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Scores, awards & publishing

The end of the night has a deliberate rhythm: Finalize results privately → Begin Awards (release the ceremony to the announcer) → Publish (make everything public). Nothing leaks early; nothing goes public until you say so.

Define your awards (before the day)

On the Manage page's Awards tab, build the trophy list:

  • MusterSheet suggests an Outstanding [Section] award for each judged section — one click to add.
  • + Add Custom Award for everything else. Each award gets a name, an optional sponsor line ("sponsored by Traditions Bank" — read aloud at the ceremony), and an Auto-rule:
    • Highest in section / Highest in caption — computed from scores automatically.
    • Grand champion of division / Nth place in division.
    • Manual — host picks winner — for judgment calls (including a Drum Line Battle winner).
    • Announcer's choice — picked live at the mic.
    • Audience Vote — decided by Fan Favorite voting, if you've enabled it.
  • Mark an award as a Perpetual trophy to give it a named trophy and a year-by-year history of past winners, which the announcer can read at the ceremony.

The list's order matters: the ceremony reveals from the bottom up, so put your biggest award at the top.

Step 1: Finalize results

After the last band performs, open Awards Prep — from the Command Center's Host Actions, or via the Open Awards Prep button that sits at the top of the Manage page's Awards and Winners tabs.

  1. Click Finalize Results. Placements compute privately — nobody else sees a thing.
  2. Check the completeness gate. If it says scores are missing, it names exactly which judge and which band — go rattle a cage. The ceremony can't start until every sheet is in.
  3. Review the results grid (place, band, score, rating per class). In the rare case you need it, an Override box can adjust a placement.
  4. Under Special Award Winners, click Recompute on auto-rule awards and Set winners on the manual ones. Every award needs a winner (or an announcer's-choice rule) before the teleprompter can pass it.

Step 2: Begin the awards ceremony

Click Begin Awards. That releases the running order to the announcer's teleprompter, and the ceremony proceeds one Next at a time — both announcer screens in sync, no rewind, your drama fully preserved.

Before you click, the release panel double-checks your award list. If any special awards still lack a winner, a warning names them — they won't stop you from beginning, but the teleprompter will stop at each one until a winner is assigned, so it's far better to catch them here than mid-ceremony with the crowd waiting. (Announcer's-choice awards get a calm little note instead — those are picked live at the mic by design.)

Step 3: Publish

When the ceremony ends, the final act is yours: back on the Command Center, click Publish Scores. In one click:

  • The public results page goes live for the world.
  • Every director's judges packet unlocks — scores, commentary, audio.

The Command Center confirms it: the Publish button is replaced by a green "Scores published — the public results page is live" chip, with a link to view the public results yourself.

That's the night. Go thank your volunteers.

Festival events

Festival-format competitions skip all of this — no scores are published and there's no ceremony. Judges' commentary flows to directors' packets and you simply complete the event.