A solo item is easy to schedule: one candidate, one chest number, on and off in a couple of minutes. A group stage item — group song, group dance, mime, tableau — is a different problem entirely. Instead of one candidate you have a whole team walking on with costumes, props and sometimes a backing track, and instead of a 90-second turnaround between entries you need several minutes just to clear the stage and reset it for the next team. Get the changeover time wrong and a festival that should finish by evening is still running at 10pm. Here’s how group items actually work on eTalenter, and how to schedule them without the schedule collapsing.
A group item’s “participant” is a team, not a candidate
Every competition item is set up with a Participant Type of Individual or Team. For a group item, the type is Team, and the entry isn’t a single candidate — it’s a named team with a full roster of member candidates. Teams are built during registration, not on a separate “team setup” screen: a coordinator building bulk participant records, or a parent using the public registration form, creates the team and adds (or picks from) its member candidates right there. Each team then registers as a single entry in the item, even though five, ten or twenty candidates are standing on stage for it.
One detail organisers get wrong the first time: a unit can enter more than one team in the same item. A school’s Red House and Blue House can both field a group dance team; a single house can even field two differently-named teams in the same item if it has the numbers. Teams get their own names — “Green A”, “Little Stars”, “Team Vasantham” — not just the house or unit colour, because the house is a classification every candidate carries, while a team is a specific roster built for one item. Don’t assume one unit equals one team; check how many teams each unit has actually registered before you build the running order.
Why group items need more than a chest-number sequence
A solo schedule is just a draw order of chest numbers called one after another. A group schedule has to account for everything that happens between teams:
- Stage changeover time — clearing one team’s props/backdrop and resetting for the next. A mime or tableau team with a painted backdrop or large props needs far longer than a group song team that just needs microphones repositioned. Budget changeover minutes per item type, not a single blanket number for the whole fest.
- Music and cue handling — most group items run to a backing track or live accompaniment. Collect tracks ahead of time (named by team, not by song) and confirm cue-in points, so the sound desk isn’t hunting for a file while a team stands waiting under lights.
- Roster and headcount checks — a team’s member list has to match who actually walks on stage. Large teams are also where most on-the-day substitutions turn up (a sick candidate replaced at the last minute); decide your substitution rule before day one and make sure whoever is checking teams in at the wings knows it.
- Draw order fairness — a long festival where group items always run last penalises the units with the biggest teams, whose candidates end up waiting the longest. Spread group items through the day rather than stacking them all at the end.
Scheduling group items alongside everything else
On eTalenter, each competition item is scheduled with its own slot in Time Management / Event Stages, so a group item’s slot can carry a longer per-entry duration than a solo item’s — the schedule reflects reality instead of pretending every item takes the same two minutes. The token system still calls teams up in draw order the same way it calls individual candidates, so judges, the draw master and the projector display all work off one running order regardless of whether the next entry is one candidate or a fifteen-member team. If a festival runs multiple stages in parallel, keep every group item on one stage per round where possible — splitting a single item’s teams across two stages makes a single consistent panel of judges much harder to maintain.
Judging itself works the same way as for an individual item — criteria, scores and tabulation are set up per item, not per participant type — but group-item criteria usually weight synchronisation, formation and overall stage presence alongside the individual-style marks for expression and execution. If you haven’t set those criteria yet, our group dance judging criteria guide and the judging & tabulation hub walk through typical rubrics for group items.
FAQ
Can the same candidate be part of two different teams in two different group items?
Yes — a candidate’s team membership is per item. A dancer can be on a group dance team for one item and a mime team for another; the system doesn’t restrict a candidate to one team overall, only to one roster per item.
Do group items need their own chest numbers?
Teams get their own entry/call number for the item, separate from each member candidate’s individual chest number. Members keep their personal chest numbers for their own solo items; the team number is what gets called for the group entry itself.
How much changeover time should we budget for a mime or tableau item versus a group song?
There’s no universal number — it depends on props and backdrop — but the organising principle is the same: time it with an actual rehearsal changeover before the festival, not a guess on paper, and build that measured gap into the schedule per item type rather than a single fest-wide buffer.
Running group items well comes down to treating the team, not the candidate, as the unit you schedule, judge and call to stage. Open a live demo to see team registration, the token/draw system and multi-stage scheduling set up on a real event — no sign-up needed, just log in as a demo coordinator or judge. Our kalolsavam management software page covers the full feature set, or reach us on WhatsApp at +91 96056 56508 or support@etalenter.com for help setting up your event on eTalenter.
