How to Enhance the Onsite Check-in Experience

Onsite check-in at an event is a crucial part of the attendee journey. After all, it’s the first physical touchpoint they have during the event experience. When it’s an easy, quick and high-tech process, attendees leave with a positive impression throughout the rest of their time onsite. Long lines and wait times, however, spell disaster.

From self-service options and onsite badge printing, to various badging options, there are many technology options available to enhance the onsite check-in experience.

Remote Check-in Kiosks

Event check-in doesn’t always have to happen at the venue. Self-service kiosks can be set up at local transportation hubs or hotel partners to help attendees get checked-in before they even step foot into the event. These remote check-in kiosks help event planners streamline the check-in process and avoid long wait times and lines at their event.

Kiosks at Airports or Train Stations
Right when an attendee arrives and checks-in at a kiosk at a transportation hub, it can trigger a notification to a shuttle service and inform the driver that the next client has arrived, with name, picture and destination. The driver can confirm the pickup and meeting spot.

Kiosks at transportation hubs can also notify an attendee’s hotel of their arrival and put their corresponding room on the priority list for preparation.

Kiosks at Event Hotels
A welcome kiosk at a hotel can print visitor event badges on arrival a day or two before the event. The system can check ticket validation, settle outstanding payments, and print a badge in less than 10 seconds. The pre-check-in helps to ease peak morning registration at the beginning of the conference. The kiosks can also be relocated in the morning to optimize use of resources.

On-Demand Badge Printing

The key to a smooth registration experience? Live badge printing. When you choose to make the move to live badging, you are opening up your event to even more flexibility and a better user experience. There’s so much live badge printing can do along with saving yourself time from flipping through hundreds or even thousands of pre-printed badges.

Live badging synchronizes visitor data in real time with your event registration platform. You can easily accept walk-ins that register through your event website or your welcome desk team could input their information and print their badge in seconds.

You can also make any changes to misspellings of names or outdated titles, etc. This saves you from having to handwrite badges or throw out pre-printed badges with mistakes, making your event more sustainable!

When you are printing badges as attendees check-in, you are also getting real-time tracking data of how many people checked-in and when. You can easily step up session scanning and lead scanning to get full demographics of your visitor behavior.

If you have a high-profile event with VIPs, you want to make sure that your event is secure from the start. For more secured access, consider printing a profile picture on the badge, which can be obtained straight from the registration site.

Take Attendee Badges to the Next Level

If you’re ready to move beyond issuing the typical paper/lanyard option, there are various badge technologies available that can be used at every corner of the event to make the attendee experience more customized and provide event planners with the data they want post-event.

NFC Badges
Probably one of the most revolutionary event technologies of the past decade, NFC enabled badges give event planners the opportunity to gather data and increase attendee engagement like never before. Holding 30x more information than QR code badges, they allow everyone at the event to gather more information on each attendee.

Some of the uses of NFC technology at events include tap’n go lead retrieval, access control, session scanning, passive tracking, materials distribution and purse management. With apps such as purse management, attendees are able to load money onto their NFC badges and pay for commodities at the show through designated NFC hotspots, eliminating the need for an attendee to carry their wallet and speeding up the check-out process.

NFC Wristbands
NFC wristbands have all of the same capabilities as NFC badges, just in a different format. These wristbands are perfect for large festivals or events where an attendee wouldn’t want something hanging around their neck.

All of the various NFC technologies available with these wristbands are capable of streamlining the event process and improving efficiency at every level. Using NFC access control, for example, attendees could be admitted or kept out of certain areas at the event by simply tapping their wristbands onto a designated NFC hotspot or having an attendant scan their badge with an NFC device. In both cases, the corresponding screen would either turn green for access granted, or red for access denied.

Smart Tags
These small accessories can be worn alone or alongside a standard name badge and can help eliminate the need for scanners. Perfect for networking events, smart tags can be assigned to an individual attendee and hold all of their contact or company information. With the use of beacons, information can be exchanged in a click of a button between two attendees or an attendee or sponsor, essentially replacing the business card.

They can also be used for passive session check-in/check-out, and can work in conjunction with your event mobile app through networking, gamification, tracking the attendee journey and more.