Who made the order of events for Fort Lauderdale Nationals?

I could see a schedule getting passed where Thursday 1650 / 1000 free Friday 400 IM last event Saturday 500 free last event Sunday 500 free either first or last or Friday 500 free last event Saturday 500 free first event Sunday 400 IM either first or last However, I would still expect to see a 200 as the first event on Friday. I am thinking of this from the perspective of a meet host. You absolutely don't want to start Friday with a sprint event. The distance day of the meet is relatively easy. You only have 400 - 600 people to deal with and if something goes wrong, you have plenty of time to fix it. Friday is the first day of the full meet. Suddenly, you have 1700 swimmers on the pool deck. It is the first day that you need the full 300 volunteers and not everyone shows up on time or knows what they should be doing. Unless a club has run nationals before, they have no idea how big and complicated this first day is. Even if you have run kids meets with 1500 swimmers, they are nothing like adults. You need a longer event as the first event so the meet host can settle into a rhythm and fix any problems before the sprint events begin. When the sprint events start, things move fast. At SC nationals, you have two courses running with heats starting about every 15 - 30 seconds (alternate courses). It would be a mess if we started a day with this. Although we try to keep the athlete's needs in mind, we also have to balance out what is reasonable to expect from our volunteers, meet officials and the host club. It can be a bit of a balancing act.

I could see a schedule getting passed where Thursday 1650 / 1000 free Friday 400 IM last event Saturday 500 free last event Sunday 500 free either first or last or Friday 500 free last event Saturday 500 free first event Sunday 400 IM either first or last However, I would still expect to see a 200 as the first event on Friday. I am thinking of this from the perspective of a meet host. You absolutely don't want to start Friday with a sprint event. The distance day of the meet is relatively easy. You only have 400 - 600 people to deal with and if something goes wrong, you have plenty of time to fix it. Friday is the first day of the full meet. Suddenly, you have 1700 swimmers on the pool deck. It is the first day that you need the full 300 volunteers and not everyone shows up on time or knows what they should be doing. Unless a club has run nationals before, they have no idea how big and complicated this first day is. Even if you have run kids meets with 1500 swimmers, they are nothing like adults. You need a longer event as the first event so the meet host can settle into a rhythm and fix any problems before the sprint events begin. When the sprint events start, things move fast. At SC nationals, you have two courses running with heats starting about every 15 - 30 seconds (alternate courses). It would be a mess if we started a day with this. Although we try to keep the athlete's needs in mind, we also have to balance out what is reasonable to expect from our volunteers, meet officials and the host club. It can be a bit of a balancing act.