Online scoring for judges changes the most fragile part of any competition: the moment a judge’s opinion becomes a number, and that number becomes a result. On paper, that journey runs through a scoresheet, a runner, a calculator and a tabulation desk — four places a mark can be misread or lost. On a screen, the judge enters the mark once and it is already in the result. This guide is written for the people who actually sit at the judges’ table, and for the organizers who have to brief them: what a judging panel does at an Arts festival, how criteria and weightage work, what the scoring screen asks for, and how several judges’ marks become one fair result.
Which events need judges — and which don’t
Before setting up any scoring, separate your event catalogue into two kinds of items, because they are handled completely differently.
- Judged (Arts) items. A panel watches a performance or examines a work and awards marks against criteria — Solo Song, Classical Dance, Group Dance, Elocution, Recitation, Mono Act, Mime, Painting, Pencil Drawing, Clay Modelling, Instrumental Music, Story Writing, Fancy Dress, Tableau. There is no stopwatch that settles it; the criteria are what make the marks defensible.
- Measured (Sports) items. The result comes from a time, a distance or a finishing position — 100m, relay, long jump, shot put, high jump. No judging panel is needed; results are recorded directly rather than scored. Quizzes sit in between: they are run as Arts items, but scored by answer keys and round rules instead of subjective criteria.
Everything below applies to the first group. If your event is a sports meet, the equivalent workflow is entering results manually — see the sports day management guide instead.
How a judging panel is put together
Most Arts festivals — a school kalolsavam, a club kalotsavam, a church talent test, a college fest — use a panel of three judges per stage, occasionally five for finals or headline items. Three is the practical minimum: it lets an outlier opinion be absorbed by two others without one person deciding a title alone. A workable panel usually has:
- A subject specialist — a trained dancer for classical dance, a music teacher for song, an artist for painting. They anchor technical accuracy.
- An experienced performer or teacher from a nearby institution, who has seen the standard at this age group before.
- A neutral senior judge with no connection to any participating unit, who chairs the panel and signs off the sheet.
Two rules matter more than credentials. First, declare conflicts of interest: a judge whose student, child or home unit is competing in an item should not score that item — replace them or rotate them to another stage. Second, judges score independently. They should not compare marks between entries or discuss a score in front of the panel until the item is closed. When scoring is on separate devices, this is enforced by design rather than by goodwill.
Criteria and weightage: what the judge is actually marking
A single “give it out of 100” box invites gut-feel marks and arguments. Splitting the same 100 into named criteria makes each mark explainable — and lets the tabulation team show a parent exactly where the difference came from. A typical breakdown for a judged stage item:
| Criterion | What it covers | Weightage |
|---|---|---|
| Technique / accuracy | Correctness of the form — sruthi and laya, mudra and thalam, brush control, diction | 30 |
| Expression / interpretation | Abhinaya, feeling, modulation, how the piece is communicated | 25 |
| Selection & suitability | Whether the piece suits the age group, the time limit and the occasion | 15 |
| Presentation | Stage use, costume, neatness, confidence, discipline | 20 |
| Overall impression | The judge’s holistic view of the entry | 10 |
Adjust the names and the weights per item — a painting item weights technique and creativity, an elocution item weights content and delivery, a group dance weights synchronisation and formation. Our per-item rubrics are collected in the judging and tabulation hub, including worked examples for speech, solo song and painting and drawing. Whatever you choose, print the criteria on the judges’ brief and publish them in the rules — a weightage announced in advance is accepted; the same weightage explained after a close result is argued about.
What the judge sees on the scoring screen
A judge logs in on a phone, tablet or laptop and sees only their own stage and only the item currently running. For each entry the panel gets the chest number and the entry’s position in the draw — not the participant’s name, school, house or church, so the mark is given to a performance rather than to a reputation. The judge then:
- Enters a mark against each criterion, within the maximum set for that criterion. The total is calculated for them — no adding up between entries.
- Adds an optional remark, useful later for certificates, feedback and appeals.
- Saves the entry. The score is locked to that judge; other judges cannot see it, and the judge cannot see anyone else’s.
- Moves to the next chest number as the draw calls it, until the item is complete.
Because the marks land in the system as they are entered, the tabulation desk is not waiting for a runner to bring paper across the hall. The moment the last entry is scored, the item is ready for review.
Turning several judges’ marks into one result
This is where online scoring earns its place. With three judges and twenty entries in an item, paper tabulation means transcribing sixty totals by hand — the single biggest source of published errors at Indian and Gulf arts festivals. Done in software, the panel’s marks combine automatically under whatever rule your rules book states. Common models:
- Average of all judges. The default and the easiest to explain: add the judges’ totals, divide by the number of judges.
- Drop the highest and lowest. With five judges, the extremes are discarded and the middle three averaged — protects against one unusually generous or harsh panellist.
- Sum of totals. Marks are simply added; identical ordering to averaging, but the headline number is larger.
Then the combined mark becomes the published result: a grade against a mark band (A / B / C), a rank within the item and age group, and points that roll up to the participant’s house, school, church or club for the championship table. Decide your tie-break rule in advance too — highest mark on the leading criterion, most first-place votes across the panel, or a declared shared rank. Once the review is done, publishing is a single step; the mechanics are covered in how to publish competition results online.
Briefing your judges before the event
Fifteen minutes with the panel before the first item prevents most problems. Cover: the criteria and weightage for every item they will judge; the time limit and what happens if an entry overruns; the mark range you expect them to use (panels that never go below 70 make ranking meaningless); the conflict-of-interest rule; that scores are independent and final once the item closes; and a two-minute walkthrough of the scoring screen with a test entry. Give each judge a printed criteria sheet as a backup, and keep one offline scoresheet per stage in case a device fails.
Setting it up in eTalenter
eTalenter runs the judged side of Arts events end to end: define your competition items and assign them to age groups, set the criteria and maximum marks per item, appoint judges and assign them to stages, run the draw so entries are called by chest number, then let the panel score from their own devices while the tabulation desk watches the marks arrive in real time. Grades, ranks, points, unit championship tables, certificates and trophy stickers all follow from the same scores. It works the same whether your event is a school kalolsavam with houses, a district festival with sub-districts and schools, a church talent test cascading from congregation to state, or a single-city club kalotsavam — the level structure is yours to define.
Frequently asked questions
Can judges score without an internet connection at the venue?
Judging is done in a browser, so the stage needs a working connection — a single mobile hotspot for the judges’ table is usually enough, since the data being sent is only a handful of numbers per entry. Always keep a printed criteria sheet per stage as a fallback so scoring can continue on paper and be entered afterwards if the venue’s connection drops.
Can a judge change a mark after saving it?
Corrections are possible while the item is still in progress. Once the item is marked finished, scores are locked and any change has to go through the coordinator as a recorded correction — which is exactly what you want when a result is questioned later.
How many judges should we appoint for a large festival?
Plan three judges per running stage, not three for the whole festival. A four-stage arts fest running items in parallel needs twelve panellists on duty, plus a couple of reserves. Rotating panels between stages also helps you keep judges away from items where their own students are competing.
Get your judging panel online
If you are still collecting scoresheets by hand, this is the single change that saves the most time and the most arguments. Talk to us about setting up criteria-based judging for your event: see how eTalenter runs a full festival, message us on WhatsApp, or email support@etalenter.com and we will help you configure your items, criteria and panels before your next event.
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