Horror Pub Trivia · Host Operations

Live Show Cheat Sheet

One page for running a Live show from PHPTRIVIAAPP's Live Play page (/admin/live → click Live Play on the event). Print it, or keep this tab open on a second phone. Covers both Digital and Paper Mode nights (updated 2026-09-29) — replaces the old separate Live Show Cue Sheet and Live Play Cheat Sheet docs, so this is the one to keep current going forward.

Before doors open

Choose Digital or Paper ModeSet once in the event editor. Digital = players join on phones and everything below applies. Paper Mode = no phones needed at all — skip straight to the Paper Mode section below, it's a different run of show entirely.
Set the game modeChampionship (overall winner) vs. Per Round (each round crowns its own) — locked in at event creation, can't change mid‑show.
Put the Display Screen up — players can scan to joinWhile joining is open, the Display Screen shows the Join Code and a QR code. Scanning it opens the join page with the code already filled in — they only type a team name. The QR disappears with the code once Round 1 unlocks.
Hand the projector to a helper (no admin login needed)On app.horrorpubtrivia.com/login they enter admin@corpsecollective.com as the email and the event's Join Code as the password. They land on that event's Display Screen with no menus and no log out button, and can't reach anything else. It keeps updating on its own like the normal Display Screen.
Note the Join CodeLarge readout at the top of Live Play. Joining closes the instant Round 1 is unlocked — a team already in can still rejoin from a new device, but no brand‑new name can join after that, so get everyone signed up before you unlock the first round.
Check Max TeamsIf a cap is set, joins stop once it's hit — rejoins under an existing name still work.
Turn on Player Auto‑Refresh/admin/live hub — off by default so idle nights don't poll for nothing. Flip it off again once you're done.
Click Go LiveThe "Stage" toggle on the event row — unstages it so /play shows it to players.
Decide on Manual GradingText‑heavy rounds + a full room = a slow Close Round (each answer is one AI call). Flip it on before you start if that's you — see Toggles below.
Decide on the Display Screen extras"Show current question" is an event‑editor checkbox, set before the show. "Round Answers on Display" is a Live Play toggle — flip it whenever, even mid‑show.
Bookmark the Live Play linkOr scan a QR code straight to it — you'll want it one tap away all night.

The round loop

repeat once per round · Digital Mode only

Unlock Round

Players can now save answers. Read the questions aloud straight from this page — optionally mark one "📺 Show on Display" as you go. A question's image or video, if it has one, only ever appears there or on the Display Screen — never on a player's own phone.

Unlock Round

Watch submissions

"N of M submitted" climbs live. Short on close, the confirm dialog names who's missing.

Close Round

Grades everyone in one batch. The button locks itself once clicked — safe to leave alone even if it looks slow.

Close Round

Handle disputes

Grade every pending text answer and settle every dispute. A big red banner on Live Play names what's left — until it's clear, Release Standings, Unlock Round, tiebreakers and Final Scoring are all locked.

Release Standings

Scores stay hidden until you click this. It also reveals that round's answer grid (if Round Answers is on) and, in Per Round Mode, the round's champion trophy — closing the round is not enough on its own. Every round needs its own release, the last one included.

Release Standings to Players

↺ back to step 1 for the next round

Display Screen at a glance

🖥 Display Screen button, opens in a new tab

Always on

Leaderboard, join QR & round progress

Join code plus a scannable QR (both only while joining's open), round‑by‑round status dots, the event banner image, and the winner banner once the show ends.

Leaderboard is release‑gated — never shows a jump before you click Release Standings. Per Round Mode: it shows only the latest released round's own scores, labelled "Round N Results" — not cumulative across rounds, though teams that played that round's tiebreakers have their released tiebreaker points added on top — and it goes back to team names with dashes the moment the next round is unlocked, until that round is released — and a round's 🏆 champion appears only after that round is released.

Opt‑in · set in the event editor

📺 Now Reading

Shows whichever question you've marked live, plus its image or video (a public pCloud link) if it has one. Click a different question to switch, click it again to hide.

This is the only place a question's image or video ever shows — it's never sent to a player's own phone. Auto‑clears the instant the round closes, reopens, or the next one starts — nothing to remember to turn off.

Opt‑in · Live Play toggle

📊 Round Answers

Shows a team‑by‑team grid of every answer with ✓ / ✗ marks — but only once the round is both closed and you've clicked Release Standings for it.

Closing the round alone shows nothing here. Flip the toggle on/off anytime — it always reflects the current round instantly. Disappears the moment the next round opens. Wrong answers show in a deep red; "No answer" stays grey italic.

Automatic

⏳ “Round N is being graded…”

Fills the gap between closing a round and finishing every Manual Grading decision for it. It names the round that's waiting (e.g. “Round 2 is being graded…”), including a tiebreaker round, so the screen isn't just sitting blank while you grade.

Appears whenever at least one text answer is still pending a grade, whether or not Round Answers on Display is on. Clears itself the moment you decide the last one.

Ending the show

Championship Mode

Every round closed and every grade/dispute settled → Final Scoring unlocks.
The button itself tells you ahead of the click if it's currently a tie — no surprises after the fact.
No tie → winner is crowned automatically, recap unlocks.
Tied → banner shows the tied names → Start Tiebreaker Round.
Tiebreaker resolves to one name → Confirm Winner (separate click on purpose — leaves a dispute window first).

Force it anytime with the always‑available Crown a Winner override.

Per Round Mode

Each round crowns its own champion as you go — a tied round can be released right away: the scores go out and the Display shows a "Tiebreaker coming up" notice naming the tied teams. Then Start Round Tiebreaker (the notice disappears, use Show on Display for its questions) → Close → Release Standings (the tiebreaker points join the leaderboard) → Confirm Round Winner. The trophy shows once the round winner is confirmed and every tiebreaker round has been released, in either order.
Click Release Standings to Players for every round, the last one included — that's what shows the round's scores and trophy on the Display Screen.
No overall winner by design. Cumulative points are skewed by however many tiebreakers a round needed, so there isn't one.
Final Scoring only appears after the last round is released. It just ends the session — players get their "Your Final Score" page and the recap; it reveals no standings and awards no trophies.

Don't go looking for a "grand champion" here — if someone asks, that's the intended behavior, not a bug.

Paper Mode nights

a different run of show entirely

No Live Play, no Unlock/Close

Skip the round loop and Display Screen sections above completely — there's no digital session, so nobody joins with a code and nothing gets graded by the app. Open the Reading Display page instead and read straight off it: every authored round's questions and answers, ready to go.

Need a tiebreaker? The same page has a Pull Random Questions control — it draws 5 fresh ones on demand from across the trivia library, remembers every pull for the rest of the night, and never repeats a question already used or already authored into tonight's set. Any question with an image or video is automatically skipped when pulling — a tiebreaker is read aloud with nothing to look at, so a media‑dependent question would be unfair.

Ending the show, standings release, and the Display Screen sections above don't apply on a Paper Mode night.

When something goes wrong

Routine

Someone in the back needs to run the projector, but you can't log in for them

Have them go to the login page and enter admin@corpsecollective.com with the event's Join Code as the password. They get only that event's Display Screen, nothing else.

To stop it, close the browser or clear its cookies. A wrong code just shows the normal login error, and 8 wrong tries in 5 minutes locks that connection out for a few minutes.

Routine

A player says they can't join

If Round 1 is already unlocked, a brand‑new name can't join — that's intentional. A team that already joined can still get back in from a new device; check they're typing the exact name they used before, and that the join code and Max Teams cap aren't the issue.

Routine

A team disputes their graded text answer

Approve or deny from the Disputed Answers panel at the top of Live Play.

Routine

AI graded a text answer wrong, but nobody disputed it

Open Text Answers and click Mark Correct / Incorrect yourself.

Score adjustment is bidirectional — toggling back and forth nets to zero, even with Manual Grading on.

Routine

Players say the leaderboard hasn't moved, even though a round just closed

By design — closing a round only grades players and shows their own reveal. Click Release Standings to Players when you're ready for the whole room to see it.

Routine

You released standings, but a round you just closed isn't showing up yet

Release is per‑round, not a one‑time switch — a freshly closed round is pending again even after an earlier release. Click Release Standings to Players once more.

Routine

Close Round looks stuck, or you clicked it twice out of worry

Safe either way — the button disables itself on click, and a second close never re‑grades or double‑awards points. Just wait it out.

If this keeps happening on text‑heavy rounds, turn on Manual Grading before the next one.

Caution

A team's phone died mid‑game

Click Reset Device next to their name. The next phone to use that name claims it fresh.

Caution

A round needs fixing after you already closed it

Reopen (Emergency) on that round.

Reopening keeps pending disputes and ungraded answers — but closing the round again clears every grade and dispute for it, settled ones included, and grades everyone from scratch (players may need to dispute again). It also un-releases the round, so release it again. If anything is pending you'll get a warning window first.

Routine

"⚠ N text answers could not be AI‑graded"

Shows right after Close Round. Go fix those rows on Text Answers — a genuine grading failure, not a real 0.

Routine

Big red banner: "N text answers need grading, N disputes to settle"

Use Open Pending Grades and the Disputed Answers panel. Release Standings, Unlock Round, tiebreaker buttons and Final Scoring stay greyed out until it clears (it updates on its own). The server refuses them too, so a stale tab can't sneak past.

Everything must be settled before a round's scores go out — nothing carries over to the next round.

Caution

Crown a Winner / Reopen shows a "Grading isn't finished" window

Those two overrides aren't locked, but the window names what's pending and what will happen. Choose Go grade / settle first or Continue anyway.

Routine

Per Round: the trophy isn't showing next to a round on the Display

It needs two things: Confirm Round Winner (or the round's Crown override) clicked, and Release Standings to Players clicked after the last tiebreaker round closed. Do whichever is missing.

Routine

You try to unlock a second round

The app refuses and names the round that's already open. Close it first — only one round runs at a time, on purpose.

Routine

A player asks why they can't see the image/video on a question anymore

Expected — question media moved to Display‑Screen‑only. Point them at the projector, or mark that question "📺 Show on Display" yourself if it isn't up already.

Emergency

Need a genuinely clean slate before/after testing

Purge All Players — full reset, wipes round state and the session itself.

Not scoped to one event — this is global. Don't click it once real players have joined for the night.

Emergency

Just want to read questions without any risk of misclicking a control

Flip Read‑Only Mode on the /admin/live hub — disables every mutating button. State is per‑browser.

Toggles reference

Go Live / Stage

event row, /admin/live

Unstages the event so /play shows it to anyone trying to join. Unrelated to round locking.

Read‑Only Mode

top right, /admin/live

Disables disqualify, delete, edit, stage, purge — everything mutating. For reading questions off the page safely.

Player Auto‑Refresh

/admin/live hub

Lets /play and /recap auto‑poll for every visitor. Off by default — turn on before the show, off when truly done.

⚖ Manual Grading

Live Play, per event

Skips AI grading on text answers, queues them for you to Approve/Deny by hand instead. Use it when a round's about to close slowly.

📺 Show current question

event editor checkbox, not Live Play

Turns on the "📺 Show on Display" button next to each question in an open round. Set this before the show — it's not a Live Play toggle.

📊 Round Answers on Display

Live Play, per event

Shows the team‑by‑team answer grid on the Display Screen for the latest closed & released round. Flip on/off anytime — takes effect immediately either way.