Events, classes and rings

The event is the competition day. It has a type, a start and an end, its own prices, its own breeds and its own rings. A show contains one or more of them, and everything that is actually judged belongs to an event and not to the show above it.

This is the longest piece of preparation, and the one with the most consequences: the classes decide what an entry costs, the limits decide who may enter, and the rings decide how the day is timed.

Creating an event

Open the show and use the + at the top right of the events box.

type is the event type from the base records, and it carries the certificates with it: choosing National or International here is what makes CAC and CACIB available at the ring. It cannot be fixed later by any other setting, so choose it knowingly.

date time from and date time to are the hours of this day, not of the show.

minutes for fixing results starts from the type and can be adjusted here.

The address fields repeat those of the show, and start filled in with them. They are separate because an event is not always in the same hall as the rest of the weekend.

description (en) is translated per language and is what exhibitors read.

Prices that are not entry fees

The lower half of the card holds everything an exhibitor can buy alongside the entry: price for catalog, price for meal coupon, price for car parking, and two prices for camping car pitches — with and without electrical power.

Next to them, available places for each kind of parking. Those are real ceilings: when the places run out the option stops being offered. Leave them empty if you are not counting.

The entry fee itself is not here. It lives on the classes tab, because it depends on the class and on when the entry arrives.

Classes and prices

The classes tab lists the classes of the event, each with the age window that defines it and the prices.

The codes are the standard FCI classes, and the application spells the full name out next to the code wherever a class is chosen — so an exhibitor picks "Junior from 9 to 18 months", not JUN.

The four price columns are € 1° dog, € 2° dog, € 3° dog and € from 4° dog: the price falls as the same exhibitor enters more dogs, and the fourth column covers everything beyond the third. % member discount is applied to members of the organization.

Above the columns sits the closing date the prices belong to. If the show has earlier closing dates, each has its own block of prices, and an entry is charged according to the date it arrives on. A class left without a price is a class nobody can enter.

Breeds and limits

The limits tab decides who may enter. On the left the eleven FCI groups, on the right the breeds of the group you are working on.

A group is admitted by giving it a count limit — the maximum number of dogs accepted for that group. The line then shows SELECTED.

all breeds is the shortcut: tick it and the whole group is in, with the group ceiling as the only limit. Leave it unticked and you must go breed by breed on the right, giving a count limit to each breed you want. That is how a specialty is built — group 4 admitted, but only the three Standard Dachshunds, ten dogs each.

dogs count limit, at the top of the tab, is the ceiling for the event as a whole, above every group.

The counts are not decoration. When a limit is reached the breed stops accepting entries, which is exactly what you want the evening before a full show — and exactly what will puzzle an exhibitor who cannot enter, so set them deliberately.

Rings

The rings tab is where the day is laid out physically.

Press add rings and say how many you have. Each ring is a line in the table, and as the show is prepared the line fills in by itself: the judges working it, the judgment duration, and how many breeds and dogs it has been given. Before the assignments those last columns are zero, which is normal.

Along the top of the tab, a counter per group and a TOTAL. They count the entries as they arrive, which is what tells you whether the rings you have planned are enough.

judgment duration at the bottom applies to this event and starts from the type. Together with the number of dogs in each ring, it is what produces the start time of every breed — and the delay the control desk shows on the day.

The rings of best in show

Three fields at the bottom belong to the end of the day rather than to the breeds:

ring for best in show is the ring where the finals are held. pre-ring 1 for best in show and pre-ring 2 for best in show are the staging areas where dogs are gathered and their presence confirmed before they go in — described in the chapter on judging.

best in show start is the time the finals begin. Set it late enough that the rings can realistically be finished, and remember that the day tends to run behind rather than ahead.