Every event planner knows the scene. A long table at the entrance, hundreds of badges laid out alphabetically, two hostesses digging through the S-row while the queue backs up to the parking lot.
And at the end of the night, a pile of badges nobody ever picked up – printed, paid for and thrown away. It’s one of those rituals the industry has simply accepted. Until now.
Badges that print themselves
The ticket scanning app of eventplanner.net’s ticketing software now connects directly to professional Zebra label printers. The moment a guest’s ticket is scanned at the door, their badge label rolls out of the printer next to you. Peel, stick, welcome. No searching, no sorting, no table.
The label carries everything your guest needs: their name, their QR code so the badge stays scannable throughout the event, and – if you’re using our Event Seating software – their seat number, right there on the badge. No more separate seating cards or staff pointing people towards the right table.
Why this changes your check-in
No queues. Printing happens automatically on scan, in a second or two. Your check-in speed is now limited by how fast people can walk past you, not by how fast someone finds a name on a table.
No waste. You only print for the guests who actually show up. For an event with a 20% no-show rate, that’s a fifth of your badge production you simply stop paying for.
Lost badges are a non-issue. Does someone leave their badge in the taxi or at the bar? Scan them again and reprint. Fifteen seconds, no drama, no apologetic explanation about how there’s no spare.
Late registrations stop being a problem. Anyone who books an hour before doors open gets exactly the same badge as someone who registered three weeks ago. No handwritten name tags, no “we’ll sort you out inside”.
Built for large events too
As with ticket scanning, you can run multiple scanning stations in parallel, each with its own printer. Add lanes as your peak arrival moment demands – two at a seminar, eight at a conference – and they all work from the same live guest list.
And because venue wifi has a talent for failing at exactly the wrong moment, the app keeps working offline. Scanning continues, badges keep printing, and everything syncs back up once you’re connected again. Your entrance doesn’t depend on the venue’s internet.
There’s no badge printing run to order weeks in advance, no last-minute reprints because twelve names were spelt wrong, and no courier costs when the box arrives at the wrong venue. You need blank labels, a Zebra printer and the app you’re already using to scan tickets.
Available now
Badge printing is available today in our event software for eventplanner.PRO users, as part of the Tickets module. If you’re already scanning tickets with our app, you’re one printer away from a completely different check-in experience.
Source: Photo: iStockPhoto 2171467484
