How to Calculate Awards

Correctly calculating how many awards you'll need is important for maximizing profits and avoiding upset attendees. Order too many and you've wasted money. Order too few and you'll have to explain to disappointed athletes and frustrated parents.

Twirlmate's award calculator tells you exactly how many of each award you'll need (and what the cost will be) because it's based precisely on the number of contestants in each division. You can even log existing inventory from previous events and reuse those items to maximize savings.

Before diving into the award calculator, think about how you want to structure your awards outside of Twirlmate:

• Will you offer different awards for open events vs. pageants?

• Will awards differ by level (e.g., gift cards for advanced, trophies for intermediate and beginner, ribbons for novice)?

• Are there any special disciplines or divisions that will receive unique awards like traveling plaques or sashes?

• Which disciplines will share the same awards? Keeping awards consistent across disciplines and levels is a great way to simplify planning and reduce mistakes at the awards table.

Visit the Awards admin page in your event admin. You'll see three sections:

• Summary dropdown — tracks which disciplines and divisions still need award assignments

• Awards inventory — summarizes how many of each award you'll need and the total cost

• Award sets — the building blocks of your awards plan

An award set represents a collection of awards, the placements they apply to, and the disciplines/divisions that will use them. Award sets can be:

• Very general (e.g., "Open Awards") — applying to all divisions and levels within many disciplines

• Level-specific (e.g., "Beginner Open Awards") — applying to a single level across many disciplines

• Discipline-specific (e.g., "Miss Sunshine Modeling")

• Discipline-and-level-specific (e.g., "Advanced Miss Sunshine Modeling")

You can also assign multiple awards to a single placement. For example, a pageant winner might receive a tiara, sash, and trophy — three awards, all assigned to 1st place.

We recommend starting with the most general case and getting more specific as needed. Begin with the award set that applies to the most disciplines at your event.

After giving the award set a name (e.g., "Open Event Awards") and description (e.g., "1st - trophy; 2nd and 3rd - medal; 4th and 5th - ribbon"), you'll see the award set edit page, where you can:

Select or create awards and assign them to particular placements

If this is the first time using Twirlmate for your contest, you'll create a lot of new awards at first.

If you plan to offer a variety of awards (e.g., a 10-inch trophy for 1st, an 8-inch trophy for 2nd, etc), those should each be separate awards. However, if you plan to use a generic award, such as an event/placement-neutral medal, we recommend creating just one award and re-using it for multiple placements in the award set(s).

For optimal readability, we recommend naming awards with the common text up front so they appear together in the awards list (e.g. "Trophy - 10 inches", "Trophy - 8 inches").

If you know the cost of the awards you'll be purchasing, or if you have leftover inventory from last year, add this information when creating the award. You can also update it later.

Lastly, select the placement this award will apply to in the set.

Decide whether each award will be per-person or not

For duet, trio, and team awards, you can choose to give one award per person in the ensemble, such as a medal, or just one award for all members combined, such as a trophy or plaque.

Select which disciplines and divisions these awards apply to

You can select all levels within a discipline or just a few specific ones.

Below are some examples of common award sets. Each set should have at least a first place award, and can have as many lower placement awards as you like. You can also assign multiple separate awards to the same placement (such as a sash and a trophy).

Multi-Size Trophies and Medals

Award Set Name: Open Event Awards
Award Set Description: 1st - 3rd place trophies, 4th & 5th place medals
Awards (Place and Name):
1st - Trophy (Large)
2nd - Trophy (Medium)
3rd - Trophy (Small)
4th - Medal (Generic)
5th - Medal (Generic)
Disciplines: All levels for all open disciplines

Multi-Item 1st Place Award

Award Set Name: Pageant Awards
Award Set Description: 1st - sash, tiara, trophy, 2nd & 3rd trophies, 4th & 5th ribbons
Awards (Place and Name):
1st - Sash
1st - Tiara
1st - Trophy (Gold Large)
2nd - Trophy (Silver Medium)
3rd - Trophy (Bronze Small)
4th - Ribbons (Generic)
5th - Ribbons (Generic)
All-Arounds: All levels for the pageant/all-around

Level-Based Awards

Award Set Name: Advanced State Awards
Award Set Description: 1st - 3rd large trophies
Awards (Place and Name):
1st - Trophy (Advanced - 1st)
2nd - Trophy (Advanced - 2nd)
3rd - Trophy (Advanced - 3rd)
Disciplines: Advanced levels for all state events

Award Set Name: Beginner State Awards
Award Set Description: 1st - 3rd small trophies
Awards (Place and Name):
1st - Trophy (Beginner - 1st)
2nd - Trophy (Beginner - 2nd)
3rd - Trophy (Beginner - 3rd)
All-Arounds: Beginner levels for all state events

As you save award sets, they'll appear on the Awards page in alphabetical order.

If you're creating award sets before registration has opened, the award set summaries will be blank. As people register for divisions that apply to each award set, tables will appear showing how many people are in each division and how many awards you'll need. These subtotals add up to the totals in the Awards inventory section at the top of the page.

When you're finished, check the summary dropdown at the top of the page to confirm you've assigned all necessary disciplines and divisions. It's okay to have some items left unassigned — disciplines that belong to an all-around or pageant typically don't receive individual awards, since only the all-around or pageant itself does.

For questions or guidance, feel free to reach out to Twirlmate support.

When should I create a new award vs use an existing one?

Use new awards if the item will be a separate purchase from the award vendor (e.g. different size or colored trophies, or trophies with the discipline/place on them).

Use an existing award if it is interchangable across disciplines, levels, or placements.

How should I set up sashes or division-specific awards?

While it is possible to create separate awards for each division within each event (e.g., "Sash - Advanced 0-6 State Solo", "Sash - Advanced 7-9 State Solo", etc), we recommend creating a single "Sash" award and re-using it across award sets.

The latter option avoids extra manual work while still surfacing each division using the sash later on.

How should I handle travelling plaques or trophies?

If you offer the same kind of travelling award across several disciplines (e.g., each advanced state modeling, strut, and solo winner gets a travelling plaque), create a single "Travelling Plaque" award in an "Advanced State Event" award set and select all appropriate advanced state disciplines:

Award Set: Advanced State Awards
Description: 1st place travelling trophy, 2nd-3rd trophy
Awards (Place and Name):
1st - Travelling Trophy (Advanced State Champion)
2nd - Trophy (Medium)
3rd - Trophy (Small)
Disciplines: Advanced State Modeling, X-Strut, and Solo divisions

If the travelling award differs by discipline or division, create a separate award for each case. For example, if advanced state solo winners receive a travelling plaque and advanced state dance twirl teams receive a travelling trophy, create two different awards in two different award sets:

Award Set: Advanced State Solo Awards
Description: 1st place travelling plaque, 2nd-3rd trophies
Awards (Place and Name):
1st - Travelling Plaque (Advanced State Solo)
2nd - Trophy (Medium)
3rd - Trophy (Small)
Disciplines: Advanced State Solo only

Award Set: Advanced State Dance Twirl Team Awards
Description: 1st place travelling trophy + medals, 2nd-3rd medals
Awards (Place and Name):
1st - Travelling Trophy (Advanced State Dance Twirl Team)
1st - Medal, one per person
2nd - Medal, one per person
3rd - Medal, one per person
Disciplines: Advanced State Dance Twirl Team only