Passes and check-in
Decide who may attend, what each kind of pass allows, what you ask at registration, and how scanning at the door turns registrations into attendance you can prove.
A pass is the attendance record. An attendee is an issued pass — there is no separate attendee list to keep in step, which is why the operations view calls them participants.
Who may come
Open
Anyone can register. Highest numbers, least control over who is in the hall.
Ticketed
Registration takes payment. Fewer people, and the ones who come have committed something.
Invitation only
Registration is refused unless invited. Used for buyer-curated shows where the guest list is the product.
Kinds of pass
The kind decides where someone may go and when — which matters more than it sounds.
| Pass | Typically valid |
|---|---|
| Visitor | Show hours only |
| Exhibitor staff | Build-up, show hours, dismantle |
| Organiser and crew | Everything, including closed periods |
| Security | Everything, often including overnight |
| Contractor | Build-up and dismantle, not show hours |
| Sponsor | Show hours, usually with hospitality access |
| Complimentary and VIP | Show hours, often with early entry |
Get contractor access right before build-up
A stand builder holding a pass that only works during show hours cannot build the stand. It is the single most common access mistake, and it surfaces at the worst possible moment.
What you ask at registration
You define the questions. Keep them to what you will actually act on.
Every field is friction on a form someone is filling in on a phone, and data you collected but never used is a liability rather than an asset. If nobody will read the answer, the question should not be there.
The ones usually worth asking: what they do, what they came to find, and whether they buy or specify.
Verified attendance
Passes are tied to a verified identity, so your attendance figure counts known people rather than badge scans.
That matters commercially. Exhibitors are buying access to an audience, and a footfall number built from unverified sign-ups describes something other than what was sold. When an exhibitor asks how the number was measured, there is an answer.
Sharing passes
Passes can be handed on with a claim link — a public link that needs no Bidancer account. Someone given a pass claims it and walks in.
Identity is captured at the moment of claim, so a company can buy a block of passes and distribute them internally while the attendance list stays a list of known people.
Passes bought as an add-on are issued immediately on payment, so an exhibitor adding staff passes has them at once rather than waiting on you.
At the door
Scan the pass
The code on the pass is scanned at the entrance.
Access is checked
The pass kind decides whether this person may enter now.
Arrival is recorded
Registration and attendance become two separate, comparable numbers.
Walk-ins get a pass on the spot
Where the entry policy allows it, so nobody is in the hall unrecorded.
The entrance is the only part every attendee experiences
It is worth over-resourcing. A queue at the door is the first thing people tell each other about, and the last thing they forget.
Sponsors
Build sponsorship tiers that sell, define what each one actually includes, and move a sponsor from interested to confirmed without the terms living in an email thread.
Payments & tax
Connect your own payment gateway, keep every rupee of ticket and booth revenue, and control receipts, numbering, tax and discount codes yourself.