Setting up your festival

After you create a host account, one short form stands between you and your festival's home screen. This guide covers what every field on the form does and what FilmScorecard creates for you when you press the button — including your organization itself — and what you see instead when your account is not approved to create an organization yet.

If you have not created an account yet, start with Creating an account.

Your organization

Every festival on FilmScorecard belongs to an organization — the company, non-profit, or team that runs it. One organization can run multiple festivals.

There is no separate step for setting one up. Log in with your host account and the Set up your festival form is waiting; submitting the form creates your organization and your festival together, in one go. Until you submit, nothing exists — abandoning the form saves nothing.

Three things to know:

• Creating an organization needs approval. Only an account whose address has been approved by FilmScorecard as a festival host can create one. An approval as a judge or a filmmaker is not enough, and neither is belonging to somebody else's organization. Without it, the setup address shows a request instead of the form — see If your account is not approved yet.
• Each person can create one organization. An account that already owns an organization — one it created, or one it was made an owner of — cannot create another: an attempt is refused with the form's own sentence, "Something went wrong creating your festival. Nothing was saved — try again.", and nothing is saved. Owning more than one is still possible, but only when an owner of another organization makes you one — by inviting you as an Owner, or promoting you. See Working in two organizations.
• The address is the same for everybody: /host/festival. A host account is sent there when it logs in; anybody else can type it.

If your account is not approved yet

Open the setup address with an account that belongs to no organization and has no host approval, and the screen — still headed Set up your festival — says:

Your account isn't approved to create an organization yet.

Under it, a short request:

1. Organization name — required, up to 200 characters. It arrives filled in with the organization from your own beta request, when you sent one.
2. Note — optional, up to 2,000 characters: what you run, when your next season opens, anything that helps.
3. Press Request host access. The button reads Sending... while it works.

The request is replaced by one line:

Request sent. We'll email you when it's approved.

What happens then:

• A person at FilmScorecard reads it. It joins the beta requests, as a festival host request with the organization and note you typed, on the address you are signed in with — never any other.
• If your address already had a request — you were approved as a judge or a filmmaker, say, or an earlier request was declined — that request is turned into this one rather than a second being made. Nothing about your account changes, and you keep logging in and working exactly as before.
• When it is approved, you are emailed "You're approved to set up your festival", with your login address and a Set up your festival button to /host/festival, where the form is now waiting. If your account is a judge or filmmaker account, logging in still takes you to your usual first screen — your judging home or your projects — not to the form. Press the button in the email once you are signed in, or type /host/festival.
• Coming back before then shows the same line, "Request sent. We'll email you when it's approved." Sending again is not offered while one is waiting.
• If it is declined, nothing is emailed, and the setup address offers the request again.

An account that already belongs to an organization never sees this. Members of an organization add festivals to it from its own screens — see Adding a festival. It is only creating an organization that needs host approval.

The Set up your festival form

The form is headed Set up your festival, with one reassurance under the title: "You can change all of this later."

Organization name

The help line under this field says why it is here at all: "You can run multiple festivals under one organization." What the field does depends on where you are coming from:

• Setting up for the first time, after your beta request was approved? The field arrives filled in with the organization you named on your own beta request — or on your Request host access, which is the same request. It stays as it is when you type the festival name; change it if it is not quite right. See Requesting beta access.
• Setting up for the first time with no organization on a request? The field starts empty and copies whatever you type as the festival name, keystroke for keystroke, until the first time you type in it yourself — from then on it keeps what you wrote. Many organizations share their festival's name, so often there is nothing to do here.
• Already a member of an organization? The field arrives filled in with its name. Leave it as it is and nothing changes. Edit it and your organization is renamed when you create the festival — everywhere, not just on this form.

Whatever the field says when you create the festival becomes your organization's name — and, like the festival name, it needs at least one letter or number. Only your own beta request is ever read for it; nobody else's.

Festival name

Your festival's public name — it appears at the top of every festival screen, and a web-friendly version of it becomes part of your festival's address (more on that below). It needs at least one letter or number.

A handful of names are refused, because their web-friendly version is already the address of one of your organization's own screens: categories, scorecards, judges, settings, festivals and overview. Any name that comes down to one of those six, whatever its capitals or punctuation, is answered with "That name is reserved". Pick a fuller name, such as "Riverside Shorts Festival", and the problem goes away.

What this festival will judge

Two tick boxes — Films and Screenplays — and both start ticked.

For a brand-new organization they attach nothing, because your library has no categories yet (see What you start with), and nothing else reads them.

Once your library has categories of its own, the same boxes narrow which of them a festival is created with — see Adding a festival.

Leaving both ticked is the same as not being asked, and unticking every one is refused: "Choose at least one kind of work."

Nothing on this form is stored as a rule about the festival. It never limits what you can import, what you can add later, or what a future season may run.

First season

Festivals on FilmScorecard run in seasons — a season is one edition of your festival, with its own submissions and its own judging. The form sets up your first one. The heading says the rule: "Season label optional, year required."

• Season label — optional. Use it if your festival runs more than once a year or names its editions: "Fall", "Spring", "10th Anniversary". Leave it blank and the season is known by its year alone.
• Year — required. Four digits, between 2000 and 2100. It starts on the current year. The box only accepts digits; anything else you type is ignored.

The line underneath shows what the two add up to: "Submissions you import will belong to Fall 2026" (or "this season" until you have typed anything).

The first season starts with the first email to filmmakers Not decided — nothing reaches them on its own until someone chooses how it sends, on the season overview or its Emails tab — and with scorecards released as each submission is approved, on its Results tab, where you can change it. It also starts in the time zone of the browser you created it from (UTC if the browser reports one FilmScorecard doesn't recognise), which you can change on the Season tab's Dates card. See Festival settings.

The Festival Host Agreement

When this form is creating your organization, its last line, just above the button, is one tick box:

I agree to the Festival Host Agreement

Festival Host Agreement is a link, and it opens the document in a new tab so you do not lose the form. It is the agreement between FilmScorecard and every organization that runs festivals on it — among other things, that your festival pays its own judges, and FilmScorecard does not.

• It is required. Pressing Create festival with it unticked sends nothing, and one sentence appears under it: "You need to agree to the Festival Host Agreement to continue."
• You agree on your organization's behalf, as its owner. The agreement is recorded against the organization, with the date and your name, straight after it is created.
• An account that already belongs to an organization does not see the box: its form creates a festival, not an organization, and the organization's own agreement is settled by its owners — see The two role agreements.

Creating the festival

1. Choose Create festival. The button reads "Creating your festival..." for a moment and the fields lock while it works.
2. FilmScorecard creates everything in one go: your organization (when this is your first festival) with its three shared scorecards, your festival, and its first season — and then records your agreement to the Festival Host Agreement. If that last record does not go through, nothing is lost and nothing is shown here: the agreement is simply asked for again, on a confirm page, the first time you open one of your organization's screens.
3. You land on a Welcome page for the new season — "Riverside Shorts Festival is set up" — with its counts, how many steps stand between you and opening judging, and three buttons: Connect FilmFreeway, to bring your FilmFreeway submissions in automatically — see Connecting FilmFreeway; Set up categories, because the season has no categories yet; and Go to your dashboard. (If FilmScorecard has turned FilmFreeway sync off for your organization, there is no Connect FilmFreeway.) See Finishing setup.
4. Set up categories takes you to your library, where an owner finds FilmScorecard's preset categories in place of the empty Categories tab. Tick what you want and import them; the line that confirms it links back to your new season's Categories tab, where you attach them. See Getting categories onto the season.

Welcome is a one-off. Nothing links back to it, and from then on the season's own address is its dashboard.

What you start with

A new organization is born with three shared scorecards and nothing else: Film Technical, Screenplay Technical and Press Kit. No categories, no creative scorecards and no awards — so your first festival and its first season start with no categories and no awards either.

You choose what comes next. FilmScorecard's default list holds 73 approved categories, each with its own creative scorecard and default judge pay, and 28 awards with their eligible categories already chosen. Take what you want from it in your library — its empty Categories and Awards tabs offer the presets, and Import from default list is there at any time afterwards — and each category you take arrives with its creative scorecard, with your Film Technical or Screenplay Technical and your Press Kit attached, and with $2.00 or $4.00 a scorecard of default judge pay, so it can be judged from the start. Or write your own categories from nothing. See Importing from the default list.

Anything you import from the Library only reaches your library. To put it on this first season, attach it on the season's settings screen — see A season's categories and awards. When you reached the library from the season, the line that confirms the import links straight there.

Submissions are judged within categories, and the library is yours to shape before importing submissions: rename, edit, duplicate, archive or add categories on the Categories and scorecards screen. Your new season's dashboard carries a Finish setting up strip whose Import submissions row asks for categories first, and whose Review categories row keeps count for you — see Finishing setup.

Each season keeps its own copy of the category list, so changes you make to categories in later years never rewrite an earlier season. Which categories a particular season runs — and what each one costs to enter — is managed on that season's own settings screen: see A season's categories and awards.

If something goes wrong

Creating a festival is all-or-nothing. If anything fails partway, nothing at all is saved — organization included — and the form says so in one sentence:

Something went wrong creating your festival. Nothing was saved — try again.

Everything you typed is still in the fields — check them and choose Create festival again. The same sentence answers an account that already owns an organization, and trying again will not change it — see Your organization.

If your host approval was withdrawn while the form was open, pressing Create festival answers "Your account isn't approved to create an organization yet." instead, and nothing is created. Reload the setup address to ask for host access again.

Before that, the form checks your answers when you submit (not while you type). Problem fields turn amber, the message "Check the highlighted fields and try again." appears, and each field explains itself:

Your festival's web address

Every festival screen lives at an address built from three names:

/org/<organization>/<festival>/<season>

Each part is a lowercased, hyphenated version of the name you chose. A festival called "Riverside Shorts Festival" with a first season labelled "Fall" in 2026 lives at /org/<organization>/riverside-shorts-festival/fall-2026 — and if you left the label blank, the season part is just 2026. The Welcome page you land on is that address with /welcome after it.

Four things worth knowing about it:

• The organization part is settled the day the organization is created. If another organization on FilmScorecard already turned its name into the same address, a number is quietly added to yours (riverside-media-2) — that is normal, and nothing is wrong. Renaming your organization later changes its name everywhere it appears, but its address never changes.
• The festival and season parts can change later. The festival part is the Public address field on the Festival tab of the festival's settings, and the season part is rebuilt whenever a season's name or year changes. Either change moves every screen underneath it, and there is no forwarding from the old address — see Festival settings.
• You do not need to bookmark it. Logging in takes you straight to your festival's dashboard.
• Only people in your organization can open it. Anyone else — including hosts of other festivals — sees an ordinary "page not found", the same as a mistyped address. Your festival's existence is not visible to them.

Coming back later

The form is for your first festival only. Once your festival exists, logging in — or revisiting the setup address — always takes you straight to a season's dashboard; neither the form nor the Welcome page reappears.

Every festival after this one is created on its own screen — see Adding a festival.

Once a festival has more than one season, you can choose which one it opens on: see The season a festival opens on.