Check People In From Your Phone, With Nothing to Download

The door is the only part of your event that everyone sees at the same time.

Fifty people in a queue is a test. Not of your content or your speakers. Of whether the person at the front can be let in quickly, and whether the person behind them believes you have it under control.

Most advice says you need an event check-in app. You do not need one to download. This is how the door works when nothing is installed on either side.

What does the attendee hold?

A ticket email. That is it.

When someone buys a ticket, the email they get contains their check-in code twice: as text, and as a QR image of the same code. Both are inside the message itself, not behind a link. A ticket you need signal to open is not much of a ticket at a venue door, so the code is already on their phone when they arrive.

The code is six characters, shown like 7HK-2M9. It is built to survive being read aloud and being typed in a hurry. Hyphens, spaces and capital letters do not matter. A letter I or L is read as the number 1, and a letter O is read as 0.

The email also carries a one-tap link to the event app, which opens in the browser. No store, no account, no download. If the signal drops, the code in the email is still the code.

What do you do at the door?

You check them in through the assistant you already use to run the event. On a phone that is Claude in the browser or the Claude app you already have, with the Presso Events connector added. Custom connectors work in both.

Ask for the check-in with the code the attendee shows you:

Check in ticket code 7HK-2M9 for Spring Founders Supper.

The ticket is marked present. The reply names the event, the ticket type and the attendee’s email, so you can see you have the right person.

A few things happen by design, and they are the ones that matter in a queue:

• A second check-in is safe. If the same code comes up twice, the reply says the ticket was already checked in, with the time of the first check-in. Nobody is counted twice.
• Refunded or cancelled tickets are refused. You are told the ticket cannot be checked in.
• A code that matches nothing says so. It says no ticket matches. It will not tell you whether the ticket exists for someone else’s event.
• You can only check in your own event. One organiser can never check in another organiser’s attendee.

Before the night, do one thing: buy or issue yourself a ticket, then check yourself in from the exact phone you will use at the door. Doing it once at home is cheaper than learning it in the queue.

What if someone has lost their ticket?

It happens. A cracked screen, a forgotten email, a phone on 2%.

You can find the person by name. Claude returns the candidates and you pick the right one. Searching admits nobody by itself. It only finds people.

Admitting someone without a code is switched off by default. An owner has to turn it on for the event in advance, as a deliberate decision made calmly before doors, not in front of a crowd. When it is used, it is recorded as a different kind of check-in permanently, so afterwards you can tell who came in with a code and who did not.

How do you know how the door is going?

Ask:

How many people have arrived at Spring Founders Supper so far?

The door board shows how many people are in the room, how many are still expected, and how many were admitted without a code, with the most recent arrivals underneath. You can leave it open on a screen at the door.

Two choices were made on purpose:

• Recent arrivals show a first name and a last initial. Anyone walking past a door screen can read it. An owner can switch the list to full names if they prefer.
• It counts valid tickets only. A refunded ticket is not someone the door is still waiting for, so it is not in the number.

What about events with free tickets?

The door works the same way. A free ticket gets a check-in code like any other, so a free event is checked in exactly as above.

Quick answers

Do attendees need to download anything? No. They have a ticket email with a code in it, and an event app that opens in their browser.

Do I need special scanner hardware? No. You need a phone and a ticket code.

What if the same ticket is used twice? The second check-in reports it was already used, and shows when.

What if someone lost their ticket? Find them by name. Letting them in without a code works only if an owner switched that on before the event.

The rule to keep

The best event check-in app is the one nobody has to install, learn or find at 6:58pm.

A code in an email, a phone in your hand, and a reply that tells you who just walked in.

If you are planning your first event, sign up at presso.events and publish your first event.