In short: four parts add up to the score — the compulsory score, the technical bonus (up to 25.0 points), the technical deductions and the artistic and choreography presentation. Head judge penalties come on top and can be applied before, during or after the routine. On a tie, the athlete with the higher technical deductions score wins.
Scoring a pole competition with JudgeMate
Criteria-based scoring, configured by you
JudgeMate does not implement the IPSF or POSA Code of Points. It gives you a criteria-based scoring model you configure yourself — panels, weights, deductions and the public screen — which covers club, studio, national and regional competitions that do not require full federation compliance.
Separate panels
Artistic and execution marks from different judges, aggregated as a sum or an average, with the highest and lowest dropped when the panel is large enough.
Deductions from one appointed judge
Time, boundary and legality penalties applied by a named role rather than by everyone on the panel, and itemised in the protocol rather than hidden in a total.
A screen for the audience
A dedicated display view for a projector or LED wall, showing the running order and the results as they land — the transparency the POSA code asks for.
Start list and running order
Start numbers, the order of appearance and a printable start list, plus a warning when the same person is entered in two blocks that overlap.
Protocols the same day
PDF results, a per-judge breakdown and spreadsheet exports — ready to hand to coaches before they leave the venue.
Routine timer
A timer with configurable audio cues, run from the speaker's console, with sound off by default on every device.
Audience polls
Live voting on a question you set, with results on the public page and on the display screen.
Formats and judging
How a competition is built
Singles
One athlete, one routine, one spinning and one static pole. The compulsory list is nine elements in the Intro, Amateur and Novice brackets and eleven everywhere else — the same skills every athlete in that division has to place somewhere in the routine.
Doubles
Two athletes as one entry. The IPSF category list carries Novice, Junior, Youth and Senior doubles, with the Senior bracket split into men/men, women/men and women/women. A doubles entry gets one start, one score and one place.
Para Pole
A category with its own addendum on top of the general rules — the requirements that apply over and above everything else in the code.
Pole art next to pole sport
The two are separate competitions with separate codes. Pole sport is scored from the compulsory list and the technical bonus; pole art rewards the piece, the character and the story. A competition that runs both runs them as two categories, not two divisions of one.
How the score is built
Under the IPSF code the parts are scored by separate panels and then combined: compulsory + technical bonus + technical deduction + artistic and choreography. Singular points are awarded each time a bonus element appears; overall points are awarded once, for the difficulty shown across the routine. Deductions work the same way in reverse — once per infringement, plus an overall deduction for the routine as a whole.
The POSA code names the panels directly. Artistic judges award up to 70 points; execution judges deduct up to 75; difficulty judges confirm that bonus elements met their minimum requirements. A POSA panel runs from five to thirteen judges, and where there are at least five artistic and five execution judges the scores are averaged with the highest and lowest ignored. The code's own worked example ends 39 + 45 + 5 − 4 − 3 = 84.
Technical bonus — up to 25.0 points, awarded per element and once overall for difficulty
Technical deductions — per infringement and once for the routine
Artistic and choreography — awarded for artistry, deducted for each infringement
Compulsories — nine or eleven required elements, depending on division
Head judge penalties — before, during or after the routine, and even after the competition ends
Judging starts when the music starts and ends when it ends. Anything performed outside that window is not judged — except head judge deductions, which stand on their own clock.
A sport with a written score, not an impression
Pole sport is judged from a Code of Points. The IPSF score is built from four parts — technical bonus, technical deductions, artistic and choreography presentation, and compulsories — and an athlete is judged in all four. The lowest total anyone can be given is zero. Every routine uses one spinning and one static pole, and judging runs from the first note of the music to the last.
Where it is competed
Two federations run world-level pole sport, each on its own code.
IPSF World Pole Sports Championships
The championship of the International Pole and Aerial Sports Federation, run on the IPSF Code of Points across Intro, Amateur, Professional and Elite divisions, with singles, doubles and Para Pole.
POSA World Championships
The championship of the Pole Sport & Arts World Federation, run on the POSA Code of Points, with pole sport and pole art as separate competitions.
National and club competitions
Most pole sport happens below the world level — national qualifiers, regional opens and studio competitions, usually adopting one of the two codes rather than writing a third.
Equipment
The apparatus is written into the rules, not left to the venue.
One spinning, one static
Every routine uses both. The configuration is set by the rules and regulations, not by the athlete.
Grip aids
What is allowed is listed in the rules and regulations, together with the restrictions on music, hair, make-up and costume.
A public scoreboard
Under the POSA code, showing the scores publicly after each routine is not optional equipment — it is part of how the competition is run.
Where the sport is going
Codes on cycles
The IPSF code runs in multi-year editions — the current one covers 2025 to 2027. A competition that quotes an older edition is quoting rules that have moved, which is why the edition belongs on the invitation and on the scoresheet.
Transparency as a requirement
The public display of every score after every routine is unusual among judged sports and it changes what a competition needs from its software: not a results file at the end of the day, but a screen that keeps up with the running order.
Beyond the pole
The IPSF publishes separate codes for aerial hoop and aerial pole. They are different sports with different documents — a page or a product that treats them as variants of pole sport is describing something that does not exist.
How the sport got its rulebook
From showcase to code
The turning point for competitive pole was the arrival of a written Code of Points: a document that says what counts, how much it counts and what it costs to get it wrong. Two federations publish one — the IPSF and POSA — and the two codes differ in the detail, which is why a competition has to say which one it runs before the first athlete lifts off the floor.
Divisions before categories
The IPSF code splits the field twice. First by division — Intro, Amateur, Professional and Elite — and then by category, running from Pre-Novice and Youth up through Junior, Senior and Master brackets in ten-year steps, plus Para Pole and several doubles combinations. Division decides what the athlete has to show; category decides who they show it against.
Scores in the open
Pole sport went further on transparency than most judged sports. The POSA code puts it as an athlete's right: the score is displayed publicly straight after the performance. Not the placing alone — the artistic, execution and difficulty scores, the penalties, the final score and the rank.
Tools & Resources
Calculators, vocabulary, and platform research for competition organizers
Frequently asked questions
Sources
- IPSF Pole Sports Code of Points 2025–2027 — International Pole and Aerial Sports Federation
- POSA Pole Sport Code of Points — Pole Sport & Arts World Federation
Run your next pole competition on a screen, not a clipboard
Set up the panels, put the display on the wall and hand out the protocol the same evening.
Built for club, studio, national and regional pole competitions.