Operations guide

How CSE works

A walkthrough for the people who run the show, not the people who built it. Pick a persona below to see what they sign in as, where they go, and what they actually do on a typical day. Same show, same neighbors, same vibe — just phones in place of clipboards.

There is exactly one place to sign in. Every role — car owner, attendee, gate volunteer, judge, DJ, vendor, organizer — uses the same form with their issued email + password. The system reads the user's role membership and routes them to the right starting page automatically.

Universal sign-in URLOpen

Each persona below shows a ?next=/path deep-link so the user lands in the right place after auth.
The livingston4th subdomain isn't a separate login — it's how the platform identifies which tenant the user is signing in to.
Today this admin app is un-gated in dev — when auth lands here it will share the same eventide_session cookie, not a separate login.

Same show, smarter paperwork

CSE is a quality-of-life upgrade, not a personality transplant. Everything below stays exactly the same.

Cash at the gate
$20 cash, hand it to the volunteer, done. No online payments, no card readers.
Volunteers running the day
Same friendly faces. The system makes their phones do the paperwork; it doesn't replace them.
Judging by humans
Real people walk the show and score real cars. The phones just hold the scoring sheet.
Trophies on the main stage
Awards happen in person, with applause and handshakes. Nothing virtual about it.

Pick a persona

Start here. Each persona shows their own login, their walkthrough, and quick links to where they live in the system.

Show-day roles

The seven people who actually use the system on July 4th.

Admin & platform

Less frequent, but documented. Tenant admin sets up once a year; platform staff is CSE-internal.

Not sure where to start?

If you're previewing CSE for the first time, pick Event organizer — that's the seat the township will spend the most time in. To see what a participant experiences, pick Car owner next and follow Dale's day. From there, walk the roles you'll actually staff: gate volunteers, judges, DJ.

Old way vs. new way

Same event, same vibe, same neighbors. Here's what changes step by step.

Step	Old way (paper)	New way (CSE)
Pre-registration	Nobody pre-registers. Everyone shows up day-of, fills out a paper form, signs a waiver in pen.	Owner pre-registers in 3 minutes and signs the waiver electronically. Walk-ups still welcome.
Liability waiver	Paper, signed in pen, stuffed in a box. If anything happened, finding the right one is a treasure hunt.	Electronic signature stored against the owner's account. Searchable, exportable, timestamped.
At the gate	Volunteer hands over a clipboard, paper form, and waiver. Owner fills it out on their hood.	Volunteer peels a QR sticker, takes a photo, taps "paid," waves them through. Under 30 seconds.
Owner profile / dash card	Owner hand-writes details on a small card. Half the time it's hard to read. Photos aren't really a thing.	Owner scans the sticker on their windshield. Phone opens a form. Adds photos, mods, build sheet.
Judging	Judges walk with clipboards. Scores written by hand. Ballots counted manually at the end.	Judges score with sliders on a phone. Totals calculated automatically. Tie-breakers instant.
People's Choice voting	Plastic ballot box. Paper slips. Counting takes an hour with three volunteers and a calculator.	Anyone with a phone scans any windshield sticker and taps a heart. One vote per phone per car.
Awards announcement	Someone runs tally sheets to the main stage. Names announced over the PA. Trophies handed out.	Tallies already done. Stage screen shows winners. Winners get a text: "Best Muscle — come to the stage at 2:30."
Leaving early	Owner just leaves. We don't know they're gone. Their car still gets judged or voted on.	Owner taps "I'm leaving." Cleanly removed from voting and judging. Or a volunteer does it for them.
After the show	Box of cards goes home in someone's car. Probably doesn't get typed into a spreadsheet.	Everything's saved: every entry, vote, score, photo, signed waiver. Easy to plan next year.

Common questions

Pulled directly from the CSE overview handout shared with the 4th of July committee.

Do owners need a smartphone?
Strongly preferred but not required. If an owner shows up without a phone, the gate volunteer can still check them in — the system just creates a basic profile with no photos. The owner can come back to it later or leave it minimal. Tell people in pre-show announcements: "Bring your phone if you want a profile and to vote."
What if the wifi goes down at the park?
The gate scanner works offline — check-ins are saved on the phone and synced when signal returns. Voting also works offline. The judging app saves locally. The only thing that needs a working connection is the live dashboard.
What about people who don't want their info online?
Owners can keep their profile private — only visible to event attendees who've signed in, never crawled by Google. Phone numbers and emails are never shown publicly, ever. Only the owner's first name and last initial appear publicly. They can also opt out of text messages entirely.
What if a sticker falls off, gets lost, or gets damaged?
Volunteers carry extras. Volunteer voids the lost one in the system, peels a new sticker, scans it, and the owner's entry is moved over. 30 seconds.
How does the system handle disputes — "someone voted for me 50 times"?
Each phone can only vote once per car per day. The system uses anonymous device fingerprints (no personal info collected) to prevent stuffing. If something looks suspicious — like 30 votes in 2 minutes from one device — those votes are flagged and don't count.
What happens to all the data after the show?
Owner profiles persist year to year, so when they come back next year, their car's already in the system. They just register for the new event. Photos, build sheets, and prior awards are preserved. Anything an owner wants to delete can be deleted by them or by the organizer.
Who controls all this?
Livingston Township and the 4th of July Committee. The platform is run for you, not by you — but the data, the registrations, the photos all belong to the township and the owners. Nothing is sold to advertisers or shared with third parties.