When a queue builds outside, the first instinct is usually to put more people on the door. That rarely helps. A second doorperson on the same lane changes almost nothing if the bottleneck is the check itself. Door check-in is an arithmetic problem first and a staffing problem second.
1. Work out what your door can actually process
Throughput comes down to one number: how long the check takes per guest. Measured from arriving at the desk to being waved through:
| Method | Seconds per guest | 400 guests, 2 lanes |
|---|---|---|
| Paper list, searching by name | 25–40 s | 83–133 minutes |
| Digital list, name search | 8–12 s | 27–40 minutes |
| QR code scan | 3–5 s | 10–17 minutes |
The formula behind it is simple: guests × seconds per guest ÷ number of lanes = door time. Run it once for your worst case — the moment when half your guests turn up inside twenty minutes because that is what the line-up dictates.
Rule of thumb: past ten minutes, guests start mentioning the wait. Past twenty, they start reviewing it.
2. Pick the method based on what can go wrong
Every method has a characteristic failure, and that failure is what actually costs you time at the door.
- Name list. The classic and the slowest. The time sink is not the search, it is the negotiation: "I'm on Marco's list." Who is Marco, and is this guest on his list or someone else's?
- Personal code or QR. Unambiguous and fast. The failure is forwarding — a screenshot can be sent to anyone. Single-use codes fix that, because the second scan shows up.
- ID check. Only where you genuinely need it: age limits or named tickets. As a blanket policy it costs more time than the security it buys.
3. Staff by lanes, not by headcount
"One doorperson per hundred guests" is a number that tells you nothing. What matters is how many parallel checking lanes you run. Rearrange the formula: lanes = guests × seconds per guest ÷ target time in seconds.
For 400 guests, a 5-second QR scan and a 10-minute target (600 seconds), that gives 400 × 5 ÷ 600 ≈ 3.3 — so four lanes, not three. Always round up.
And staff one person who does not scan. The moment someone with an edge case reaches a lane, they block everyone behind them. That person takes the edge cases and keeps the lanes moving.
4. Plan for the network dropping, not for it working
A basement room, concrete walls, eight hundred phones all reaching for the same wifi: the connection at your door is the least reliable part of the whole night. A scanner that has to ask a server before it can validate will stall at exactly the moment you need it.
What you want is a scanner that loads the guest list up front, validates locally, and syncs the check-ins once the connection returns. Test it before doors: flight mode on, scan a test guest, flight mode off, confirm the check-in lands.
5. Decide who rules on exceptions before you open
There is always someone at the door who is not on the list and should still get in. That call must not be made at the lane, because that is where it costs you the night.
Name one person and one channel. And make sure a late approval ends up in the system rather than on a scrap of paper — otherwise neither your capacity maths nor your promoter payouts add up afterwards.
Checklist for the night
- Door time calculated for the worst-case arrival pattern
- Lane count derived from it, rounded up
- One named person handling edge cases instead of scanning
- Devices charged, spare batteries or power banks on site
- Guest list pre-loaded on every device
- Offline test run in flight mode before doors
- Exception process communicated to everyone on the door
- Fallback plan for a device failing mid-shift
EventSync makes steps 1 through 4 the default: guests add themselves through a shared link, each one gets a single-use QR code, and the scanner keeps working when the network drops.