Guide

What to measure after the event: the check-in report and how to use it for the next one

By SOMOS DER · October 30, 2026 · 8 min read

After the event, the check-in report has to answer five questions: how many of the registered people came, who did not come, what time most people arrived, how long each person took to get in, and how many reads were rejected and why. Each answer turns into a concrete decision for the next edition: how many people to invite, how many doors to open, when to add staff and what to fix in the registration.

Why the door report is worth more than it seems

Check-in is the only place at the event where every person leaves a mark with a time and a place. It is the hardest data you will have: not a survey or a rough estimate, but a record of who entered, through which door and when.

The UK Health and Safety Executive, in its guidance on monitoring crowds at events, explains that counting systems at entrances and exits help estimate how many people are inside, and that monitoring also helps assess how effective your measures were. Its page on entry controls recommends planning how to monitor and estimate the number of people arriving and, for large audiences, encouraging staggered arrivals. To do that, you need to know how people arrived last time.

In PASE the live report shows check-ins by attendee type, by check-in point (door) and by hour during the event, and the closing report brings together real attendance against registrations for the client. Reports are in Spanish, so if your client or headquarters abroad needs them in English, plan to translate the headings. What follows applies to any system that gives you this data.

1. Real attendance against registrations, by type

The number of registrations is a promise; the number of check-ins is what happened. The first table of the report has to put both side by side, and not only in total: broken down by attendee type (general, VIP, press, staff, exhibitors).

The total hides the differences. The general public may have responded as you expected and the VIP guests did not, or the other way round. If each type registered through its own link, this table comes out on its own; if everybody registered through the same form and chose a category, be suspicious of the type column. In PASE each type has its own link and the person stays in that type, so the breakdown is reliable.

What to decide with this: how many people to invite or register to reach the attendance you want, and whether to reinforce confirmation for a particular group.

2. No-shows: who registered and did not come

The no-show rate is the difference between the two numbers above, divided by the registered. Measure it by type and, if you had more than one date or day, by day. Do not use a percentage from another event or one you read somewhere: yours depends on the audience, the price (or whether it was free), the day of the week and the weather.

Two cross checks that often explain a lot:

• Registration date. Compare the no-show rate of those who registered well in advance with those who registered in the last few days.
• Confirmation email. If some people never received their QR code (because of a mistyped email, for example), part of the no-show is not lack of interest but a delivery problem. The email checker in the PASE registration catches common typos such as gmial.com or hotmail.con before the person submits.

For organizers from abroad: at a free event registering costs nothing, so the gap between registrations and check-ins is usually larger than at a paid one. That is why your own number, measured edition after edition, is worth more than any rule of thumb. More in free event registration and no-shows.

What to decide with this: whether to overbook places at free events, when to send the reminder and to whom (PASE sends one automatically 24 to 48 hours before if the event has a start date), and how much catering, material or seating to prepare.

3. Peak hours: how many people arrived together

The curve of check-ins by time slot is the most useful chart in the report. It shows when people gathered at the door and how long that moment lasted. The total attendance tells you the size of the event; the peak hour tells you the size of the door you need.

Look at it by door, not only overall. If you had two entrances and one received almost the whole peak, the problem was not total capacity but distribution: signage, distance from public transport or the parking lot, or a door people did not see.

What to decide with this: when to add operators, whether to open an extra door only during the peak, and whether to stagger arrivals (by time on the invitation, by a welcome activity or by attendee type). The step by step calculation is in how many check-in points and staff you need.

4. Entry times: how long each person took

Entry time answers whether the door worked. What matters is not only the average but how it behaved during the peak: a door that runs fast at 7 p.m. and gets stuck at 8 p.m. has a problem the daily average does not show. A simple way to measure it is to time a sample of entries at each door during the peak, and compare with the hourly curve.

When the time goes up, look for the cause in the event itself:

• People without their QR code at hand, searching for the email in the line. The automatic reminder and the option to recover the pass before arriving help here; a sign at the entrance asking people to have the QR code ready helps too.
• People who had not registered. If there were many, set up a separate point where the team adds them from the panel with a manual registration, out of the main line. More in walk-in registration at the event door.
• Badge printing on the spot, which adds time per person. Consider whether everyone needs a printed badge or only some types.
• Connection problems at a check-in point. Check whether they match the slow moments, and read what to do if the internet goes down at the door.

5. Rejections: duplicates and not authorized

Every read that did not end in a valid entry is information. In PASE the operator sees two kinds of rejection: DUPLICATE (the QR code was already used) and NOT AUTHORIZED (that attendee type has no access at that point). Ask the operators at the end of the night where and when they saw the most.

• Many duplicates at the main door usually mean forwarded QR codes or shared screenshots. They can also be the same person scanning twice because they did not see the screen: check whether the duplicates came seconds after the valid entry or much later.
• Many not authorized reads at one point usually mean that signage is sending people to the wrong place, or that a group ended up with a category that did not match.

What to decide with this: whether to change the email text ("this QR code is personal, do not forward it"), where to put signs and what to review in the access permissions for each type before the next event.

How to turn the report into a plan for the next one

The report is useless if it stays in a folder. Hold a short meeting with the door team within the week, while they still remember what happened, and come out with a list of decisions, not impressions. A format that works:

1. What we measured: the five numbers above, by type and by door.
2. What happened: what explains each number, with what the operators saw.
3. What we change: one action per problem, with a person responsible.

Keep the report of each edition in the same format. With two or three editions you will be able to estimate the no-show rate and the peak hour of your own audience, which is much better than any general average. More on counting properly in real event attendance, not registrations.

The total tells you how many came. The peak hour, the no-shows and the rejections tell you what to do differently next time.

Frequently asked questions