Fan portal & QR posters

Every competition gets a free fan-facing web experience — the fan portal. Fans scan a QR code at your gate and land on a welcome page with the live schedule, shoutout-sending, your broadcast announcements, and (after you publish) the public results. No app, no fan accounts, nothing for you to build.

This page is the setup checklist. What fans see on their end is covered in At the stadium — worth a skim so you know what you're offering them.

What the portal includes

• Gate welcome page — the page the QR code opens: "You're checked in!" with big buttons for the schedule and shoutouts.
• Live schedule — your performance lineup, updating in real time as the announcer advances the show. It's the same lineup you build on the Schedule tab; there's nothing separate to publish.
• Announcements — anything you broadcast from the Command Center (weather, schedule changes) banners across fans' screens instantly.
• Shoutouts — paid fan messages, if you enable them (below).
• Fan Favorite voting — an audience-voted award, if you enable it (below).
• Public results — goes live the moment you click Publish.

Setup checklist

Everything lives on your Manage page's Settings tab. Top to bottom:

1. Enable Paid Shoutouts. Flip the toggle in the Paid Shoutouts card and set the Price per Shoutout (a few dollars is typical — the money is yours, collected by card online or in cash at your cash station).
2. Decide on gate check-in. Turn on Require gate check-in (QR) if you want shoutout-sending limited to people physically at your event — fans who haven't scanned the gate QR code see an unlock notice instead of the form. Leave it off and anyone with the link can send one.
3. Know how moderation works. Clean messages go straight to the announcer's queue automatically. Anything that trips the profanity filter is held in the Moderation tab for a person to approve or reject. On the day, someone (you or a co-host) should keep an eye on that tab so a held message doesn't sit there all night.
4. Turn on Fan Favorite (optional). Enable the audience-voted ballot and fans can vote for their favorite band from the live schedule — see Fan Favorite below.
5. Print and post your QR posters — next section.

Print your QR posters

On the Manage page you'll find your competition's gate address (the web link the QR code opens) and a Print QR poster button that produces a ready-to-print poster with the QR code on it.

Print several. Post them where fans actually stand:

• The main gate — most important, especially if you require gate check-in.
• The concession stand line (people are bored there).
• The shoutout cash table and the check-in area.
• Restroom paths and stadium entrances on the visitor side.

The scan is the unlock

If you enabled Require gate check-in (QR), the poster isn't just convenience — the scan is what unlocks shoutout-sending and Fan Favorite voting on each fan's phone. A prominent poster at the entrance means fans arrive already unlocked, instead of asking volunteers why the form won't open.

How many fans scanned?

Every scan of a gate poster is counted, whether or not you require gate check-in. Your Command Center carries a Fans at the Gate tile in the metrics strip across the top:

• The big number is unique fans — one per phone, so a fan who re-scans on their way back from the concession stand doesn't count twice.
• Underneath, +N in the last hour while people are still arriving, switching to how many of those fans went on to send a shoutout or vote Fan Favorite once the gate quiets down.

The tile updates on its own as fans scan — no refresh needed.

Below the strip, an arrival curve breaks the day into hours so you can see your gate rush. It fills in live as the day goes on — the chart appears with the first scan and updates itself, no reload needed. That's the picture worth writing down for next year — it tells you when to staff the ticket table heavily.

It's a floor, not a turnstile count

Only QR scans count. A fan who opens the schedule from a link someone texted them, or sends a shoutout without ever scanning, isn't in this number — and plenty of people never take out their phone at all. Treat it as the size of your engaged audience rather than a gate count, and as a floor under your real attendance. More posters in more places pushes it closer to the real number.

Fan Favorite

Fan Favorite is an award the audience picks. When you enable it:

• Fans vote for a band from the live schedule after that band has performed.
• Each fan gets one vote — re-voting moves it rather than adding another. If Require gate check-in (QR) is on, the vote is tied to the fan's gate scan; otherwise the voting page creates the needed visitor token itself.
• Voting stays open until the awards ceremony begins.
• To hand out the trophy, add an award with the Audience Vote rule on your Awards tab — the winner comes from the vote tally when results are prepared. See Scores, awards & publishing.

It costs you nothing to run and gives fans a reason to stay engaged all day — small bands with loud fan sections love it.

Shoutout money

Cash shoutouts go straight to you. Fans pay your volunteers at the shoutout cash station, the money stays in your drawer, and MusterSheet reconciles the till at the end of the day. Cash shoutouts can be priced at anything, including free ($0.00).

Card shoutouts land in your own Stripe account — a direct charge, the same way registration fees do, once you've connected your payout account. Two conditions have to be true before the card option even appears to fans:

• Your payout account must be connected and active.
• Your Price per Shoutout must be at least $3.00. Below that, card checkout isn't worth Stripe's per-transaction cost, so only cash/code is offered.

You choose who bears the card fee. On the Settings tab, next to the shoutout price, pick one:

• We absorb the card fee (default) — the fan pays exactly the listed price; your band nets the price minus Stripe's processing fee.
• Fan pays the card fee on top — an itemized "Card processing fee" line is added at checkout, cost-capped the same way as the registration fee surcharge, and your band nets the full listed price.

Refunds are issued from your Stripe dashboard, same as registration refunds — MusterSheet's shoutout status updates automatically once you refund. Partial refunds aren't supported; a refund is all-or-nothing.

If shoutouts are part of your fundraising plan and you haven't set up payouts yet, run the cash station in the meantime — it works with no setup at all.