QR codes for tickets and entry

An event is really a sequence of destinations. Rather than printing separate assets for each one, print one code per ticket type and change where it points as the event moves through its stages.

Tickets are small, frequently curved and often scanned in poor lighting. Keep the code large relative to the ticket, leave the quiet zone clear, and test a printed proof in the venue light before the run.

There are two ways to use codes on tickets, and the choice follows from what you need to know. If every ticket is identical, one code on all of them gives you a single number for the whole event.

If you want to know how many standing tickets were scanned against how many VIP tickets, print a different code per tier. Each one is its own destination, so each reports separately.

A printed code cannot tell one ticket from another. If the code is identical on every ticket, then it cannot identify a seat, a holder or a first entry, and it cannot stop a ticket being scanned twice.

Uniqueness per ticket belongs to your ticketing provider and its own barcodes. Use the code for what it is good at, which is putting the right page in front of the person holding the ticket.

Ticket stock is difficult: thin thermal paper, folds, creases from a pocket, a perforated edge running straight through the quiet zone. It is the print job most likely to fail in the queue.

Fifteen minutes with a real printer and a real ticket solves it. Scan ten tickets from the first batch, in the light of the doorway, with the phone at the distance a steward will hold it.

The ticket is the one piece of print guaranteed to leave the venue in someone's pocket. A code on it can carry the follow-up: the survey, the photographs, the recording and the presale for the next date.

Repoint it a day after the event and the whole audience is reachable through something they already have, which is generally cheaper than any paid retargeting.