Guide

Gala dinner or charity event in Argentina: closed list, company tables and plus-ones

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

At a gala dinner a company buys the table, but the people who sit there are individuals, and the door has to know who they are. What works: one host per table who gets the names of their guests, a registration where each guest receives their own QR code, a written rule for plus-ones and for anyone who arrives without being on the list, and a reception team, separate from the door, that takes each person to their seat with the floor plan. Check-in decides who enters; reception handles the table.

Why a gala is not just another corporate event

It has three traits that change the door. First, the list is closed and built from purchases: a company buys a table, a donor buys two seats, a sponsor gets a complimentary table. Second, people arrive all together, in the half hour of the cocktail, dressed not to wait. Third, the reception is part of the event: a guest who paid for a table at a charity dinner expects to be welcomed by name, not asked for an ID in a queue.

If you have read guest list check-in for a corporate event, the base is the same. What a gala adds is the table as the unit of sale, and the distance between who paid and who sits.

The company table: one host, N seats, N names

The typical mistake is to load "Company X, table of 10" and then receive ten people at the door whom nobody can identify. The CISA credentialing guide for public venues covers exactly this case: it allows a designated person to manage several credentials for a group, and recommends setting a maximum number of guest credentials per VIP, with exceptions only in special cases. For a gala: every table has a responsible host and a number of seats that does not stretch at the door.

• One host per table, with name, email and phone. They answer for their guests.
• The registration link goes to the host, who forwards it to their people. Each guest registers with their name and receives their QR code by email, with the badge in PDF.
• A team spreadsheet with each table, its seats and how many have registered. A week before, tell each host how many are still missing.

In PASE each attendee type has its own link (for example table guests, donors, press, staff), so nobody assigns themselves a category. If someone lost the email, the pass recovery page sends it again, and the email checker warns during registration if they typed gmial.com or hotmail.con, which happens often on a list built by forwarding. If there are guests from abroad, the landing page and the QR email are also available in English.

The floor plan seats people, not the QR code

PASE does not assign tables. It checks at the door whether the person is on the list and counts them; the seating is handled afterwards, with the floor plan and the reception team. Keep them as two separate moments, because if the door operator also has to find each person's table, every entry takes twice as long and the queue grows at the worst moment.

• Printed floor plan in two versions: by surname and by company. Guests almost always say "I'm with So-and-so" or "I'm with the company".
• Reception a few meters from the door, with the floor plan and staff who walk people to their table.
• One person in charge of the plan, with authority to reseat when a table arrives short or with one extra.

Plus-ones: named if possible, +1 if not

Ideally the plus-one registers with their own name, like any guest. But at a gala there is always the partner nobody listed. For that case, in PASE the operator validates the guest's QR code and taps +1 companion: the companion is added to the count and the report without creating a new pass, and the total number of people who entered stays true.

What the button does not solve is the decision. That has to be written down beforehand: whether unlisted companions are accepted, whether they count against the table's seats, and who tells the floor plan that this table now has one more.

The person who is not on the list

At a charity dinner this is delicate: it may be an important donor, the manager replacing someone else, or a gatecrasher. Three rules:

1. Search first. Often they are registered with another email or a misspelled surname.
2. Take it out of the queue. Doubtful cases are solved to one side, by someone with the list of hosts and the authority to say yes or no.
3. If they enter, record it. A manual registration at the door records them like anyone else, and the floor plan is told.

The same CISA guide asks to train the staff at each entrance in the procedures for denying entry: at a gala, that includes how to say no politely.

Guest and donor data

A charity gala usually wants to contact attendees again. That is fine, but it has to be said at registration. Argentina's data protection law, Law 25,326, requires data to be adequate, relevant and not excessive for the purpose, not to be used for purposes other than those for which it was collected, and the person to be told beforehand what it is for and who may receive it. In practice: ask for name, email, company and job title if it helps the floor plan, and if the data will go to the foundation for future campaigns, say so in the form. More in our note on attendee data and Law 25,326.

Afterwards: what the organization wants to know

The next day someone will ask how many really came and which tables were left with empty chairs. The PASE report gives real attendance by type, by door and by hour, with companions included, and the closing report is there to show the committee or the client how the night went (reports are in Spanish). The table-by-table comparison is done with your hosts spreadsheet: registered against present, table by table. That number helps next year, to know which companies buy and do not come.

The company buys the table, the host provides the names, the door counts them and reception seats them. Each one does a single thing.

Frequently asked questions