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Invite & manage judges

Every scoring section in your rubric needs at least one judge. The Judges tab tracks who's confirmed, who hasn't answered, and which sections are still uncovered.

Invite a judge

  1. On the Judges tab, find Add a Judge.
  2. Fill in their Name (for your reference) and Email (required).
  3. Under Section(s) — select all that apply, check the section or sections they'll score. Checking several (say, Percussion and Band at a small event) creates an assignment for each.
  4. Click Send Invitation.

Like staff invites: an existing MusterSheet account is attached immediately; a new email is sent an invitation automatically, and you also get a personal invitation link on screen in case you'd rather text or forward it yourself. Pending invites show under Awaiting Response with Resend and Revoke buttons; accepted judges show as Confirmed with their section and its captions.

The tab warns you plainly when sections still need judges ("2 sections still need judges") and gives the all-clear — "Every scoring section has a judge assigned" — when you're covered.

Conflicts of interest

If a judge has a declared relationship with a registered band (their kid marches in it, they used to direct it), a warning banner appears at the top of the tab naming the judge and the band: "Reassign before the show." Take it seriously — swap sections with another judge or find a replacement. Remove takes a judge off an assignment.

On competition day

Judges manage themselves from their phones (see the judge guides if they ask questions), but you have the master view: the Judges Panel on your live Command Center shows a colored dot per judge —

  • Green — Ready. The show can proceed.
  • Amber — Standby (usually still writing up the last band).
  • Red, pulsing — Needs help. A banner also appears at the top of your Command Center. Send a runner.
  • "Not needed" (muted) — the band currently on deck doesn't field this judge's section (e.g. no Dance Line this event, or this one band opted out of a caption). That judge is never counted and never blocks the show for this particular band — they still light up as usual for any band that does field their section.
  • Guest exhibitions (say, the host band's closer, or a college guest performance) aren't judged at all, so the panel doesn't mute every judge while one is on deck — each judge keeps their real dot, and the panel names the state explicitly ("Exhibition on deck — not judged") instead of implying nobody's needed.

These dots are read-only for everyone, host included — the panel is a status board, not a control. Only the judge sets their own status. A judge covering more than one section (Percussion and Color Guard, say) now scores from one combined sheet with a single Ready/Standby toggle — their dots for every section they hold still show up as their own rows here, but they always move together, since one judge only has one recorder and one clipboard.

The announcer's Start Performance button physically won't fire until every judge the band ON DECK actually needs is green — so those dots are the heartbeat of your schedule. A section your bands don't all field (Dance Line, Feature Twirler) never holds up a band that doesn't have one. During each performance, a small indicator per judge flips from Scoring to a check mark as their sheet comes in.

If a judge's device dies or they're not answering the toggle reliably, two escape hatches exist, shaped for two different situations:

  • Override, on the Judges Panel. Expand Override under a not-yet-ready judge's row (host, co-host, and tabulator can do this) to vouch that they're ready by hand — you'll type a reason ("confirmed in person, phone dead"), and the row keeps a durable "Ready · set by [your name]" mark until the judge's own next tap replaces it. Staff can only ever mark a judge ready this way, never demote one.
  • Start anyway, on the advance button. If a staged band's advance button is stuck red on Waiting on judges, a Start anyway link appears beneath it. It names who's still not ready, asks you to confirm, and is permanently recorded — but it never touches any judge's status, it only lets the show proceed for that one band.

A judge who can't run the app at all for the whole event uses paper scoring instead — that's a third, separate mechanism from either of the two above.