Athletes Choose Their Own Heat

Two ways to run start times

Every race that uses heats can run either way — the setting lives in Registration options, and you can change it at any time:

• Organizer assigns start times (default) — plan heats after registration closes, then assign already-registered athletes into them. See Heat Planning — Complete Guide.
• Athletes choose their start time — plan heats before opening registration, and athletes pick their own heat as part of registering.

Switching modes never touches a registration's already-assigned heat, whoever assigned it — only registrations made after the switch follow the new mode.

Setting up "athletes choose" mode

1. Go to Participants → Registration options and, in the Heat selection card, choose "Athletes choose their start time during registration" (the alternative is "Organizer assigns start times after registration").
2. On the Heats & waves page, create your heats before opening registration. Add heat appends a new heat after the last one, at the same interval and with the same number of spots; set each heat's start time and Spots in its Edit panel. (Generate heats sizes its schedule to athletes who have already registered, so before registration opens it creates just one heat.) Newly created heats start with no divisions mapped, so map one or more divisions to each heat afterward (via the heat's Edit panel or its inline + division popover) to make it selectable.
3. A heat with no division mapped isn't offered to anyone — make sure every division you're selling has at least one mapped heat before you open registration. The "Needs attention" strip flags any heat without a division, and the Divisions & pricing page flags any division with no heats mapped yet.

A heat can be mapped to more than one division (a shared start wave, for example) — its capacity is then shared across all of them.

What athletes see

After picking their division, athletes are shown only the heats mapped to that division — each with its start time and remaining spots. A full heat is shown as unavailable. Their choice is confirmed immediately at registration and shown on their confirmation.

If two athletes try to claim the last spot in a heat at the same moment, exactly one succeeds — the other is shown the heat as full and asked to choose again.

When a division is full: join the waitlist

If every heat mapped to a division is full (or the division's own max-athletes limit is reached), athletes are offered Join waitlist instead of being turned away outright — they leave their name and email. Whenever a spot opens up — you map the division to another heat (a newly added one, for example), raise a heat's spots, or a registration is cancelled or moves to another heat — everyone currently on that division's waitlist is emailed at once; it isn't a single ordered queue or an exclusive one-at-a-time offer. Whoever completes checkout first claims the spot; anyone who misses out stays on the list for the next opening.

You can see how many athletes are waiting for a division on the Heats & waves page — in the Division capacity panel, in the division list of a heat's Edit panel, and in the "Needs attention" strip. There's no separate dedicated capacity page.

Self-service heat changes

Athletes can change their own chosen heat after registering — no need to contact you — from My registrations → Change start time, for as long as their heat hasn't started yet (there's no separately configurable cutoff; it simply reuses the same "has this heat started" check used everywhere else). They can pick any other heat mapped to their division that still has spots. Changing releases their old heat's spot (available to others, including anyone on the waitlist) and claims the new one.

Team registrations: only the team captain can change the heat, and self-service heat changes currently only move the captain's own assignment — teammates are not moved along with them. If a team needs to change heats together, ask the organizer to move the whole team from the Heats & waves page instead (teammates move with their captain there).