Tiebreaker
With jury scoring, it can happen that two or more performers end up with exactly the same final score. The system detects this tie automatically and offers you five methods to resolve it.
When Does a Tiebreaker Appear?
As soon as all affected performers have received their scores and the final scores are identical, a warning appears in the live view. You see:
- Which performers are affected
- Five buttons with the available methods
You can choose the method freely. There is no prescribed order.
The Five Methods
1. Without Drop Scores
The dropped scores are included again. Often, the raw sum of all juror scores is no longer identical without the drop, which reveals a difference.
When available? Only if the round uses drop scoring and the raw sums actually produce a difference. Otherwise, the button is grayed out.
Advantage: Fast, transparent, no additional action needed.
2. Applause Voting
The audience decides the tie by applause:
- An announcement of the face-off appears on the display
- The affected performers are called up one by one
- The audience applauds for each person
- You determine the order by ear
The audience sees the entire process live on the display, including the announcement and performer call-up.
3. X/O Decision (Paddle Vote)
The jurors vote by holding up paddles, like in a classic slam face-off:
With 2 performers (letter mode):
- Each juror holds up a paddle: X for person A, O for person B
- Whoever gets more votes wins
With 3+ performers (number mode):
- Each juror holds up a number (1, 2, 3, ...)
- Each number represents a performer
- Whoever gets the most votes wins
The display shows a clear layout with the assignments and a live tally.
What happens if the paddle vote ties? If the paddle vote also fails to produce a clear winner, you can:
- Accept shared placements
- Start another face-off for the remaining group
4. Set Manually
You set the order directly using up/down buttons. Optionally, you can add a free-text reason (e.g. "coin toss" or "audience vote at the merch stand").
When useful? When you have your own method that is not covered by the system, or when the slam has its own house rules.
5. Accept Tie
Both performers share the placement. The next placement is skipped accordingly (e.g. two 2nd places, then directly 4th place).
When useful? When the slam allows shared placements, or the placement in question does not warrant a face-off.
Accepting happens silently in the background – the projector is not switched. The shared placement simply appears the next time you show the standings. This lets you accept, say, a tie for 5th and 6th place without showing the audience a tiebreaker.
For a tie over an advancement spot (e.g. a wildcard between two groups), "Accept tie" is not available – an advancement spot cannot be shared, so a decision has to be made.
Tiebreaker on the Display
For the active methods (applause voting, X/O decision) the audience sees the process live on the display:
- Announcement of the face-off
- Performer call-up (for applause voting)
- Paddle vote with live counter (for X/O decision)
- Result after the decision
"Accept tie" is deliberately excluded (see above) – the projector stays on the current screen.
Reset a Tiebreaker
If you want to test a method or a mistake was made: you can reset all tiebreakers for a round. The entered scores remain unchanged. Only the decision is deleted.
Important to Know
- A tiebreaker is only needed when the final scores are exactly equal (minimal differences do not count)
- The final overall ranking can only be shown on the display once all open ties have been resolved or accepted
- Feature guests cannot cause a tie since they are excluded from the rankings