You have to plan a meet. You also want it to run smoothly, and have all the swimmers, parents, officials, and other people affiliated with United States Swimming be happy. While all of the dreams in the above paragraph may not be attainable, and in fact some of them may be impossible, you need to use them as your basis for planning. The following is a list of items that should be considered by you when you are planning your age group swim meet. These items are interdependent, and should all be looked at and considered as you are designing your meet sheet and planning for the meet.
Long course meets always take longer to run than short course ones.
The more lanes you have available the more swimmers and swimming distance you can accommodate. Number of swimmers permitted. This number of swimmers is approximately that which can be accommodated per 4 hour session in a split meet that offers events of mid-range distances, permitting no more than 4 swims per swimmer, and not offering relays. Number of events offered. Meets are not required to offer all possible events for all possible age groups.