How North Pole Console works

What North Pole Console is

North Pole Console is a performance companion for professional Santa performers. It has two faces:

• Backstage (green) is yours alone. It is where you line up visits, write your notes, schedule little surprises, print keepsakes and get everything set.
• Show (red) is what the children see. It turns your phone into Santa's own magical instrument: the Nice List, the Nice-O-Meter, the sleigh tracker, the reindeer stables and a fireside full of stories.

Everything you enter stays on your own device. There are no accounts, and none of your visit details ever leave your phone.

Getting started

The first time you open the app, a short welcome tour introduces the two modes and what is inside. You can swipe through it or tap Skip at any time.

A couple of things worth doing straight away, in Backstage:

1. Set Santa's portrait. Tap the round portrait at the top left of the dashboard, then choose Take Photo or Choose from Library. You can pan, zoom and flip the photo to frame it, then save. This portrait appears on your dashboard and doubles as your secret way back out of Show mode (more on that below).
2. Set your name. Go to Settings (the cog, top right) and set the display name the app greets you with, for example Santa, Father Christmas or Santa Ted. This name also signs the Nice List certificates.

The two modes: Backstage and Show

This is the single most important thing to understand.

• Backstage Prep mode (green) is your private workspace. The settings cog and the wand sit at the top right.
• Show mode (red) is the child-facing performance. All your prep tools are hidden, and only the magical features remain.

To go live: tap the wand at the top right of the Backstage dashboard. A festive jingle plays and the console turns red.

To come back to Backstage: press and hold Santa's portrait for a full 2.5 seconds. This is deliberately a slow, firm hold, not a tap, so a child playing with the phone can never trip it and reveal the workings. The first few times you enter Show mode, the app briefly highlights the portrait to remind you of this.

Visit Tools and the On Deck cue card

Visit Tools is your roster of families. Add the children you are about to see, each with:

• Name (and an optional pronunciation, e.g. "Say it: shan-TALL")
• Age
• Wish — what they are hoping for
• Note — a praise line or achievement to mention ("has been helping with the new baby")

When you tap a visit to make it active, its children appear on the On Deck cue card at the top of Visit Tools, so you can read everything you need in the few seconds before the door opens. The active visit is also what the Nice List reveals in Show mode.

Each child on the cue card has a Certificate button to print a keepsake (see Keepsakes below). The same button also appears on the Nice List's active-visit card in Backstage, so you can print from whichever screen you are on.

Printable keepsakes: certificates and story sheets

North Pole Console can print beautiful, ink-friendly keepsakes on plain white paper.

• Nice List certificates. From a child on the On Deck cue card (Visit Tools) or on the Nice List's active-visit card, tap Certificate. The app builds an official "Nice List Certificate" with the child's name in flowing script, their age and town, and your Santa signature, then opens the system share sheet so you can print it, save it to Files, or email it to the family.
• Story sheets. In the Backstage Christmas Fireside, open any reading and tap Print to produce a printable copy of that story or carol.

The certificate and stories are laid out to fill a single page (A4 in the UK and Europe, US Letter in the Americas), sized automatically to your region.

Scheduled messages: a graceful way to wrap up

During a visit you can have believable messages "arrive" from the North Pole, for example a note from Bernard at the workshop that they have run low on candy canes and need Santa back. It is a gentle, hands-free way to bring a visit to a close without breaking character.

To set them up, open Messages in Backstage and tap Scheduled (the clock, top right). For each cue you can choose:

• Who it is from (any of your North Pole contacts)
• The message (pick a ready-made line or write your own)
• When it arrives — either a delay from the start of the show (5, 10, 15 minutes, and so on) or a specific clock time, both set with simple steppers, no keyboard needed
• On or off, so you can arm and disarm cues without deleting them

Nothing is ever scheduled by default. Cues only fire while you are in Show mode, and only once per visit. When one fires, a discreet banner appears, a soft chime plays, and the message lands in your inbox as a real incoming note you can tap to open.

Reindeer feeds and the Special Operative

Each of the nine reindeer has its own live "stable cam". Eight of the team show their empty stalls (the herd is out with the sleigh, wherever Santa is), each with its own detail so no two feeds look alike.

The ninth, the Special Operative (a Rudolph-style specialist), has two feeds you choose between in Backstage from his profile: resting in his stall, or out on delivery. Set whichever suits the story you are telling that night.

The Show dashboard presents the child-facing tools. Tap any tile to open it. Every screen has a golden snowflake at the top left to return to the dashboard, and you can also swipe right to go back.

The Nice List

The Nice List is the centrepiece: an official register that reveals a child's name, checked and verified by Santa himself.

• A rolled, wax-sealed scroll arrives. The child taps the wax seal to break it, and the scroll unfurls.
• The console connects to the North Pole archives, searches, and the name inks itself onto the parchment with a VERIFIED NICE stamp.
• If you have an active visit set in Backstage, it reveals those children. You can choose in Backstage whether multiple names appear all together or one at a time. With no active visit, Santa can search a name live.

The Nice-O-Meter

A theatrical "kindness scan". The child taps the medallion, a needle sweeps, and it lands on a warm verdict. A light-hearted ceremony that adds a moment of drama to a visit.

The Santa Tracker

A radar that locks onto the child's town and shows the sleigh on its way. The town is worked out on your device (see Privacy) or set manually in Backstage.

The Reindeer Gallery

Meet the herd. Each reindeer has a profile with its role, favourite treat, temperament and a stable note, plus a live stable cam. A lovely way to answer "what are the reindeer doing right now?".

The Christmas Fireside

A candlelit reader for carols, poems and stories to read aloud.

• Open any reading to enter the teleprompter-style reader on aged parchment.
• Tap Auto-Scroll to have the text scroll itself at a comfortable pace; tap the page to pause. Choose slow, medium or fast in the reader's settings (the cog).
• Adjust text size in the same settings, in fine steps, for the light you are performing in. A high-contrast mode is available for dark grottos.
• The screen stays awake while the reader is open, so it never dims mid-recital.

In Backstage, the Fireside adds a tone filter and a sort control so you can find the right piece quickly, star your favourites so they sit at the top in Show mode, and Print any story as a keepsake.

Messages

An in-character inbox of North Pole contacts. It is a believable prop on its own, and it is where your scheduled messages arrive during a visit.

Settings and privacy

Open Settings from the cog at the top right of the Backstage dashboard.

• Sound. Show-mode sounds (the ceremony cues and the showtime jingle) and Prep-mode sounds (the taps and the app-open shimmer) can be turned on or off independently.
• Haptics. Turn the app's vibration feedback on or off app-wide.
• Reduce Motion. The app respects your device's system Reduce Motion setting, calming the ambient animations while keeping the meaningful cues.
• Startup mode. Choose whether the app opens to Backstage, to Show, or to wherever you left it.
• Find my town. Optionally let the Tracker resolve your town automatically.
• Usage statistics. Anonymous, aggregate counts of which features and stories are used, to help improve the app. On by default, off with a single tap. Never includes your visits, names, notes, portrait or location.

Your privacy

Everything you enter (your name and portrait, visits, names, notes, messages and settings) is stored only on your device. There are no accounts, and none of it is sent to us or anyone else. The app asks for the camera or photo library only when you set a portrait, and for your location only if you turn on the Tracker's "find my town", in which case your location is turned into a town name on the device and the coordinates are immediately discarded.

Full details are in the in-app Privacy Policy and Terms, and on our website: Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Subscription

North Pole Console is offered as an annual subscription with a free trial, and a one-off lifetime option. Your subscription is billed and managed by the App Store; you can manage or cancel it any time in your device's account settings.

The app is available now: download North Pole Console on the App Store.

Before your first show: a quick checklist

• Set Santa's portrait and your display name.
• Add your families in Visit Tools, with names, ages, pronunciations, wishes and notes.
• Tap a visit to make it active so the Nice List reveals the right children, and choose all together or one at a time.
• Decide the Nice List, Nice-O-Meter and Tracker are set the way you want.
• If you want a graceful exit, arm a scheduled message or two.
• Set the Special Operative's feed to suit tonight's story.
• Star your go-to Fireside readings so they are first in Show mode.
• Print any certificates you want to hand over.
• Practise the hold-to-return gesture (hold the portrait 2.5s) so it is second nature.
• Switch to Show, and enjoy.

Tips and troubleshooting