How to Control Attendee Access to Selected Areas of the Venue and Services?

Event organizers quite often look for solutions allowing them to control attendee traffic and their access to selected rooms or services at events.

How to Control Attendee Access to Selected Areas of the Venue and Services?

In one of the previous articles, I described handling check-in for event attendees with CONREGO. Check-in is access control to the event itself because before the attendee receives a badge or a wristband, we have to identify them and make sure that their record is present on the guest list. In this entry, I will describe the access control feature, which is used when the attendee is already inside the venue.

Let's start with an important message: access control based on event management software is not always justified. In order to make it easier for you to assess the situation, I will present the details concerning the issue that seems to be less intuitive than expected.

When is it advisable and justified to apply access control?

Experienced event organizers will easily list a number of situations where verification of guest access rights to selected zones is a necessity. Sometimes this action is dictated by financial considerations, e.g. when sessions are paid, we need to verify whether participants attending a session have actually purchased an appropriate package; or when lecture rooms have a limited number of seats.

We can also have safety in mind – some facilities can only accept a strictly limited number of people, which cannot be exceeded (e.g. health and safety regulations limiting the number of people in the building). In the case of a closed zone, it may be necessary to verify the identity of each person that wants to access it.

Access control is also applied when you plan to issue simultaneous interpretation sets. By marking entry, the staff note they have handed out a set, and when they mark exit, the return of the set is noted. With attendance lists generated in real time, you can easily find information about attendees who have the missing sets.

Another situation where access control might be helpful is analyzing the level of guests’ involvement in particular sessions or workshops. In this case, we will control not so much access, as the migration of attendees between the rooms. What is more, CONREGO will record the time of entry and exit to each session, so you have information about the time each attendee spent at each session. Such information will become priceless when you decide to organize another edition of the event.

What is the cheap method of launching an efficient access control system

As far as access control is concerned, the following three basic tools are used most often, as they can handle the technical side of the problem in a convenient and simple manner:

1. ID badges with QR codes

It is an excellent solution if the event management platform you chose provides the functionality of generating documents with QR codes automatically assigned to attendees.

2. Notebooks or tablets with QR code readers

Using this type of equipment always increases overall costs. However, they can be reduced if we choose to use cheaper equipment – it will satisfy our needs completely. You can rent laptops but companies rarely rent out QR code readers. Their price begins with $100. Bar code readers can be an alternative but the advantage offered by 2D (QR) code readers is their improved ability to read codes from screens of mobile devices, including matte screens. Bar code readers are incapable of working with smartphones and force organizers to only accept paper passes.

3. Mobile app that supports check-in and access control areas

The alternative worth considering is the use of smartphones. For customers wishing to avoid investments in readers and laptops, we have prepared a fully integrated with our system CONREGO Check-in app. With the use of smartphones operating on Android or iOS, you will gain immediate access to the features of Check-In and Access Control modules. You only need to download the app, log in using your CONREGO subscription login credentials, and you can control access to the selected zone.

Our event check-in app is available in CONREGO All-In-One subscription plan.

Tomasz Chrościechowski