Ask someone to visit five downtown businesses and check in at each one, and you'll get some participation. Show them a leaderboard where they can see themselves in third place, two check-ins behind first, and you'll get a lot more. That's not a guess, it's just how competition works, and it's one of the most underused features in a passport challenge or scavenger hunt.

A lot of organizers treat the leaderboard as a nice bonus screen. It's actually doing a big chunk of the work that makes a passport challenge outperform a plain checklist or punch card.

What a Leaderboard Actually Changes

A leaderboard tells them how they're doing compared to everyone else, and that's a completely different kind of motivation. Someone sitting at four check-ins with no other context might stop there. Someone who can see they're three spots and one check-in away from the top of the leaderboard has a reason to make one more stop before the challenge ends.

This is especially effective in the closing days of a challenge. As the deadline approaches and the leaderboard tightens, participants who were casually checking in start actively planning their last few stops to move up. That's a level of engagement a static checklist can't create, because there's nothing to climb.

It Works for Businesses Too, Not Just Participants

The participant leaderboard gets the most attention, but a business leaderboard is just as valuable, and it points in a different direction. Instead of ranking people by how many places they've visited, it ranks businesses by how many check-ins they've generated.

That reframes the whole challenge for your merchants. Instead of just hoping a passport challenge sends some foot traffic their way, a business can see exactly how they're performing relative to other participating locations. Businesses that see themselves near the top of the leaderboard have a reason to keep promoting the challenge to their own customers, since it's directly reflected in a number they can watch move. Businesses lower down have a nudge to put up better signage, mention it at checkout, or run their own small incentive to catch up.

Real Examples of Leaderboards Driving Results

This isn't theoretical. When PA Downtown Center ran a passport challenge for conference attendees in Erie, points fed directly into raffle entries, and the standings pushed attendees to squeeze in one more stop before the Tuesday deadline instead of stopping at two or three. St. Johns Riverkeeper's 25 Taps for the St. Johns runs the same way over a full summer, tiered rewards and a visible leaderboard keep participants coming back across two months instead of visiting once and calling it done.

In both cases, the leaderboard wasn't decoration. It was the reason people kept going.

Why This Matters More Than It Seems

A passport challenge or scavenger hunt is competing for someone's Saturday afternoon. Plenty of things can pull them away after stop two or three, unless there's a reason to keep going. A leaderboard supplies that reason without you having to do anything after setup. No manual tracking, no separate spreadsheet of who's ahead, it updates the moment someone checks in.

It also gives you something to talk about while the challenge is live. Posting "here's who's leading with three days left" on social media does double duty: it re-engages participants who haven't checked in for a while, and it shows businesses real-time proof that the challenge is working.

Setting One Up

If you're running a Passport Challenge or Scavenger Hunt in Proxi, the leaderboard comes with the check-in system, no separate tool or manual scoring required. Decide whether you want a participant leaderboard, a business leaderboard, or both, set your point values per check-in or per activity, and the standings update themselves as people play.

The difference between a passport challenge people finish and one they abandon after two stops usually isn't the prize. It's whether there was ever a reason to keep climbing. A leaderboard gives them one.