How will competitors take part?

Choose how to register students, select event entrants, or manage nominations through heats and finals.

Schools choose entrants in different ways. Some select students for each event, and others collect nominations before running heats and finals. Houseplay supports each of these approaches.

The options below will help you choose the one that fits your plan. You can use different approaches for different events in the same carnival.

Your school’s approach	Use in Houseplay
Staff know who will enter each event	Add Students on the event’s Competitors page, or Import Competitors from the carnival’s Events list.
Students progress through heats and finals	An event pool with nominations and rounds.

Add students directly to events

Use direct entry when staff already know the entrants and do not need Houseplay to manage heats or qualification.

You can add students manually to an individual event, or import competitors from a CSV or Excel file into existing individual events.

Use a pool for nominations, heats and finals

An event pool keeps one nomination list for an activity and group, such as a Year 8 girls’ 50m swim. Its rounds contain the heats and final. Houseplay places nominees into heats and uses results to select qualifiers for later rounds.

You can choose nominees yourself or let Houseplay add everyone who is eligible for the pool’s group. Pools support individual events. For relays, you can set up teams instead.

When you are ready, create an event pool and its first heats. That walkthrough follows the pool through nominations and rounds to the heats in your carnival’s Events list.