About StepRank
Competition management for dance events.
StepRank is built for multi-round competitions where a panel scores every dancer live. That covers random partner events, known as a Jack & Jill or a Mix & Match, where leads and follows are re-paired each round, and solo events where the field is undivided. This page covers the detail behind that. For the short version, see the three-step overview.
Who uses it
Three roles, one platform.
Organizer
Create competitions, configure rounds and scoring modes, approve judges, and decide exactly when the results go public and how much of them the audience sees.
Judge
Sign in with an access code and score participants live from any device. The score entry matches the scale the organizer set, moving from tappable buttons to a picker to a typed field the more values the scale carries, so it stays workable on a phone. Lock your scores when done. No paper, no spreadsheets.
Participant & Viewer
Register for a competition or browse as a guest. See results the moment the organizer releases them, with as much or as little detail as they choose to share.
What it runs
The formats it handles today.
Any dance style, any number of rounds. Scoring is per criterion with weights you set, and every round can use a different method: numeric scores, callback and no-callback rounds, or a ranked final.
Jack & Jill
Also called Mix & Match, random partner
Leads and follows enter separately and are given partners, who change between rounds. The final is danced with one drawn partner and judged as a couple. Judges can be assigned to one role or both, with their own callback budget per role.
Solo
One undivided field, scored and ranked as individuals. No roles, no pairing.
Strictly
Dancers enter as a couple and keep that partner throughout. Judged as a couple in every round, and the final can be scored on points or ordered by the panel.
Pro-Am
Each amateur dances with a professional and keeps them for the event. Runs like a Strictly: fixed partners, judged as couples.
Questions
The things organizers ask first.
- What scoring modes does StepRank support?
- Three, picked per round: Callbacks (judges mark who they want to see again), Points (judges score each entry against your weighted criteria), and Ranking (judges order the finalists, and you choose whether relative placement or Borda count seats them). Whether dancers keep a partner is a separate setting on each round, so a fixed-partner final can be ranked rather than only scored.
- How is a ranking final decided?
- You pick the rule for that round. Relative placement is the default and is the standard a WSDC Jack & Jill runs on: the dancer a majority of judges placed highest takes the place, read one position at a time. Borda count is the alternative, where each judge's placing becomes points and the best total wins. The two can seat different winners from the same ballots, so the results page names the rule that ran and publishes the count behind it.
- Does StepRank handle both couples and individual formats?
- Yes. Couples events pair leads and follows across multi-round brackets. Individual formats score each competitor on their own performance. Both run in the same platform.
- When can spectators see results?
- Results are never public until an organizer releases them, one round at a time. Each round is released as results only (who went through and the places) or full results (every figure), and the organizer chooses whether each judge's marks are shown.
- Does StepRank work offline?
- Judge scoring requires an active connection to sync results in real time. A local-cache offline mode is on the roadmap.
Get in touch
Tell us about your event.
Questions, feedback, or partnership inquiries. Send a note and we will get back to you. If you are ready to run a competition, request access instead and we will set you up directly.