We built LiveJudge to run one impossible event.
It now runs pitch competitions, science fairs, car shows and dance floors on the same engine, because every judged event turns out to be the same shape: a rubric, a panel, and a room waiting on a result.
A field full of helicopters and a stack of paper.
LiveJudge was not built to be sold. It was built because our founder runs HeliStorm®, the world's largest scale radio control helicopter event, on the grounds of the National Museum of the United States Air Force, and nothing on the market could score it.
Scale RC judging is unforgiving. Every entry is judged against documentation the builder supplies, by a panel of specialists who each mark differently, across static and flight rounds, and the results have to survive being questioned by people who spent two years building the model in front of you. Paper could not do it. Spreadsheets could not do it either.
So we wrote the thing we needed. It worked, and the following year was spent building what the rest of the event world kept asking for.
Finish Quality
8.8Even and correct throughout, nothing visible at arm's length.
Panel Lines
7.4Accurate placement, a few runs soft or overscale.
Cockpit Detail
9.1Full panel, seats and controls, correctly finished.
Drag any slider. The guidance and the score follow.
The decisions that shaped the product.
Six places where the category settled on one answer and we chose the other. The left column is what scoring software normally asks of you. The right is what LiveJudge does instead.
| Most scoring software | LiveJudge |
|---|---|
| Makes you pick a rubric from its templates | You define the classes, elements, weights and increments. We will convert your paper scoresheet free. |
| Charges for a seat for every judge | Judges, co-hosts, admins and spectators are unlimited and never billed. |
| Keeps the better features on a higher tier | There are no tiers. Every judging mode, normalization method and rubric tool is in from the start. |
| Needs an app installed and logins handed out | Runs in any phone browser. Nothing to install, nothing to update. Judges sign in with a texted code. |
| Depends on the venue network holding up | No dedicated network required. Judges, contestants and fans use their own devices and connections. |
| Averages the scores and announces a winner | Choose from Raw average, High/low drop, Z-score, and Olympic-Z, keep the raw marks, and export the audit trail. |
A result you can defend, and a room that stays awake.
Two things decide whether a judged event goes well, and most software helps with neither.
A result that holds up
A panel never marks the same way, so we normalize, keep every raw mark underneath, and flag ties rather than breaking them quietly. Blind judging can hide who an entry belongs to, so a judge scores the work and not the name.
A room that stays awake
Spectators browse every contestant on their own phones and vote on ballots you open and close, with vote limits, geo-fencing and a sponsor slot. The audience result can be blended with the judges' at a weighting you set.
Different rooms, one engine.
Change the rubric and the vocabulary, and the same product runs a very different night.
See pitch and academic competitions, science fairs, car, motorcycle and RC shows, and dance and performance, or browse every use case.
Thirty years of building software that solves real problems.
Michael Kranitz is a serial software entrepreneur with a thirty-plus-year track record of starting companies, growing them, and shepherding them to exit. He has sold companies to Microsoft, Ford, Hearst, MediaNews Group, HotelPlanner, Internet Brands, and Navidec.
With nearly 15 years leading an event software company, which serviced government, education and corporate sectors, Kranitz brings a highly focused set of skills to LiveJudge. There is more of the history at Kranitz.com.
LiveJudge is a trademark and service of Kranitz Enterprises, Inc., based in Denver, Colorado.
The things people ask before they trust it.
What is LiveJudge?
mobile scoring, judging and fan-voting software for live events, all of it running in the browser on phones people already own. A host builds a rubric, judges score from their own phones, results are normalized and published, and the audience follows along and votes from theirs.
Who is behind it?
Kranitz Enterprises, Inc., based in Denver, Colorado. It was founded and is led by Michael Kranitz, a software entrepreneur of thirty-plus years who built LiveJudge to run his own nonprofit event.
Is this a side project?
No. LiveJudge runs real events, including HeliStorm at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, and it is actively developed. The judging engine has been in production use since before it was offered to anyone else.
Why should I trust the results?
Because you can check them. Every raw mark is preserved under the normalized score, ties are flagged rather than broken quietly, every event exports in full, and each entrant gets a report showing each judge's marks per round and per element with the weight beside each.
What does it cost?
Pay-as-you-go. No subscriptions, no per-seat licence, and no credit card to start. Any event created before September 30, 2026 runs free with every feature included. After that you pay on entrants and nothing else. Full detail is on the pricing page.
Can you build my rubric for me?
Yes, free. Send us your paper scoresheet and we will turn it into a working rubric so you can see your own event in the product before deciding anything.