How it works

1. 1Make an account — a username and a password, nothing else. Email is optional and only used if you ever want settlement recaps.
2. 2You start with 100donuts.
3. 3Open tonight's show and tap an answer on each contest. Tap again to change it, any time before the contest locks.

Donuts are points. You are granted 100 when you sign up, and you earn a contest's full value every time you call it right. A wrong pick costs you nothing — it just doesn't pay.

The number in the header is your all-time total. Tour and league leaderboards score only the donuts won inside that window.

Every show gets the same six contests, generated automatically. The eight song choices on each are the songs that most often appear in that slot — set 1 openers are ranked by how often they have actually opened set 1, not by how often they get played. Anything not listed is covered by Field (any other).

The longest-jam line defaults to 18.5 minutes and can be adjusted before anyone has picked.

Anyone can add a contest to a show from Create. There are two templates and no free-text box — you pick a template, a song, and (for a jam line) a number. That is the whole design: nobody can write anything.

Will ___ be played?

Pays on rarity, using the song's current gap (how many shows since it was last played):

So a song played last week is worth around 46, one with a gap of 50 is worth 190, and anything above a gap of 87 caps at 300. A gap of 20 or more earns the contest a Bust-out badge.

Jam over/under

Pick a song and a line between 5.5 and 35.5 minutes. Lines are always half-points, so a jam can never land exactly on the number. Flat 50donuts.

Duplicates and promotion

If someone already asked your question, you'll be sent to join theirs instead of splitting the crowd across two identical contests. Jam over/unders are the exception — a line more than a minute away is a genuinely different bet, so you can create it anyway.

Once a community contest reaches 12 entries it is Promoted onto the official card, and its creator is paid 25donuts once. Creators have their own leaderboard, ranked by the entries they attract.

Most contests lock at showtime. The ones whose answer lives entirely in set 2 or the encore stay open through setbreak — that's set 2 opener, show closer, encore, and any jam over/under on a song that hasn't been played yet.

Setbreak picks close automatically once set 1 reads complete. Contests that set 1 could already have decided — will ___ be played, bust-out night, longest jam — lock at showtime with everything else, so nobody gets to bet on a set they have already watched.

Results come straight from the Phish.net setlist, usually within an hour of the encore. No judgement, no voting:

Set 1 opener

first song of set 1

Set 2 opener

first song of set 2

Show closer

last song of set 2, before the encore

Encore

first song of the encore

Will ___ be played

anywhere in the show, including the encore

Bust-out night

yes if any song was played at a gap of 30 or more

Jam lengths are the one manual step. Phish.net setlists don't carry song durations, so an admin enters the minutes after the show and the jam contests settle from that. Everything else is automatic.

Song names are matched loosely, so “Wolfmans Brother” and “Wolfman's Brother” are the same song. Casing and punctuation never cost anyone a payout.

Occasionally a contest can't be answered from the data — a canceled show, or a jam over/under on a song that never got played (“under 18.5 minutes” is not a fair reading of “didn't happen”). Those are Voided with a reason shown on the card. No donuts move. Since entering was free, there is nothing to refund.

Leaders ranks players by donuts won, all-time or within a tour. There's a separate board for contest creators.

Private leagues are on the same page: name one to get an invite code, or enter a friend's code to join. League leaderboards show only members.

Your profile tracks pick accuracy, current streak, and your best call — the highest-value contest you have ever hit.

Every option shows the share of players who picked it. It is not odds and it doesn't change what anything pays — it's just what the room thinks. Fading the crowd pays exactly the same as riding it.

Setlists, song gaps, and the show schedule all come from Phish.net, run by The Mockingbird Foundation — a volunteer nonprofit that has given away millions in music education grants. This site would not exist without them.

Please consider donating to them →

Phutures is an unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by the band or their management.

There's no password reset yet — if you lose your password, an admin has to help. Picks are per-account, so don't share logins if you want your streak to mean anything.