Event Management & Data

How to Make the Guest Check-in Easy and Fast

Esteban Ochoa
December 14, 2016

Table of Contents

One thing that people hate the most, yet can’t avoid, is waiting in lines.

We have to line up each time we pay for groceries, buy tickets, go through the airport security checkpoints, etc.

Event attendees aren’t an exception, especially when they have to check-in for the event. Often, this welcoming part can be irritating, time consuming, and boring.

Moreover, guest check-in procedure can be quite frustrating for event managers too. As planning expert Julia Rutherford Silvers notes in her book Professional Event Coordination,

“When registration begins and attendees are flowing through the lines, the registration area can begin to look like a madhouse, with boxes stacked about, papers strewn hither and yon, and empty cups piled on tables and counters.”

This sounds pretty familiar, isn’t?

That being said, there are three main reasons why you should improve the guest check-in procedure.

Reason #1. It will boost up your attendees’ experience

In his research about waiting lines, the director of The Design Lab at University of California Don Norman, makes the following remark “Get people happy and smiling and people around will be happy and smiling. But have one person upset or angry, and these emotions will spread.” Make the guest check-in process easy and fast, and you’ll leave a good first impression on your attendees (which is crucial for an overall positive event experience).

Reason #2. It will optimize the flow of the guests

As Julia Rutherford Silvers notes, event planners are responsible for the attendees’ movement to, through, around, within and away from the event site. A smooth guest check-in procedure will allow guests to access the event venue at a rapid pace.

Reason #3. It will free up some of your team members to perform other tasks

How many team members or volunteers do you usually assign for the registration procedure? What if you could redirect their effort to tasks that are more important and urgent than the check-in? A wise design of the registration can help you with that.

So how can you improve the guest check-in?

By applying the innovative practice the planners used for the TigoUneForum in Bogotá, Colombia.

Held on 25th of November, TigoUneForum is an annual conference that reunites IT professionals and entrepreneurs to discuss how the digital transformations will impact the future of business.

Apart from its rich agenda and engaging dynamics, the event stood out through an automatic check-in system powered by Eventtia. This is how the TigoUneForum planners made check-in an easy and pleasant experience:

Step #1. After the initial online registration, set up with the help of our event platform, the attendees received a QR code, being notified that they would need it for the check-in.

Step #2. The planners charged the design of a few self-service check-in machines, with an iPad at each station.

Step #3. On the morning of the event, the attendees were guided to check-in using the machines. The procedure was easy and quick. Attendees had two options to check-in: introduce their ID number or scan their registration QR code.

Step #4. After the authentication, the machine would generate the attendee’s badge.

Step #5. The attendees were free to attend the event.

There was also a check-in desk for people who didn’t feel comfortable using the machines. However, the majority choose the self-service check-in option, which was fast and highly intuitive. This way, they were able to save time and avoid big lines.  

 

Quick takeaways for EventProfs

If you want to boost up the experience of your attendees and ease up your own workload, focus on innovating your event’s guest check-in procedure. A good option to experiment with is the self-service check-in terminals. These automatic machines can save you both time and money. Also, it’s an excellent way to optimize the guest flow and avoid the human error factor.

Give it a try!

 

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Esteban Ochoa
CTO – Chief technology officer of Eventtia

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