Guide

How to accredit crew, local suppliers and artists at an event in Argentina

By SOMOS DER · October 30, 2026 · 7 min read

When you produce an event in Argentina from abroad, the people who work it come from two worlds: the crew and artists you fly in, and the local suppliers you hire on the ground. Both go to more places, at more hours, than any guest. The method is to give each group its own accreditation type, register each type through its own link so nobody picks their own category, allow each type only in the areas where it works, and put in writing who enters during set-up, show and teardown. This guide adapts that method to a foreign production working with Argentine suppliers.

Why the working credential is the weak point

The public is checked once, at one door. The people who work are not: they arrive hours earlier, go out for equipment, cross backstage, load and unload, and come back the next day, often through service doors where control is looser. If guests enter with a QR code and the crew enters by saying "I'm with sound", that is where the hole is. On an international production the risk grows, because your door team may not know the local suppliers and the local door staff do not know your crew.

The Public Venue Credentialing Guide from CISA, the US cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, is written for exactly this. Most of it covers employees, contractors, deliveries, media and talent rather than ticket holders. What follows takes its recommendations and applies them to an event in Argentina.

Step 1: one type per working group, split by origin

Start with the list of who works the event. On a foreign production it usually looks like this:

• Your touring crew: production managers, stage managers, technicians who travel with you.
• Local technical suppliers: sound, lights, screens, staging, generators hired in Argentina.
• Local service suppliers: catering, furniture, cleaning, security, medical.
• Artists and their team: performers, speakers, hosts, managers, assistants.
• Local event staff: door operators, ushers, runners.

CISA recommends that credential requests "be divided into categories or groups based on functions" and that temporary contractor credentials designate "the area(s) of access". You do not need one type per company: you need one type per distinct set of permissions. If catering and cleaning go to the same places, they can share a type. Keeping your own crew apart from local suppliers helps anyway, because they usually answer to different people.

Step 2: one registration link per type, handed out by the person in charge

The most common mistake is sending everyone to the same form and letting each person choose "crew" or "supplier". Anyone with the public link can then mark a category that is not theirs.

In PASE each attendee type has its own registration link, and whoever comes in through the crew link is recorded as crew without choosing it. The link is not published: it goes to the head of each team (your production manager, the local sound company's crew chief, the caterer's supervisor, the artist's manager), who passes it on to their people. Each person receives their personal QR code and a PDF badge by email. Registration and the QR email work in Spanish and English: they follow the browser language, and adding ?lang=en to the link forces English, which is what you send your touring crew. There is no Portuguese version.

CISA points the same way. It recommends, "when possible", an "online credential registration system", a credentialing point of contact responsible for "granting or denying all requests", and "written access criteria for each controlled area". Write those criteria before you send the first link, in both languages if your heads of team need it.

Ask only for the data you need to let people in: name, ID document, company and role. A passport for your crew, a DNI for local suppliers. Argentina's Law 25,326 requires personal data to be "ciertos, adecuados, pertinentes y no excesivos" (accurate, adequate, relevant and not excessive) for the purpose they were collected for, and that applies to your own team too.

Step 3: permissions by area, not "all access"

The temptation is to give working people access to everything to avoid trouble. The result is that the crew credential becomes the most wanted one at the event. Build a table with types in the rows and areas in the columns (service door, stage, backstage, dressing rooms, kitchen, VIP, technical room) and mark only where each type works.

• The local sound crew reaches the stage and the mixing desk, not dressing rooms.
• Catering reaches the kitchen and backstage, not the stage.
• The artist's team reaches dressing rooms and stage, not the technical room.

In PASE that table is the permission matrix: each check-in point checks whether the scanned person's type is allowed in that area, and if not the screen shows NOT AUTHORIZED. PASE validates online, against the database, at every scan. Areas where crew go in and out all day should be set as re-entry points, which check the permission every time without consuming the pass. Every controlled area is a check-in point: Base includes 1, Pro up to 4 and Enterprise unlimited.

For dressing rooms and artist areas, CISA also suggests "assigning a security staff member" at the door "to ensure that only approved persons are admitted".

Step 4: set-up and teardown hours, in writing

Set-up, show and teardown are three moments with different people. CISA recommends that temporary contractor credentials "indicate a time frame for work to be performed", that temporary contractors "sign in and out" on a log sheet each day, and that deliveries be "scheduled and approved ahead of time", with driver names provided in advance, made to designated areas such as loading docks, and with drivers presenting "a government-issued photo ID".

In practice, this means:

• A schedule per supplier (day, time slot, entry door, person in charge and phone) held by the service door chief, in Spanish, because that is the language your local suppliers and door staff work in.
• A visible mark per time slot. PASE prints badges in several sizes; if the slot must be readable from a distance, add a color or sticker per day and time, and give the door chief the key.
• A separate type for set-up and teardown when those people do not need to be there during the show. On show day, that type has no permission at public check-in points.

Step 5: artists, a roster and an ID

Artists are the special case. CISA says performers, players and officials in uniform "should be the only persons not required to wear a credential" in their designated area, but must wear one "to enter other controlled areas". It recommends a roster with their names and roles, entry through "a controlled, non-public access point", and identification "by a valid government-issued photo ID and confirmed by the roster".

Ask the artist's manager for the roster well in advance, load it through the artist type link, and agree how many guests each artist gets. The same guide recommends setting "a maximum number of guest and/or family credentials" for VIPs and team members, "with exceptions granted in special circumstances".

Step 6: last minute additions and closing

Someone always shows up who was not on the list: the sound engineer's helper, a replacement waiter. Decide beforehand who can authorize an addition and with what minimum data. The operator does not decide: they call the head of that team, and if confirmed, add the person manually at the door with the right type, so the entry is recorded like everyone else's.

At the end, CISA recommends collecting temporary credentials or designing them to expire, cross-checking the returned ones to find what is missing, and destroying or deactivating those no longer valid. It also recommends designing credentials so they are "substantially different" from previous events, so change the badge design and colors from one edition to the next. For door operators at the service entrance, ideally separate from the public door team, SOMOS DER runs LABURO, its event staff platform.

The public is checked once. The people who work the event are checked all day. That is why their accreditation has to be more organized, not less.

Frequently asked questions