NextSet for cheer competitions

NextSet gives cheer directors one place to build the competition, run it live, and keep parents in the loop — without juggling spreadsheets, paper schedules, and a separate timer.

Setting up your competition

Create an event the same way you would for any NextSet event. On the setup screen, give it a name, date, and venue. Once the event is created you'll land in the event dashboard, where you'll find the heat and rundown tools alongside the timer and director controls.

Importing your roster

You don't need to type teams in one by one. NextSet's import tool accepts:

• A spreadsheet or CSV — the most common format coaches and registrars already have
• A PDF schedule or registration export
• A photo or image of a printed entry list
• Pasted text — copy a list from an email or registration system and paste it directly

If your spreadsheet includes a heat column alongside the team names, NextSet will create the heats and assign teams to them automatically in one step. If it doesn't, you can assign teams to heats manually after importing.

Building heats

Go to the Heats tab in your event dashboard. From there you can:

1. Create heats by name (Heat 1, Preliminary A, Open Finals — whatever your draw uses).
2. Drag teams into each heat, or use the assign tool to select multiple teams at once.
3. Shuffle a heat to do a live draw — NextSet randomizes the performance order for you.
4. Rename or reorder heats at any point without losing the team assignments inside them.

If your competition has a format where a team competes in more than one heat — for example prelims and finals — you can turn on multi-heat mode, which lets the same team appear in multiple heats without duplicating your roster.

Running the competition live

The director controls let you start the timer for each team, move between items in the rundown, and switch the display between modes (active set, changeover, intermission, and so on). The projector screen — visible to the audience on a TV or display — updates automatically as you make changes. You don't need to touch the projector separately.

Your rundown shows the full order of the day. You can reorder items, adjust how much time each team has, and add breaks or announcements between heats. When you tap Next, the timer resets for the following team and the projector updates within a second or two.

The parent-facing schedule

Parents follow along from their phone. When they open the event link and join the event, they can see the current state of the competition — who is on, who is up next, and how the day is progressing. No app download is needed.

Logged-in fans can also save teams to their watchlist with a personal label (for example, "my kid's team" or a gym name). Watchlisted teams show up highlighted in their view so it's easy to track the teams they came to see.

The schedule page is always live. When you advance the rundown, the parent view reflects it automatically.

Judging

NextSet includes a built-in scoring system. You can set up judges and scoring categories before the event, then have each judge submit scores from their own device during the competition.

Using the cheer scorecard preset

NextSet includes a Cheer Competition scorecard preset so you don't have to build categories from scratch. It covers:

You can use this preset as-is, swap in different weights, or build your own category list if your federation uses a different rubric.

How judges score

Once you've added judges to the event, each judge signs in on their own device and opens the judging view. They see the list of teams and categories, enter a score for each, and optionally add notes. Scores are weighted and aggregated automatically — the results panel ranks teams by total weighted score in real time as judges submit.

The event director can see all submitted scores. Judges only see their own submissions.

Common problems

Can I import a roster from a Google Sheet or Excel file? Yes. Export to CSV or XLSX and use the import tool. If your sheet has a column for heat or group, NextSet will read it and build the heats automatically. If column headers use different names (Pool, Flight, Squad), the importer recognises the most common alternatives. For an unusual format, paste the data as plain text and NextSet will parse names from it.

How do parents follow their team during the competition? Share the event link with families before the event. They open it on their phone, join the event (no account required to view), and see the live schedule. If they create a free NextSet account they can save specific teams to their watchlist with a custom label so it's easy to track across a long day.

How does judging work — do judges need to download anything? No. Judges open the event link on any phone or laptop, sign in with a NextSet account, and the judging interface appears automatically once you've added them as a judge for the event. Scores are submitted and saved from the browser. The director sees a live rankings view as scores come in.

I need different scoring categories than the preset. On the judging setup screen, choose "custom categories" instead of the preset. Add the categories your federation uses, set the max score and weight for each, and save. The rest of the judging flow works the same way.

A team's name imported with the wrong casing. The importer normalises all-caps and all-lowercase names to title case automatically. If you need to correct a name after importing, edit it directly in the performers list before the competition starts.