Rules & Scoring
How The Ladder ranks artists and rewards fans. Simple, transparent, and the same for everyone.
Every artist has a total points score that drives their place on the charts. Points come from real fan activity:
- Fan votes — each vote adds points weighted by the voter's fan level (Listener ×1, Supporter ×1, Superfan ×2, Ambassador ×3).
- Shares — every unique social share earns the artist +5 points (one per platform, per fan, per day).
- Reviews — every written review from a fan earns the artist +2 points (one review per fan, per artist).
- Follows — gaining followers contributes to long-term standing.
Charts refresh as activity comes in. Anti-spam rules cap repeat actions from the same fan in a short window.
- National — every artist on the platform, ranked by chart score.
- Regions — artists ranked within their home UK region.
- Genres — ranked within the artist's primary genre.
Rolling 90-day chart score. Every vote, share, review and gig check-in counts at full value the day it lands and then fades evenly to zero over 90 days. Charts stay fresh, and new bands can climb fast on recent momentum. Your lifetime total points on your profile never decay — only the chart ranking does.
Fans earn XP by supporting artists. Votes are worth +10 XP each (with bonus XP for daily streaks), and verified gig check-ins are worth +25 XP.
Levels unlock a higher vote weight, meaning your support counts for more on the charts:
- Listener0+ XP · vote weight ×1
- Supporter100+ XP · vote weight ×1
- Superfan500+ XP · vote weight ×2
- Ambassador2000+ XP · vote weight ×3
Badge milestones unlock as you support artists and show up at gigs. Example milestones include:
- First Vote — cast your first vote.
- Streaks — vote 3, 7 or 30 days in a row.
- Gig check-ins — unlock badges at 1, 5, 10 and 25 verified gig check-ins.
- Levels — reach Supporter, Superfan or Ambassador.
- Discoverer — vote for 10 different artists.
Fans are ranked by a rolling 90-day XP score. Every vote, gig check-in, share and review counts at full value the day it lands and then fades evenly to zero over 90 days — so the boards stay fresh and active supporters always have room to climb.
Your lifetime total XP on your profile never decays. It keeps growing with everything you do on The Ladder — only the leaderboard ranking is time-weighted.
Two views run side by side:
- National — every fan on The Ladder.
- Regional — fans ranked within their chosen home region. Set a region on your profile to appear here.
Pro unlocks three extra ways to climb the ladder:
- Gig promotion — post upcoming shows on the regional gig page, in chronological order. Gigs must be scheduled at least 1 week in advance so fans have time to plan check-ins (this prevents last-minute posts from being used to farm points).
- Quarterly playlist — upload one MP3 (max 10MB) into your region's playlist. Fans get one vote per band per quarter. The regional winner is crowned at the end of each quarter and joins the national playlist for the following quarter. Bands can swap their track at the start of each new quarter.
- Fan gig check-ins — every fan who checks in at one of your gigs adds +20 points to your chart score. Fans must be within 500m of the venue during the show, and pick which band on the bill they came to see.