How to connect registration, booking and check-in on event and expo websites

On event and expo websites, registration, booking and check-in are often built as three separate features, and the data ends up stored three times: once in the registration form, once in the booking system, and once more in an export for on-site check-in. A sounder approach is to treat them as the same attendee data used at three moments: registration creates the record, booking deducts a session place from that record, and check-in recognizes only that one record.

When we built the website and festival systems for FIRST International Film Festival Xining, this was the chain we covered: registration before the festival, screening bookings and on-site check-in during it, plus project market meetings and a live data dashboard for the festival period. Below are the decisions to make at each stage.

Start with one record per person

What every stage shares is the attendee record. Decide first how a person is identified (mobile number, ID number or a registered account), and which roles need to be managed separately: audience, exhibitors, press, guests and volunteers, each with what they can register for, what they can book, and what gets them through the door.

Once this is settled, the three stages stop working in isolation, and reporting no longer means reconciling spreadsheets.

Registration: collect only what you will use later

Work backwards from the later stages to decide the form fields: collect what booking needs, what check-in needs and what reporting needs. Every extra field means fewer people finish the form.

Roles that require review (press, exhibitors) go through a separate approval flow, and the result is written back to the same record. After a successful registration, give people a clear confirmation and tell them when and where they can make bookings next.

Booking: deduct places by session, and publish the rules first

For screening and forum bookings, the core is capacity management: how many places each session has, how many sessions each person can book, when booking opens, and how places are released after a cancellation. Write these rules down before booking opens and show them next to the booking entry point.

When popular sessions open, traffic concentrates into a few minutes. Load-test the booking feature in advance and design the messages for queuing, failures and duplicate submissions, so users are not left refreshing the page over and over.

Check-in: one record at the door

On-site check-in has to be fast, usually by scanning a QR code or a badge. The system looks up only this person's booking for this session; if it matches, they are let in, and the time and entrance are logged. Rehearse with the on-site team before launch: what happens when the network is unstable, and how repeat entries are counted.

Check-in data is usable on the spot: attendance per session and footfall per entrance work well on a live dashboard during the event, helping the team on the ground manage the flow.

Splitting the work between the website and the mini program

Registration and event information belong on the website, where they are easy to search, share and archive. Booking and check-in, which people use heavily during the event, fit better in a mini program (a lightweight app that runs inside WeChat): users open it without downloading anything, and scanning is natural. Both share one back end and the same attendee data. For whether to start with a mini program or mobile web pages (H5), see Mini program, H5 or app: which should come first.

How to organize the website's sections so visitors can find the registration entry and session details is a question of information architecture, which we covered in How to plan a website's information architecture.

Summary

The keys to connecting registration, booking and check-in are one record per person, rules published up front, and rehearsing for peak traffic. The website handles registration and information, the mini program handles booking and on-site use, and both share one back end.

FIM has built websites and mini programs for film festivals, expos and fashion events. See more in Large-scale events.