Scan a QR, verify against a local cache, print a badge from the right template and stream the check-in to the dashboard. Built to survive the opening rush and the inevitable Wi-Fi outage.
Where the attendee's day starts, and where the queue forms
Most attendees arrive in a 30 to 60 minute window. If each check-in takes a minute, a thousand-person event needs a lot of desks or a lot of patience. The software has one job: make each transaction short and never lose a record.
Outcome: short queues
Scan-and-print in seconds, self-service kiosks for the majority and staffed desks for exceptions.
Outcome: accurate numbers
Every check-in, session scan and re-entry is a record with a timestamp and a station, not a tally on a clipboard.
Outcome: no walk-up chaos
On-site registration prints a badge from the same template, with payment if needed, without leaving the queue.
The flow
Scan, verify, print, report
The main path is four hops. The two branches, search and offline, are what separate a smooth morning from a queue out of the door.
What we deliver
Software for every station type
Scanner app
iOS and Android scanning inside the event app or a dedicated staff app, with camera scanning tuned for glossy phone screens and printed tickets.
Desk check-in
Web console for staffed desks: search, edit details, reprint, take walk-up payment and see who is already in.
Badge designer
Templates per ticket type with name, company, QR, colour bands and sponsor logos. Bulk PDF for pre-print, on-demand for the desk.
Session and area access
Scan at the door, enforce ticket rules and capacity, allow or warn on re-entry, and count attendance per session.
Multi-day and re-entry
Per-day check-in lists, access dates per attendee group and re-entry rules that do not double-count.
Live dashboard and alerts
Check-ins per minute, per station and per entrance, with alerts when a printer stops or a queue builds. Feeds event analytics.
Offline mode
Designed after a 4,000-person morning
Our first check-in scanner confirmed every scan with the server before showing "checked in". It worked in the office and stalled at a conference where everyone arrived in the same half hour. The Eventify story covers the rewrites; this is what we ship now.
Attendee list cached on every station before doors open, refreshed in the background.
Optimistic check-in: the UI responds immediately, the server is told afterwards.
Every scan carries an idempotency key, so retries and duplicate scans count once.
Conflict rules decide what wins when two stations check in the same person offline.
Printing is local to the station, so it never waits on the internet.
Example: sizing the entrance
4,000 attendees, 60% arriving in a 45-minute window, is about 53 check-ins per minute. At 15 seconds per transaction a station handles four per minute, so you need around 13 stations plus spares. A split of eight kiosks and five staffed desks keeps exceptions off the fast lane. We run this calculation for every event and rehearse it with real printers.
Hardware and network
Printer and network considerations
The software is the easy part. These are the decisions that decide whether badges print at 8am.
Decision
Our recommendation
Why
Printer type
Direct thermal badge printers for on-demand; office printers only for pre-print runs
No ink, fast, quiet, and a badge takes seconds rather than a minute
Badge stock
Pre-printed colour stock with a blank area for thermal text, or plain stock with colour bands rendered
Ticket type is readable from across the hall
Printer connection
USB to the station, or wired network on a dedicated VLAN
Wi-Fi printers drop off exactly when the hall fills with phones
Station network
Dedicated SSID or wired, with 4G or 5G routers as backup
Public Wi-Fi is shared with every attendee's phone
Power
Separate circuits for printers; power banks for scanner phones
A tripped circuit should not take down every station
Spares
One spare printer per four stations, spare stock and cables on site
Printers fail; swapping one takes two minutes if the spare is there
Process
Nothing is tested for the first time on the day
Audit
Registration volumes, arrival window, entrances, ticket types and the access rules each one needs.
Configure or build
Check-in lists, badge templates, station roles and the offline and re-entry rules.
Hardware plan
Station count from the arrival maths, printer and network plan agreed with the venue, hardware hired or purchased.
Rehearse
Full dry run with real badges, real printers and the network as it will be on the day, including pulling the cable.
Run
Engineer on call or on site, live dashboard watched for queue build-up, post-event export of every scan.
Lead capture uses the same badge QR: see lead retrieval.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How many attendees can you check in per hour?
Throughput depends on desks, kiosks and printers rather than software. A scan-and-print transaction takes 10–20 seconds at a staffed desk and a little longer at a self-service kiosk. We size the number of stations from your registration count and the opening window, then rehearse it.
What happens if the venue Wi-Fi fails?
Check-in keeps working. Each station holds a local copy of the attendee list, marks check-ins optimistically, queues them with an idempotency key and reconciles when the connection returns. Badge printing is local, so it does not depend on the internet at all.
Which badge printers do you support?
Direct thermal badge printers for on-demand printing, and standard office or label printers for pre-printed runs. We publish a tested-hardware list for each event and recommend one spare printer per four stations.
Can badges control access to sessions or areas?
Yes. Session check-in scans the same QR and enforces ticket-type rules, capacity and re-entry policies. Exhibitor-only areas, VIP lounges and paid workshops all use the same mechanism and feed the same analytics.
Do you support on-site?
Yes. Remote support is included in every engagement and on-site engineers can be scoped for larger events. The badge printing and kiosk case study describes a typical setup.
Ready to make AI work in production?
Tell us about your systems, your data and your constraints. We reply within one business day with a straight answer and a suggested next step.