Test run and venue rehearsal

Yes — you can simulate a complete competition before the real one, with your own computer, the venue’s projector and the tablets your functionaries will actually use. This is the single best thing a first-time organizer can do, and nothing in it touches your real event data.

This page is the script for it: what to test at your desk, what to test at the venue, and what “it works” looks like.

What you can prove, and where

Test	At your desk	At the venue
Event, classes and rounds are set up correctly	✓
A full round: Start judging → marking → Close round → Confirm round → Publish results online	✓	✓
The judges’ view, and each judge setting their PIN	✓	✓
Screens content and view order	✓	✓
Speaker flow and Show on Screen	✓	✓
Check-in, QR scanning, start numbers	✓	✓
Printing heat lists, judging sheets, diplomas	✓	✓ (on the venue’s printer)
Projector picture: cable, resolution, cropping, readability from the back row		✓
The venue’s Wi-Fi with all devices at once		✓
Coverage on the floor, at the judges’ seats and at the desk		✓
Power, cable runs, table placement, sightlines		✓
How long setup actually takes		✓

Do the desk rehearsal first. Arrive at the venue knowing the software, so the visit is about the hall.

Step 1: Create a practice event

Do not rehearse in your real event. Create a separate event for testing:

In Manager, create a new event.
On How do you want to start?, choose Training competition with default settings (“Best for your first event”). No federation rules, licenses or rankings get in the way.
If you take the longer path instead, set Event mode to Practice event. Practice events are not billed and are excluded from federation reporting, so nothing you do here shows up anywhere real.

The new event already contains a Main floor, one screen, default cafe products and a schedule for the day with Doors open and Competition start. Classes, rounds and judges you add yourself — which is part of what you are rehearsing.

For test dancers, use Generate random competitors. On Manager → Competition → Participants there is a Generate random competitors action that exists only for practice events. That is how you fill a round with enough entries to see real heats, lineups and results.

Name the event so nobody mistakes it for the real thing, for example “TEST – Altira Cup (rehearsal, do not register)”, and keep it non-public.

One thing to expect at the venue: a practice event shows a warning in every app, including on the projector — “Practice events have limitations! Only for practice and should not be used for live competitions.” That is normal and only appears in practice mode. Tell the venue’s technician in advance so nobody thinks something is broken.

Alternative: you can also rehearse one round inside your real event with random test teams, then clear them. That proves your real classes, panels and printouts. Do it only before real registrations are imported, and use Competition → Registration → Data transfer carefully — reset and delete are destructive.

Step 2: Desk rehearsal (45–60 minutes, at home)

With just your own computer, and a phone or tablet beside it:

Open Manager and take one round through the whole lifecycle: Not started → In progress → Closed → Confirmed → Published.
Open the Judging app’s demo to see exactly what the judges see, and mark a round yourself. The demo builds heats from the real round, so the heat and team counts match what you have set up. The same demo link goes out in the judges’ invitation email, so your judges can practise the marking interface at home before the competition.
Open Screens in a second browser window and step through lineup, heat, live placement, result and prize ceremony as you run the round — one view at a time, which is all a screen device shows.
Open Speaker on your phone and use Show on Screen to drive the screen window.
Print a heat list, a judging sheet and a diploma to PDF.
Open Problems in Manager and read every failed test.

If this hour goes well, the rest is logistics.

Step 3: Prepare the venue visit

Book it properly. Ask for the hall, the projector and the venue’s technician for two to three hours, with the sound and light tech present for the part that concerns them (they will mostly be waiting — Vote4Dance does not drive sound or light, see Screens, projectors and venue technology).

Send the venue the questions from What to ask the venue technician in advance, so cables and network access exist when you arrive.

Set up before you go:

In the practice event, create the stations you will use — one per shared device: screen, check-in, lineup, speaker, cafe. See Users, apps and stations.
Nothing to print: you join a device by opening the station in Manager and letting the device’s camera scan the QR straight off your screen. (The join link and the six-character code work too, if a camera will not cooperate.)
Add the functionaries who are coming as users with the apps they need.
Invite the judges who are coming, so their accounts are Active before you arrive. Each judge sets their own PIN on their own device the first time they open the Judging app — there is no event code for you to hand out — and you can reset a forgotten PIN from the judge’s row in Manager → Competition → Judges.
Charge every tablet and bring chargers.

Bring:

Your Manager computer, charged, with Google Chrome
The computer that will drive the projector (ideally the one you will use on the day)
HDMI cable plus USB-C / Mini-DisplayPort adapters
A power strip and a long extension cable
The tablets for judges, check-in, lineup and speaker
An Ethernet cable and a USB-Ethernet adapter, in case there is a wired port
A phone with a hotspot as a backup internet path
Printed heat lists from the desk rehearsal, as the paper fallback

Step 4: The venue rehearsal, step by step

Roughly two hours. Do it in this order — each step depends on the one before.

A. Network first (15 min)

Connect the Manager computer to the venue Wi-Fi, or to the wired port.
Open Manager and confirm it loads and stays logged in.
Walk the hall with a tablet: the floor, the judges’ seats, the desk, the check-in position. Watch for dead spots.
Confirm the Wi-Fi does not throw up a login page and does not drop the connection after a few minutes.

If the network fails here, stop and solve it with the venue. Nothing downstream works without it.

B. Projector (20–30 min)

Connect your display computer to the venue’s input and get a picture.
Set the output to a 16:9 resolution — 1920 × 1080 is a safe choice for a modern projector.
Join the device to the Screens station — open the station in Manager on your laptop and scan its QR from the screen — then press Show on the card for this screen. The floor and what it shows come from Manager → Event → Screens.
Go fullscreen, and use the browser zoom hotkey (Ctrl +/-) to fit the picture — nothing cut off at the edges.
Walk to the back row and read it. Start numbers and names must be legible from the furthest seat the audience will use. Browser zoom is your tool here. Also check it from the judges’ seats and from the desk.
Disable sleep and screensaver on that computer.
Note what you did: which input, which resolution, which zoom level. You will want it on the day.

C. Devices and people (15 min)

Judges’ tablets: open the Judging app and let each judge set or enter their own PIN, then leave the tablets on the judges’ table.
Lineup tablet (insläpp/infösare): join the Lineup station at the floor entrance.
Speaker tablet: join the Speaker station where the MC will stand.
Check-in tablet: join the Check-in station at the desk and test scanning a QR code.
In Manager, check the connectivity of judges and screens — every device should be visible.

D. Run a full round for real (30 min)

Use the bootstrap practice classes and random teams, and run it as if the hall were full:

Press Start judging.
Lineup calls the heat; watch the lineup and heat displays on the projector.
The judges mark on their tablets. Watch the judges’ completion status in Manager.
The speaker uses Show on Screen to drive the hall.
Close round, then Confirm round, then Publish results online.
Watch the result appear on the projector, then run the prize ceremony view with the spotlight — this is the moment worth rehearsing, because it is the one the audience remembers.
Print a heat list and a diploma, on the venue’s printer if you are using it.

Then do it once more, faster, with the people who will hold those positions on the day. The second run is the one that builds confidence.

E. Write down the setup (10 min)

Before you leave, note: projector input, resolution, screen zoom, where each device sat, which network each used, and how long the setup took. That note is your event-morning script.

What “it works” looks like

App	Verified when
Manager	Rounds move through all five statuses without validation blocks, and judge and screen connectivity is visible.
Judging	Every judge can set and enter their PIN, and their marks land in Manager.
Screens	The projector shows the right floor, fills the picture, is readable from the back row, and follows the round without being touched.
Speaker	Show on Screen changes the projector within a second or two.
Lineup	Calling a heat changes what the floor and the screens show.
Check-in	A QR code scans, a dancer is found, a start number is assigned and printed.
Network	All devices online at once, for the whole rehearsal, with no re-login.

After the rehearsal

Keep the practice event. It stays useful for training new functionaries, and the judges’ demo link keeps working for judges who want another go.
Clear any test participants you created in the real event, and check Problems there.
Turn your notes into a one-page run sheet for the morning: order of setup, who does what, and the venue contact’s phone number.
Fix anything the rehearsal exposed while you still have weeks, not hours.

Event morning with limited time

If the rehearsal went well, the morning is short. This sequence takes about 45 minutes:

Power and network for the desk computer; open Manager and check Problems (5 min).
Display computer to the projector; Screens station, the right screen card, fullscreen, browser zoom as noted (10 min).
Judges’ tablets out, each judge enters their own PIN (5 min).
Lineup, speaker, check-in and cafe devices join their stations (5 min).
Check-in opens; confirm organization check-in status is being applied (10 min).
First rounds: confirm schedule, floor and teams are in place (5 min).
One dry heat on the floor before doors open, if you can (5 min).

Then follow Live operations.

Things rehearsals usually catch

Wi-Fi with a login page or a timeout that logs devices out mid-round.
A projector that crops the edges, or a screen zoom that leaves the start numbers unreadable from the back.
A display computer that goes to sleep during a long prize ceremony.
HDMI cable runs that need an extender.
Judges who were never invited, never activated their account, or were never added to the panel for a class.
Functionaries who were given Manager access but not the app they actually need — a very common one, see Users, apps and stations.
A round where Start judging is refused because of a missing schedule item or panel.
Too few power outlets at the desk.