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Based on a presentation at Australian Evaluation Society International Evaluation Conference, Brisbane, 28 September 2023. The importance of participatory approaches to evaluation is well-understood. Involving the right people and balancing voices at the stakeholder table can help to make evaluations more valid, credible, useful, and actually used. Not all evaluations, however, are done in participatory ways. This presentation shares the experience of three evaluators in two recent projects with clients and stakeholders who were unaccustomed to participatory evaluation. In both cases, new ways of working were introduced, requiring participants to come into the evaluation tent, collaborate and learn with us. Engagement processes deliberately focused on incrementally building deep stakeholder input into evaluation design - including key evaluation questions, context analysis, program theory, rubrics, methods of data gathering, and reporting formats. The resulting evaluation frameworks represent an agreed, shared set of lenses for making sense of the evidence. Through this process, relationships and trust were cemented, stakeholders understood the evaluation process and endorsed the resulting frameworks. The client and sector have become more interested, more engaged stakeholders and more savvy evaluation participants and consumers. As the evaluations progress, the evaluation design builds in ongoing stakeholder involvement in reviewing emergent footprints of system change and making evaluative judgements. Participatory approaches are many, varied, and flexible. We will share our reflections and generalisable learning from the participatory approaches we applied in these evaluations. We will invite the audience to reflect on their own practices and experiences, and provoke them to consider whether participatory evaluation is 'just' a methodological option or a foundational element of good evaluation.