Hello everyone :D In October at Recycled Live V we tried a little experiment for show results and I wanted to write a little bit about it to share what we did and how it worked.
Anyone who has ever run a live show will know that one of the most tedious tasks after the show is writing up results. Several years ago I decided I would try and make things easier for me by using a laptop but because some showers completely refused to use it this actually made my job harder as I basically had to write up all of their results afterwards! It can take hours to type everything up and attempt to read handwriting and also understand what people are going on about and quite frankly post-Covid show host me is completely done with that.
So for Recycled Live V I decided to try and do something different. I wanted a simple and easy way that would mean show holders are responsible for their own show results and not me.
My solution was a pretty basic and simple one, a Google sheet.
So what did I do?
Well I typed up my usual results sheet into Google Sheets. I had my classes arranged by ring with space for 1st and 2nd place in the columns.
I then shared an editable link to the show group before the show and explained to people how I was going to do it. That meant everyone had access to it.
On the show day I had a laptop which was connected to a hotspot run off my phone which anyone could use.
After the show I simply picked a deadline and told people to ensure everything was correct by then.
People seemed to respond really well, nobody complained about having to do it and once everyone understood what they were doing it worked really well. Many people chose to write them up on the day on the laptop but some people chose to do them after the show and others used their own devices.
For me it saved so much time and stress. I just needed to ensure my own results were correct. When I submitted it to BMECS I closed it for editing and sent them a link, I also downloaded a copy and sent one of these across as well just in case something went wrong!
Above shows how the sheet was set up. You can see it is arranged by ring with the class number, name and section as well as space to write in 1st and 2nd place.
Were there any issues?
As with anything there were a few issues.
Firstly, I forgot to make the link editable at first, but that was a quick fix
Secondly, I had to refresh my hotspot occasionally which took time and was another thing to think about on the day. Obviously a hall with WiFi would be helpful here.
Thirdly, there were some issues with results being in the wrong place and needing to be moved. But once everyone had sorted this afterwards it was fine. It just meant people who thought they had done their results did need to double check them as there was some weird stuff floating around in odd columns and some went missing? (I suspect they were accidentally deleted but that's OK).
There were still some gaps but TBF there were not too many BMECS relevant ones!
Would I do it again?
Definitely! The only real limiting factor is phone reception/WiFi in the hall. Obviously if I don't have this I cannot do it and that can be a real issue for some halls. So it isn't suitable for everyone but it's definitely so much easier than me having to type everything up. Several people also liked that they could just do it in the evening and not on show day as it relieved stress at the show.
How do I start?
If you want to do it all you need to do is this:
1. Make sure you have a Google account (if you have Gmail then you have one)
2. Create your results sheet in Google Sheets
3. Share the editable link with your show entrants
4. On the day ensure you have a device (preferably a laptop) with access to the internet set up in a corner for people to type into
5. Set a deadline for results to be in
6. Remind people a week before the deadline to just double check nothing has changed
7. Lock for editing and then submit the link & downloaded copy to your qualification body
