Terms

Kulturverein Perfectdance, ZVR 1376406084, Neustiftgasse 51/2/36, 1070 Vienna. Contact: team@tipsytuesday.at.

Drop the Needle is a game of timing. The Weekly Needle is its prize competition, and the result depends only on how precisely you play: nothing random decides a score, a rank or a winner. The one thing that varies between runs is where the cue mark sits on the record when each drop begins, and that is drawn the same way for everyone. It changes when the mark arrives, never what a tap is worth.

Playing is free and nothing of value is asked for a run. Buying a ticket, a drink or anything else never gives you an extra run or a better score.

A run is three drops, at 33⅓, 45 and 78 revolutions per minute, the record’s real speeds. For each drop you tap once, and we measure the time between your tap and the nearest moment the cue mark passes under the needle, rounded to a whole millisecond. Early and late count the same.

Run score = |drop 1| + |drop 2| + |drop 3|, in milliseconds. Lower is better.

Your phone reports only when you tapped. Our server works out every drop again from the run it issued and those times, and only its result counts.

Practice is open to everyone. The Weekly Needle is open to anyone aged 18 or over. Staff of the organiser and of the venue cannot win.

You can practise as often as you like; practice is not saved. For the Weekly Needle, each person (email address, with Gmail dots and +aliases counted as the same address) has one scored run per calendar day, Vienna time, and a phone at most two. A run counts from the moment you press start: closing the page or losing the connection does not give you another. A run has to be played within 5 minutes of starting it.

We do not count a run that cannot have been played by a person on the page in real time:

• a tap before its drop was ready, or taps out of order;
• a run that claims more time than passed on our side (we allow 1 second for clocks that disagree);
• a run not handed in within its 5 minutes;
• a run in which all three drops are under 3 ms. A human is almost never that exact three times in a row at three speeds, and we cannot tell such a run apart from a script. If you are that good, we are sorry. Play again tomorrow.

Each week runs from Tuesday 20:00 to the next Tuesday 20:00, Vienna time. The best run of the week in each city wins VIP+ for two: a reserved table in the VIP area for the winner and one friend, entry included, worth €98 (two VIP+ tickets at list price). Each person counts with their best run of the week, and a run counts for the week in which it was started. If two runs have the same score, the one started earlier wins.

We write to the winner at the email address of the winning run on Tuesday evening. The prize is for that night’s Tipsy Tuesday or, if the winner cannot come, the next one. It is handed over in person at the door: staff check the winner’s email and an ID, and may ask for a practice run on the spot. A winner who cannot show the email, is under 18 or is not the person who played, does not receive the prize, and it passes to the next run. Prizes cannot be exchanged for cash or transferred for money.

The page shows this week’s ranks and scores. A name appears only if you choose one after your run; otherwise your row says Private. Names are up to 20 letters, digits, spaces, hyphens or underscores; we remove names that are offensive or impersonate someone. The board never shows an email address or a full name.

For the Weekly Needle we store your email address, your first name if you give it, the name you choose for the board, and the record of each run (when it started, the challenge, your tap times and the score), plus a one-way code for your phone and network so that one person cannot play many times. We use it to run the competition, to keep the one-run rule and to contact the winner. We keep who played a run for 12 months; after that only the anonymous record of the run remains. Practice sends nothing to us.

The newsletter is separate: you only get it if you tick the box and confirm by email, and playing never depends on it. See also our privacy policy.

If you share your result on Instagram or anywhere else, that is your choice. Drop the Needle is not sponsored, endorsed or run by Instagram or Meta.

We can end or change Drop the Needle for the future, never for a week that is already running. Austrian law applies. Questions: team@tipsytuesday.at.