Create Easy Event Check-In Like NERCC

Event check-in can be a pain for everyone. Long lines of people waiting to sign-in or other hang-ups can create a terrible beginning and a bad first impression for your business.

Luckily, Marc Okun of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters (NERCC) was kind enough to share his company's process of getting people in the door and into an event quickly.

Do the Prep with Registration

First, create a registration process. You could use something like a Google form to collect registration information and then transfer that to an excel spreadsheet.

Next, send registration confirmation with a barcode for each participant (so when they walk in the door, they have their barcode ready to be scanned for an easy event check-in). NERCC uses a barcode creation program that we suggested for them called BarTender, owned by Seagull Scientific.  Currently, the basic version is available through Amazon for $161 but is a real time saver if you need to create more than a few barcodes at a time.

And make sure to remind participants to bring their registration in print or have it available on their smart phone when they arrive at the event.

Be Ready to make it an Easy Event Check-in Process

Depending on the number of expected attendees, have one or more individuals ready to scan the barcodes of your attendees as they enter. Your workers can use any number of scanning apps, but of course, we like to suggest Scan to Spreadsheet, which has received some great reviews and feedback.

As the barcodes are being scanned, information gets entered into a spreadsheet. If you have more than one person scanning, that creates more than one excel spreadsheet, but you can easily clean that up post event.

Post Event

Send all the spreadsheets to the same individual and have them combine them into a single document. If you're using Excel, they have a process for that! Now you have a succinct list of everyone who made it to the event.

NERCC then uses that list to give their attendees credit for attending.

Thanks, Marc Okun for sharing NERCC's process!