Mock'n'Roll – Participant Rules

1. What is Mock'n'Roll?

Mock'n'Roll is a West Coast Swing social, playful competition and community judging game in one. Its purpose is not to create an objectively technical ranking, but to celebrate the many different ways in which a social dance can be memorable.

A judge may care about partnering, musicality, shared vibe, flow, humour or any other positive quality. There is no single correct criterion and no mandatory numerical scale.

2. How can you take part?

At registration, you can choose one of the following participation types:

  • Party guest: you join the social without competing or judging.
  • Competitor: you wear a number and take part in the Social Roll.
  • Judge: you judge competitors on your phone without competing.
  • All-in: you both compete and judge.

3. Competition role

Every competitor enters as either a leader or a follower. This is their competition role throughout the Social Roll and Final Roll.

You may still dance either role and switch freely during the social. However, you can advance in only one competition role in this game.

4. Social Roll

The Social Roll is part of the party, not a separate competition heat. Competitors put on their numbers and dance socially as usual.

A judge may:

  • ask competitors to dance;
  • judge from their own dance experience;
  • observe competitors from the side;
  • record and revise their decisions on their phone until the Social Roll closes.

You are not required to evaluate every competitor. Please only give feedback when you feel you have genuinely formed an opinion of the dancer.

5. Final Roll nomination – Give a Roll

Advancement is determined by one question:

Would you like to see this dancer in the Final Roll?

On the mobile interface, you can express this through Give a Roll.

Each judge may:

  • nominate up to 6 leaders and 6 followers;
  • use fewer than the available nominations;
  • nominate the same competitor only once;
  • not nominate themselves;
  • withdraw or reassign nominations until the Social Roll closes.

Only valid Give a Roll nominations determine advancement. Badges do not add points towards the Final Roll.

6. Badges – what stood out to you?

Independently of Give a Roll, you may use positive badges to show what stood out to you about a dancer. You may give badges to someone without nominating them for the Final Roll.

The predefined badges are:

  • Partnering: attention, adaptation, communication and support for the partner;
  • Shared Vibe: chemistry, presence and shared energy between the dancers;
  • Playing with the Music: musicality, rhythm and shared interpretation of the music;
  • Flow: rolling movement, movement quality, ease and continuity;
  • Playfulness & Humour: spontaneity, reactions and moments that make people smile;
  • Fred Astaire: creative, precise or especially musical footwork;
  • Champion Level Move: an outstanding, creative or unexpected figure, reaction or movement;
  • Champion Level Basic: a basic pattern or simple movement danced with exceptional quality, musicality or connection.

Badge rules:

  • there are no negative badges and no numerical scale;
  • you may give any number of different predefined badges to a dancer;
  • you may give each badge type to the same dancer only once;
  • you may also write up to 3 short, custom positive badges for a dancer;
  • each custom badge may be no longer than 40 characters;
  • custom badges may be edited or removed until the Social Roll closes;
  • after review, custom text may be shared anonymously with the dancer concerned;
  • badges do not affect advancement or break advancement ties.

7. Spotlight and Open groups

The Mock’n’Roll field includes dancers with different levels of experience and different backgrounds. To create different paths into the Final Roll, every competitor starts in the Open group, after which the chief judge assigns some dancers to the Spotlight group relative to that evening’s field.

Spotlight and Open are not “better” and “worse” categories. The grouping only serves to balance the field at that particular event and is not an official classification.

The grouping remains hidden during the Social Roll. Judges do not have to think in categories: they simply nominate the dancers they would like to see in the Final Roll.

8. Advancement

Separate results are calculated for:

  1. Spotlight leaders;
  2. Open leaders;
  3. Spotlight followers;
  4. Open followers.

The 3 competitors with the most Give a Roll nominations from different judges advance from each group, creating a total field of 12 finalists.

At the advancement cutoff, the chief judge resolves a tie based on what they observed during the event. The chief judge does not cast an ordinary community vote and only resolves the ties defined in these rules.

9. Small fields and reserves

  • With at least 6 active leaders and 6 active followers, 3 competitors advance from each of the four groups.
  • If either role has only 4–5 active competitors, 2 advance from each group and the Final Roll uses a shorter format.
  • If either role has fewer than 4 active competitors, the chief judge may announce a simplified, non-competitive Final Roll or showcase.

When the Social Roll closes, a reserve order is created in all four groups. A finalist who withdraws or becomes unable to compete before the Final Roll begins is replaced by the next available reserve from the same group.

If a finalist drops out after the first rotation has opened, the entire Final Roll completed up to that point becomes invalid, including all rotation and placement ballots and calculated results. The next available reserve from the same group replaces the finalist, and the partner rotation restarts with a newly generated schedule from the first round. No partial score or ranking carries over.

If the available time or another exceptional circumstance makes a clean, complete restart impossible, the chief judge may continue the remaining stage as a non-competitive showcase. In that case, no official pair podium is awarded.

10. Final Roll – partner rotation

Two Spotlight–Open directions dance in the Final Roll at the same time:

  • Spotlight leaders × Open followers;
  • Open leaders × Spotlight followers.

Each partner rotation consists of two songs, followed by a partner change. With groups of three, there are three rotations: every Spotlight leader dances two songs with every Open follower, and every Open leader dances two songs with every Spotlight follower.

Finalists do not vote during the Final Roll.

11. Judging the rotations

After each two-song rotation, voting judges must select from the 6 current couples:

  • their first favourite couple – 2 points;
  • their second favourite couple – 1 point.

The two choices must be different couples. Votes may be revised until the rotation closes. Live standings are not shown.

If the number of active judges differs between rotations, the system adjusts couple results to the number of valid votes cast. In every rotation, before seeing the results, the chief judge creates a complete ranking of the current couples. This ranking adds no points to the public result and is used only to break an equal normalized score. The chief judge makes a separate decision if a tie still remains.

12. Placement heat and podium

After the rotation stage, three couples with no dancer appearing twice advance to the placement heat:

  1. the best Spotlight leader × Open follower couple;
  2. the best Open leader × Spotlight follower couple;
  3. the next-best eligible couple from either direction whose dancers are not already in the first two couples.

The three couples dance two shared songs without changing partners. Every voting judge must then rank all three couples:

  • First place – 3 points;
  • Second place – 2 points;
  • Third place – 1 point.

The result produces one combined couple podium across both directions: 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.

Ties are resolved in this order:

  1. total 3–2–1 points;
  2. number of first-place rankings;
  3. head-to-head comparison between tied couples – how many judges ranked one above the other;
  4. the chief judge's own complete 1–2–3 ranking.

13. Badge recognitions and judging achievement

Each of the eight predefined badges forms its own recognition category. The dancer who receives that badge from the greatest number of different judges receives the category recognition.

  • A dancer may win more than one badge category.
  • If dancers tie for the most of a badge, they share the recognition.
  • Custom badges do not automatically form award categories.
  • The public result may show the recipient and category, but not the exact badge count.

The “I Judge Everybody” badge is earned by a judge who gives at least one predefined or approved custom badge to at least 15 different competitors. Multiple badges given to the same competitor still count as one evaluation. The badge is not required for the judge's votes to be valid; the judge's own dashboard reveals it after the results announcement.

14. Fair play and safety

  • You may not Give a Roll to yourself.
  • Creating multiple accounts or using somebody else's login is prohibited.
  • Demanding, buying or organising exchanges of votes or badges is prohibited.
  • Every custom badge must be positive and respectful.
  • Safe partnering that respects the partner's boundaries is a basic requirement.
  • Dangerous, harassing or unsporting behaviour is not permitted and may result in removal from the event.

15. Results and personal feedback

Competitors do not see their own or anybody else's live results.

We do not publish:

  • exact individual Give a Roll counts;
  • rankings of non-finalists;
  • individual judges' decisions;
  • Spotlight/Open group assignments of non-finalists.

After the event, each competitor receives a private, anonymous summary after signing in, including:

  • every predefined badge type they received, without counts;
  • every reviewed and approved custom badge;
  • their own finalist or placement result, where relevant.

Finalists, the couple podium, badge-category recipients and non-personal event statistics may be made public.

16. Data handling in brief

  • Account details, name, email and personal feedback are retained until the account is deleted or after 24 months of inactivity.
  • Identifiable raw votes and audit data are retained for 90 days after the event.
  • Anonymous event statistics may be retained indefinitely.
  • Participants may request deletion of their account and personal data at any time.
  • Full details are available in the separate privacy notice.

17. Technical issues and organiser decisions

In the event of a short network or technical failure, the organisers may extend the affected stage, reopen or repeat the affected vote, or switch to a backup recording method.

The chief judge makes the judging and tie-breaking decisions defined in these rules. The event operator and organisers manage technical and on-site operations. In an exceptional situation, safety, fair play and the available time take priority.