and how to fit the schedule into the hours you have.

It is written for Event Partners preparing to post an event.

Definitions of the terms used here are maintained in the central glossary.

Start with How Your Teams Travel

Before you set any times, find out how teams in your area travel to events. Travel sets the outer bounds of your day, and everything else fits inside them.

If your event falls on a weekday, teams arriving by school bus are usually limited to the window between the morning and afternoon route runs, and drivers have limits on how long they can be on duty. Teams coming from further away have a narrower window still. Ask a few local coaches what their availability window looks like, then build the day inside it, so the times you publish are times teams can actually meet.

If the availability you find genuinely conflict, talk with your Program Support Team to work through a solution. It may be a sign your event belongs on a weekend, when buses are easier to book.

What Your Agenda Needs to Show

Teams need enough to plan their travel and their day, which is fewer times than you will work with internally. A complete agenda covers:

• When doors open, and when check-in and inspection are available
• When the driver's meeting starts
• When Qualification Matches begin
• How lunch works, whether it pauses matches or runs alongside them
• When the closing format begins, meaning Alliance Selection and Elimination Matches, or Finals Matches
• When awards start
• When the event ends and teams can depart

Published as teams will read it, that becomes something short:

Your volunteers, setup crew, and judges will arrive before doors open, and teardown continues after teams leave. Those times matter, but they are not part of the published agenda. 

Sample Event Days

The samples below work the agenda backward into a full day for each program. Both assume 20 teams, two competition fields, one Robot Skills field, and fields set up the evening before. Doors open at nine in the morning; if your window starts earlier or later, slide every time by the same amount.

The two programs produce different schedules from the same team count, which is the main thing to understand before you build your own.

VEX V5 Sample Day

Qualification Matches are two minutes long and played head to head, two alliances of two teams each, so every match uses four teams. A qualifying event must offer at least six Qualification Matches per team, so 20 teams produce 30 matches.

6 matches × 20 teams = 120
120 ÷ 4 teams per match = 30 matches

See the VEX V5 Game Manual for match and bracket formats, and Qualifying Events and Their Requirements for the match minimum.

30 matches across two and a half hours works out to five minutes each, of which two minutes is the match itself. That is a normal pace for a local event, and it depends on having volunteers dedicated to queuing and field reset.

Elimination Matches blend best-of-one and best-of-three, so the hour above depends on how many alliances your bracket includes. Confirm your bracket size when you set the event up; it is the easiest place to adjust if your window is tight.

VEX IQ Sample Day

Teamwork Challenge matches pair two teams working together for 60 seconds, so a match uses two teams rather than four. With the same six-match minimum, 20 teams produce sixty Qualification Matches rather than 30, which is why the qualification block runs much longer.

6 matches × 20 teams = 120
120 ÷ 2 teams per match = 60 matches

The closing format differs too. Instead of an Alliance Selection and a bracket, Finals Matches are played sequentially starting with the lowest-ranked alliance. Each alliance plays one, and the teams on the alliance with the highest Finals Match score are the Teamwork Champions. See the VEX IQ Game Manual for match and finals formats.

60 matches across three hours and ten minutes is a little over three minutes each, and only one of those minutes is the match. That is a normal pace for the VEX IQ Robotics Competition, and it is the reason queuing matters more as team count rises.

Check Your Numbers with the Schedule Calculator

The samples above are a starting point. For your actual team count, field count, and match format, the schedule calculators on events.vex.com will help do some of the math for you and are the best way to confirm a day fits before you publish it.

• VEX IQ Schedule Calculator
• VEX V5 Schedule Calculator

Fitting the Day to Your Window

With two competition fields, both samples fit about twenty teams. The qualification block uses whatever minutes the day has left after check-in, the closing format, and awards, so if your window is shorter than the samples, these are the levers that change your published times:

1. Set up the evening before – The single biggest gain; it moves your first match earlier without touching anything teams experience.
2. Keep lunch rolling rather than pausing matches – A stopped lunch costs roughly forty-five minutes; eating between matches costs nothing, as long as you have enough volunteers to rotate breaks.
3. Add a competition field – Running fields concurrently shortens the qualification block, though it may call for additional volunteers.
4. Open more inspection stations – Faster inspection lets the first match start sooner. Your Head Referee can train additional volunteers as inspectors.
5. Keep the awards ceremony tight – Trophies pre-staged in order, presenters lined up, thank-yous rather than speeches.
6. Reduce your team capacity – Best decided before you post, while it is still a planning choice.

Walk It Through with Your Program Support Team

Before you post your event, walk your schedule through with your Program Support Team. They know how long events of your size actually take in your region and what transport constraints local teams are working around.