Glossary

Plain-English definitions of the terms you'll see around MusterSheet. They're alphabetical, so you can skim to the word you need.

Announcer : The person on the microphone at a competition. In MusterSheet, the announcer uses a special screen to move bands through the day, read fan shoutouts between performances, and read award results at the end of the night.

Booster club / booster organization : The parent group that supports a school's band program — fundraising, volunteering, fees, and events. MusterSheet has a whole set of tools for booster clubs, separate from competitions.

Caption : A scoring category inside a section — for example Music, Visual, or General Effect. Judges award points caption by caption.

Check-in : Confirming a band has arrived on competition day. Either a volunteer at the check-in table does it, or the director can do it from their own phone.

Class : A grouping of bands of similar size, so bands compete against programs their own size. Each competition sets its own classes (for example 1A through 5A). Your band's class is usually calculated automatically from how many students you bring.

Co-director : A second (or third) director attached to the same band. Co-directors see and manage the same band profile, registrations, and results.

Competition (also called an event) : One competition day at one venue — for example, "36th Mud Creek Marching Festival, October 10."

Contest Director : The host or co-host who makes the final calls on penalties and certifies the results packet before it can be published. A tabulator can prepare and publish results but never certify their own work.

Director : The band director. Directors manage their band's profile, register for competitions, and receive scores afterward.

Division : An optional larger grouping of classes used by some competitions for scheduling and awards (for example, a morning division and an evening division).

Drum Line Battle : A crowd-pleaser sub-event some competitions run, where the drum lines face off head to head. Bands opt in when they register; the host decides the winner and it's announced with the other awards. Hosts sometimes give it their own name.

Equipment shuttle : A service some hosts run using their own small trailers and tow vehicles to move a band's equipment between parking or staging and the field, so a band's own trucks and trailers don't have to make the trip. Hosts set a fleet size for how many shuttle units they have; directors request as many as they need when they register.

Exhibition : A performance that is not competing for scores or awards — often the host school's own band.

Fan Favorite : An award voted on by the audience instead of the judges. Fans vote from the live schedule on their phones after a band performs—one vote per phone, changeable until the awards ceremony begins. A gate QR scan is required only when the host turns on that setting.

Fee tier : One priced row in a class's registration fee, set on the Classes & Fees tab. A single tier with no date is simply that class's flat fee; adding more tiers with "effective until" dates layers in date-based pricing — for example, a lower "early bird" fee before a cutoff date and a higher fee after it. Fee tiers are per class, so bigger classes can be priced higher than smaller ones.

Host : The director (or school) running a competition. The host sets up the event, accepts registrations, invites judges, builds the schedule, and publishes results.

Judge : A person invited to score one section of a competition — for example, the Percussion judge or a Band judge.

Judges packet : What a director unlocks after the host publishes scores: their own band's full scores, every judge's written commentary, any recorded audio, and a comparison view of the whole competition. It lives on the website — it is not a download or a physical packet.

Paper scoring : The fallback when a judge's device can't record audio: they score on paper sheets with a handheld recorder, and the tab room types the sheets in and uploads the recording. Paper judges don't hold up the show — they sit outside the announcer's judges-ready check.

Payouts : A host's direct-deposit setup: once connected to Stripe, card-paid registration fees go straight to the host's own account rather than through MusterSheet, with the card-processing fee paid by the director on top.

Penalty Desk : The screen where a Timing & Penalties official documents a timing or rules incident — what happened, how it was measured, the evidence, and a proposed deduction. Nothing affects a score until the Contest Director decides on it.

Performance (also called a show) : One band's time slot on the field at a competition.

Program : MusterSheet's paid tier for a whole band program. It includes the Host competition tools plus the private booster roster, accounting, student accounts, payments, calendar, announcements, RSVPs, and volunteer sign-ups. The organization pays one annual price; parents do not buy individual access.

Read-only : A safety state used when a booster trial or subscription has lapsed. Existing records and exports remain available, but new entries, payments, invitations, RSVPs, and other changes pause until access is active again.

Registration : A band's application to compete in a competition. The host reviews it and accepts (or declines) it. A registration usually has a fee.

Section : A scoring grouping that one judge is responsible for — such as Overall Band, Drum Major, Percussion, or Color Guard.

Shoutout : A short, paid fan message ("Go get 'em, Emma! Love, Mom & Dad") that the announcer reads over the PA between performances. Fans can pay online by card, or with cash at the shoutout table.

Tab Room : The tabulator's screen: read-only verification of every submitted score sheet (with a per-band Mark band verified check-off to track which sheets have had their second read), paper-sheet entry, and — once the Contest Director has certified the packet — the Publish button.

Tabulator : The person who verifies scores and prepares results. They can check every sheet and publish a certified packet, but they cannot change a judge's scores, decide penalties, or certify their own work.

Volunteer : A parent or helper the host trusts to staff a station on competition day — the band check-in table or the shoutout cash table. It's also the account type parents choose: the same account can follow a student's booster balance and serve as a booster officer.

Warm-up : The scheduled time and place a band rehearses right before walking to the field. Warm-up times appear on the schedule alongside performance times.