During a live event the Master of Ceremonies advances the schedule between sections via a dedicated mobile-friendly page. It replaces the previous "judge submits last score → schedule advances automatically" model with explicit MC control.
Why a Dedicated MC Page
In previous events the schedule advanced automatically when the last judge finished scoring. That had two failure modes:
- Non-perf items stuck in IN_PROGRESS because judges weren't required to acknowledge them.
- Race conditions when judges' devices triggered advancement at slightly different times.
The MC page makes advancement an explicit human action: a single tap by the MC moves the live cursor forward.
Access
The best way to give your MC access is to invite them under Event Staff Access and tick MC Controls. They accept the invitation, sign in, and open the MC screen from their Staff Portal. See "Event staff and what they can open".
The older token-protected URL that the organizer copies from the dashboard still works, with a banner, until 25 Nov 2026. After that date the MC must be signed in with an account that holds MC Controls. The token is per-event and per-day.
To generate the link:
- Open the event dashboard.
- Click the day you want.
- Find the MC Access card and copy the link.
Treat the link like a key. Anyone with it can advance that day's schedule. Don't post it publicly.
What the MC Page Shows
For the selected day, the MC sees:
- Now Playing: the current item with its time and status badge.
- Next: the upcoming item.
- Recent: the last 2–3 completed items, for context.
- Advance button: appears when the current item is ready to be marked complete (judges have submitted, or the item is non-perf and the grace window has elapsed).
Common Tasks
Advancing to the next section: tap Advance. The current item flips to COMPLETED and the next item becomes IN_PROGRESS.
An awards ceremony that will not start: when an out of section dancer is still waiting, the ceremony stays on Starting soon and the Advance button reads "Waiting for the judges to press Start next section". The page lists the waiting dancers. You cannot start it from here: the judges score the waiting dancers first and then every judge presses Start next section. If a judge cannot press, mark them unavailable on the judges page and it starts on the others.
Defer modal popup: if a judge has initiated a defer (see "Deferring an Entry" article), the MC sees a notification and can confirm or override.
Close the day: opens the close-day modal (see "Closing a Day" article) which lets the MC mark all remaining items COMPLETED at once, with a per-judge missing-scores breakdown.
Operator Notes
- The MC page polls the server every few seconds, so multiple MCs sharing the link see the same state.
- Network lag means the Advance button may take 1–2 seconds to refresh after a tap. Don't double-tap.
- If the page shows a stale state, pull-to-refresh forces a re-sync.