Build a split-flap countdown board for your launch

A countdown board is a big, glanceable display of the one thing that matters most right now: how close you are to a date. On Festaboard, that lives on a 6-row by 22-column grid of split-flap tiles — 132 in total, the same layout as a physical Vestaboard. You type the lines you want, such as a product name, the launch date, and a days-left figure, and the tiles flip into place with a soft mechanical click.

Right now this is a countdown message board you control, not an auto-calculating timer. You set the days-left line and update it whenever you like. An automatic live countdown is on the roadmap and clearly marked coming soon, so this page covers what you can build today alongside what is on the way — no overpromising.

Open Festaboard in any browser and sign in with your email and a one-time code — there is no password to remember. Type your headline across the top rows, drop the launch date on its own line, and add a short days-left line beneath it. Pick a theme like Classic Amber or Cool Blue, then use per-cell colors — red, orange, green, and more — to make the date jump off the board.

When it looks right, press F to go fullscreen. The site chrome disappears and only the split-flap grid remains, so a laptop, monitor, or TV becomes a clean launch countdown display. Press F again or use the on-screen control to drop back to editing.

A launch is rarely a single message. In fullscreen, Festaboard can cycle between your main board and extra saved slides on an interval you choose, anywhere from 5 minutes up to 120 minutes. That turns one display into an event countdown screen that shows the days-left board, then the agenda, then the venue or a welcome line, and loops back around.

The flip sound plays on each change and is modeled to be softer than a harsh train-station board. Leave it on for a bit of theatre in the room, or mute it with M for a quiet office.

For an always-on screen, toggle public sharing to get a read-only link at festaboard.com/b/<token> that anyone can open with no account. Append ?kiosk=1 to that URL for kiosk mode: no chrome, sound off by default, low-motion animation, and a screen Wake Lock so the display never sleeps. Edits you make from the dashboard push to the kiosk in about a second, with no reload.

That days-left board runs on laptops, desktops, tablets, smart TVs, and single-board computers in a browser — from a Raspberry Pi 3A with 512MB of RAM up to a Pi 5, plus RK3568-based Android displays. On very low-power hardware, add ?anim=lite for fewer flip steps or ?anim=off for instant text swaps. You can also install Festaboard as a PWA with Add to Home Screen.

Live today: the Clock integration shows the current time, day, and date in 12h or 24h and updates on its own, which pairs well with a countdown line. TrustMRR can pull live MRR, growth percentage, and customer count for a SaaS board. Both are available right now.

Coming soon, and labeled as such: a dedicated Countdown integration, plus Weather, Crypto, Spotify, Home Assistant, Google Calendar, and Datafast. Until the automatic Countdown lands, build your countdown board with typed lines and update the days-left figure yourself — quick to change from the dashboard, and near-instant to appear on a kiosk screen.