Guide

The trophy ceremony export: stop building the winner list by hand

Judging closes, awards are assigned, and the ceremony is in fifteen minutes — so someone sits down and retypes every winner into a document the MC can actually read from. Car Show Expert builds that document for you, the moment your awards are in.

4 min read·Expert Show feature

The 45-minute scramble

Every organiser who's run a judged show knows this hour. Judging finishes, awards are assigned in the system, and now someone has to turn that into something an MC can actually stand up and read — in the right order, grouped sensibly, with Best in Show saved for the finish. That usually means a spreadsheet, a Word document, or handwriting it on an index card while the crowd starts gathering near the podium.

It's not complicated work, but it's slow, and it's the kind of admin task that eats the last 45–60 minutes before a ceremony — exactly when an organiser has the least time to spare. Miss a class, get the order wrong, or lose the sheet, and the ceremony stumbles in front of everyone who came to watch it.

How the export works

Once your awards are assigned in the show's Awards tab, click Export for MC. It opens a clean, print-friendly page built straight from your awards data — no retyping, no copy-pasting from a leaderboard.

What's on the page

  1. 1

    Awards are grouped into a section per class, in alphabetical order — so the MC can move steadily through the field.

  2. 2

    A final "Special Awards" section lists every award with no class attached — Best in Show, Organiser's Pick, and similar headline awards — since those are traditionally announced last.

  3. 3

    Each line shows the placement, award name, winner's name, car number, and vehicle — everything the MC needs to say out loud, nothing they don't.

The grouping comes directly from the Class you pick on each award when you add it — so an award like "1st Place – Classic American" only lands in the Classic American section if you actually selected that class on the Add Award form. Leave Class blank for anything that isn't tied to a single class, and it automatically falls into Special Awards at the end.

From the Awards tab to a printed script

There's nothing to configure ahead of time — the export always reflects whatever awards you've assigned right now, whether or not you've published results yet.

  1. 1

    Assign every placement in the Awards tab, setting the Class on each class-level award.

  2. 2

    Click "Export for MC" — it opens in a new tab.

  3. 3

    Click "Print / Save as PDF" and either print it directly at the venue or save a PDF to hand off or read from a tablet.

Because it's built from your actual award records, there's no separate document to keep in sync. Add a last-minute award five minutes before the ceremony, and the export picks it up the next time you open it.

In summary

  • Export for MC builds a print-ready winner list straight from your assigned awards
  • Awards are grouped by class, alphabetically
  • Class-less awards (Best in Show, Organiser's Pick) are listed last, in a Special Awards section
  • Setting the Class field on each award is what makes the grouping accurate
  • No need to publish results first — the export reflects awards as soon as they're assigned
  • Print directly or save as a PDF with the built-in print button

Ready for a smoother ceremony?

Trophy ceremony export is available on Expert Shows, alongside digital judging and awards publishing.