Corporate events

Guest list check-in for a corporate event or incentive night in Argentina

By SOMOS DER · October 30, 2026 · 6 min read

At a corporate dinner, gala or incentive night, the guest list is the access control. If you are running it from abroad, send the invitation with one registration link per guest type, treat the registration as the RSVP and decide the plus-one rule before anyone asks. Give every person, plus-ones included, their own QR code. Then arrive in Buenos Aires with a written rule for the guest who is not on the list, because what is decided beforehand is not argued at the door.

The spreadsheet problem, at a distance

The usual circuit goes like this: someone builds a spreadsheet from the CRM, the sales director's contacts and last year's list; an email goes out asking people to confirm; answers come back by email, by chat and in passing; on the night, a printed list sits at the reception desk and two people cross out names. It works until the list has 300 rows, half the surnames are misspelled and the first 80 guests arrive at once.

When the company or the incentive house is in another country, it gets worse. The head office has one list, the local agency has another, the hotel has a third with the rooming list, and nobody knows which one is current. What you want is a single source: the people who actually registered.

Step 1: define guest types before you invite

Before sending anything, split the guests by type: clients, incentive winners, internal team, executives, local partners, speakers, press if there is any. Each type can have different permissions (an executive lounge, a backstage area for speakers), and in the closing report you will want to know how many clients came, not only how many people.

The credentialing guide for public venues from CISA, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, recommends the same approach: credential requests "should be divided into categories or groups based on functions" (CISA, Public Venue Credentialing Guide). A guest list is a smaller version of the same logic.

In PASE each attendee type has its own registration link. Whoever registers through the executives link lands as an executive without choosing it, and nobody can assign themselves a category that is not theirs.

Step 2: the invitation carries the link, and registering is the RSVP

The invitation stays yours: the corporate email, the design, the tone of the company. Only the button changes. Instead of "reply to confirm", it leads to the event registration. A guest who completes the form has confirmed; a guest who does not, has not. The confirmations spreadsheet disappears.

• Ask for the minimum. Name, surname, email, company. If you ask for more (dietary needs, job title), it should be because you will use it. Argentina's data protection law, Law 25,326, requires data to be "ciertos, adecuados, pertinentes y no excesivos" (accurate, adequate, relevant and not excessive) for the purpose it was collected for, and Article 6 requires telling people "en forma expresa y clara" (expressly and clearly) what the data is for and which questions are mandatory. One line under the form is enough.
• Use the right language. The registration page and the QR email are in Spanish and English. They follow the browser language, and adding ?lang=en to the link forces English, which is what you want for a group flying in from abroad.
• Protect the email address. If the address is mistyped, the QR never arrives. PASE flags typical domain typos (gmial.com, hotmail.con) while the person is still registering.

On registering, each guest receives the QR code and the badge in PDF by email. The code is unique, random and carries no personal data inside. More on the form itself in what to ask in event registration.

Step 3: the link is private, not public

For a closed event, control starts with who gets the link. Send it directly to each guest, not to a large group or a social post. If a guest forwards the invitation, the recipient can register, so compare the registered list against your invitation list a few days before the event. That is where unexpected names appear, and you decide calmly what to do with them instead of deciding at the door.

Step 4: plus-ones, decided in advance

The plus-one is the main source of arguments at a corporate reception. "They told me I could bring someone." The way to cut it is to put the rule in writing in the invitation: whether there is a plus-one, how many, and that each one registers with their own name and email.

The same CISA guide recommends that venues "establish a maximum number of guest and/or family credentials" per holder, "with exceptions granted in special circumstances", and that holders understand that "abuses can result in the cancellation or reduction" of that number. For an incentive night it translates simply: the company sets the allowance, it goes in writing and it is not negotiated on arrival. With one registration per person, your report shows exactly who came, not "John Smith + 1".

Step 5: reminders and the lost QR code

Send a reminder a few days before and another the day before, from the email tool the company already uses. Include date, time, the venue address, transport from the hotel if there is any, and one clear line: keep the QR code from your email at hand.

A guest who cannot find the email does not need to write to you. From the PASE recovery page, also available in English, they enter the email they registered with and the pass arrives again. Put that link in the reminder.

Step 6: the door in Buenos Aires

On the night, the operator scans the QR code from the phone browser or with a physical reader, without installing anything. PASE validates online, and the screen answers valid, duplicate or not authorized on the spot. With two entrances, a guest who entered through one cannot enter again with the same code through the other. The door checks the guest type and the sector, so the executive lounge can have its own scanner.

If you want printed badges, for networking or so staff can recognize executives from a distance, PASE prints them at check-in in several sizes. Otherwise the QR code on the phone is enough; see printing badges on site. For the guest who is not on the list, agree beforehand who authorizes and with which criteria, and keep a separate spot to solve it without stopping everyone else. The scanner can search by name, and the dashboard can register someone on the spot.

After the event, PASE builds the report: how many registered, how many came, by type and arrival time, plus a closing report. Those reports are only in Spanish, so plan who on your team will read them for the head office. The gap between registered and present is the most useful number for next year: it tells you how many invitations it takes to fill the room.

One list, the one guests build by registering. Confirmation, plus-ones, the door and the report all come from there.

Frequently asked questions