Hand out passes fast and guard each backstage zone

Know who is in front of you with each scan

Open the desk from Accreditation and scan a ticket or badge with a USB or Bluetooth scanner. Or enter part of a name, organisation or role. The card shows the photo, the pass, its zones and days, and today's meals and food needs. For a trader's staff, it also shows their pitch, its zone and the nearest gate. Green Ready to hand over means nothing is left to check, and the field clears for the next person.

Choose the holder's name when they collect in person, or record that someone else is collecting it with the collector's name. Each pass then shows who took it and which teammate gave it out, and Accreditation filters to the passes still to collect. When two desks scan the same pass, the first one counts. The second desk shows who already took it, so nobody leaves with two.

Your desk team can also record someone's food needs at the counter, and the kitchen count includes them straight away. That saves a second queue at the catering tent on the first night.

• Scan or search: a code, or part of a name, organisation or role
• The whole pass on one card: photo, zones, days, meals and food needs
• Where traders work: the pitch, its zone and the nearest gate

• Hand out accreditation passes at your event desk

Sort out problems at the counter while the person waits

When something needs sorting first, the card says Check before you hand it over. It lists each thing in plain words beside the button that fixes it. No photo yet lets you take one with the desk phone's camera, and it prints on the badge. Induction not done lets you record the safety briefing at the desk, or send a volunteer their volunteer page again.

When a photo or induction can wait, a team member can still hand the pass over. The reason they give stays on the pass. A pass that is not issued yet, or is still waiting for approval, stays at the desk. The rules you set in Accreditation hold at the counter too. The person leaves with a working pass, and you do not have to send them back to the production office.

• Take the photo now: with the desk phone's camera, saved on the pass
• Induction done here: recorded while the person waits
• Hand over anyway: with a reason kept on the pass

• Get certificates and inductions done before passes go out

Hand a whole team's passes to one collector

When the bar crew's team lead comes for everyone, hand over the whole group at once. Untick anyone not being collected and enter who is collecting. Each pass records the collector and the teammate who gave it out. The desk leaves out any pass not issued, waiting for approval or already collected, and says which and why.

If you hand a pass over by mistake, bring it back to the desk with a reason. The pass history keeps who had taken it and why it came back. That record answers the question accreditation managers hear on show day: who has my security team's passes?

• Hand over a group: one collector for a whole team
• Who took each pass: the collector and the teammate who gave it out
• Undo a hand-over: with a reason, kept in the pass history

Run desks and gates from your team's own phones

Your volunteers, caterers and gate staff never need a dashboard login. Make a desk link, name it after who uses it, such as Backstage gate phone, and choose when it stops. They open it on their own phone or tablet without signing in. Each link does only its desk's work: the hand-out desk, a meal service point or a staff gate for one zone.

Everything done through a link is recorded under its name, so each hand-over, meal and scan shows where it happened. Give a supervisor's link the power to let a refused person through with a reason, and leave it off for everyone else. Desks lists your event's desks with their links, how often each was used and when it was last used. If a phone goes missing, stop its link and the phone is shut out straight away. Then make a new link for the replacement.

• Desk links: one desk of one event, with no dashboard login
• Supervisor switch: a refusal passed only with a reason
• Stop a link: ended straight away on each phone using it

• Let event staff work a desk from their phone with a desk link

Keep handing out passes and meals when the signal drops

Fields, car parks and concrete cabins lose signal at the worst moment. Your hand-out and meal desks carry on scanning with no connection. Each action is kept on the device, a bar counts what is waiting, and everything is sent when the connection is back. If Ticket Fairy refuses something, such as a meal for someone with none left, it stays on the list with the reason. Staff dismiss it when they have seen it.

The queue keeps moving through the outage and nothing is lost. Your team keeps the page open until the bar says everything is sent. Each hand-over and meal joins the record once it is sent.

• No connection needed: hand-overs and meals kept and sent later
• Waiting to send: a count of what is still on the device
• Refusals explained: anything not recorded says why

Let people in only where and when their pass allows

Backstage, the pit and the production village fill up with people whose pass was never meant for them. Tell the device which gate it is, choose coming in or going out, and scan. The gate shows the person's photo, zones, days and hours with a clear answer, such as Ana Ruiz can go in. When a pass does not belong, the gate says why in plain words. It does not open this zone, it is not for today or this time of day, it was never issued or it was cancelled.

Show days run on exceptions: a stage manager needs an extra set-up day, and a technician needs the pit before their pass starts. A supervisor lets them through and enters why they may go in. The reason is saved with the scan and the supervisor's name or desk link. Nobody gets through on a pass that was never issued or was cancelled, so the exceptions stay exceptions.

The site entrance checks the day and hours. A zone gate such as Backstage also checks that the pass opens that zone. For a trader's staff pass, the gate also shows the trader's pitch and the nearest gate. Your team can point a lost caterer the right way.

• Zone gates: day and hours at the site entrance, plus the zone at a zone gate
• Photo with each scan: so gate staff see the person matches the pass
• Let them through: past the wrong zone, day or hour, with a reason

• Check accreditation passes in and out at your event staff gates

Know who is inside each zone for a roll call

Scan people out at your exits and each scan keeps the count right. On site now counts the people on site and inside each zone, then by pass group or outside team. It updates by itself while it is open. Open a zone's count, such as Backstage, for the names inside and the time each went in. You are ready for an evacuation roll call or a quick headcount before the headliner.

Movements beside a person lists each scan of their pass in order. You see where it was, in or out, who scanned it or which desk link, and the reason for any let-through. When security asks how someone reached the side of the stage, you answer from the record. Each time someone opens a list of names, that is recorded too, so you can see who looked.

• On site now: people on site and inside each zone, live
• By group or outside team: how many of each crew, contractor or supplier are in
• Movements: each scan of one pass, with where, when and who

• Run your whole site from one live control log

See who has arrived and why anyone was turned away

Each issued pass shows when and how its holder arrived. They were handed it at the desk, let in at a staff gate or scanned in at the door. Filter Accreditation to who has not arrived yet, for any group or outside team, and see each group's arrivals. Someone cannot find their email? Send the pass again to the address it was issued to, with each send kept in its history.

Refused scans on the Check-In page counts the passes your staff gates refused beside the tickets refused at the public door. You see them by reason, entrance, pass type and hour, for one day or the whole event. A busy backstage gate refusing passes for the wrong zone usually means a sign or a briefing is wrong. You can fix it before the next rush. Open the list of refused scans to see when each happened, the reason, the gate and whose pass it was.

• Arrivals: from the desk, a staff gate or the door
• Send the pass again: the same pass, to the same address
• Refused scans: by reason, entrance, type and hour

• See which event pass holders have arrived and send a pass again
• See why tickets and passes were refused at the door