A board built to be read from across a field
Every show now has a big-screen leaderboard made for a TV or a projector sitting out on the grass. It is not the phone leaderboard stretched to fit. It is a different screen with a different job, typeset for distance.
One class shows at a time and rotates every few seconds with a crossfade. The car numbers are enormous. First, second, and third carry podium-colored medallions, so somebody standing forty feet back holding a paper plate can see who is leading without walking over to squint at it. There is no navigation, no header, no chrome of any kind, because none of that helps a person reading from the other side of a show field.
There is a light mode as well, at the same address with light on the end, for the shows where the only place to put a screen is in full sun. We think the dark board is the best-looking thing in the product, and we would rather you use the ugly one outdoors than have a beautiful board nobody can read.
The QR card on the screen
Here is the part that matters more than the typography. The board carries a scan-to-vote QR card, so anyone who wanders over to see who is winning can point a phone at the TV and land straight on the ballot.
That closes a loop the whole product is built around. Spectator voting on Car Show HQ has always been on-site: you scan the code on a windshield card, enter the car number, and vote. Good, but it depends on people walking the rows with their phones out. A screen with a crowd in front of it is the one place at a show where you know people are standing still and paying attention. Now the screen that shows the race also recruits the voters.
The banner you run from your phone
Across the top of the board is a notice line you edit from the manage area on your phone. Awards at three by the gazebo. Voting closes in twenty minutes. The food truck is open.
It lands on the screen within seconds, so nobody has to find the laptop plugged into the TV and crouch behind a table to retype something. The board also honors the same privacy setting as the phone leaderboard, so you can show live counts, rankings without numbers, or keep everything hidden until the ceremony. If your club likes the drama of a sealed result, you lose nothing by putting the board up.
Passes you can buy
The pricing page has described this plan for a while. As of this release it describes a product, because billing shipped and works end to end.
The free plan is the whole product, stated plainly inside the app rather than implied: every feature, unlimited shows, no card required. Nothing about that changed. What changed is that the white-label side is now something you can purchase in a few clicks instead of something you email us about.
| Pass | Show size | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Small show | Up to 75 cars | $39 |
| Medium show | 76 to 200 cars | $79 |
| Large show | 201 or more cars | $149 |
| Annual pass | Unlimited shows for a year | $199 |
You buy from the Billing tab inside your show. A review page spells out exactly what you will be charged, then hands off to Stripe’s hosted checkout, so card details never touch Car Show HQ. The pass switches on by itself when payment clears.
Three rules we committed to on the pricing page are now enforced by the software rather than by our good intentions. A pass never expires, so a show you paid for stays white-label permanently and your printed QR codes and inbound links keep working even if you let an annual pass lapse. If a small show grows, you can move up to a bigger pass yourself and pay only the difference, voluntarily, with nothing withheld if you decide not to. And payment is only asked for when you make the show look like yours alone, either by connecting your own domain or by hiding our marks. Building a show, configuring it, duplicating last year, and running the whole event on a free address cost nothing, forever.
Connecting Square in two clicks
The hardest step in setting up Car Show HQ used to be the one where we asked a volunteer treasurer to create a developer application and copy three keys across without losing one. That step is gone.
Click connect, sign in to the payment account your club already uses, approve. No tokens, no developer dashboard, no webhook setup, and nothing to renew afterward. The payments page just shows a quiet Connected card with the account name on it. Stripe is supported too, still set up by pasting keys, though the instructions for it got rewritten for a treasurer rather than a developer.
The money rule behind it is unchanged and always will be: entry fees, sponsor payments, and donations settle in your club’s own account. We are never the merchant of record and we take no percentage of your gate.
The smaller things
A lot shipped alongside the headline features, most of it from organizers telling us what was annoying. Registration can now open and close on a schedule while the kiosk stays available for walk-ups. You can upload your insurer’s waiver PDF instead of retyping it, and add your own welcome note to confirmation emails. Classes can carry a description and a photo, which the entry form turns into a guide for anyone unsure where their car belongs, which means fewer wrong-class entries to untangle on show morning. Walk-ups can pay by card at the kiosk with no hardware at all, or tap on a paired Square Terminal.
The one I would actually use first: the awards script now has a private link you can text to whoever is holding the microphone. Winners in reading order, Best of Show last, no login, no laptop at the podium.
Putting a screen up at your next show
If you already run a show here, the board is waiting at your show’s results address and needs no setup beyond deciding what the banner should say. Borrow a TV, run an extension cord, point it at the crowd.
If you are still deciding, the demo show has a seeded field with real votes on it, so you can see the board with something on it rather than an empty grid. And if a show of yours is live and something needs attention today, support@thecarshowhq.com reaches a person.
