We want you to succeed

Whether or not you're using our equipment or your own equipment, we want you to have a successful convention. (After all, we attend conventions and want to have a good time too!). Here is a collection of best practices and instructions for how to run a smooth and fast and fun convention.

Make registration seemless

The key takeaways here are:

  • Have good signage
  • Automate as much as you can
  • Practice and prepare for the worst

Have good signage

Think about how someone brand new to your convention might find their way around without a map.

  • Try to have posters or signs that include arrows pointing towards all major areas (con-ops, registration, swag/dealers area, and main events)
  • Make sure those signs are visible from all entrances to your hotel or convention space, and one sign can be seen from the other
  • If your convention space does not allow placing signs, try to have a volunteer posted with an easily recognizable brightly colored vest that can direct people where to go.

And have good lines

When it comes to lines, you should follow the telephone line (sometimes called a serpentine line) approach. That is, have a single long line of all attendees. Then your registration/con-ops/etc stations can all equally pick from the single line. We strongly advice against grocery store lines, and the research agrees.

  • Mark out the location of lines on the floor with either stantions or tape
  • Have a "line ends here" sign for the end of long lines

Automate as much as you can

We strongly recommend you integrate with convention registration software like Concat. This will help you blah blah blah. I've been at this for hours. I can't type much more.

A great standardized flow to smooth registration is

  1. Make sure attendees have their ID cards out and ready while they wait in line
  2. Scan the ID card with an automated imager or barcode scanner
  3. Double check that the name pulled up matches the name on the card
  4. Click print for your badge label
  5. Flip the table

Practice and prepare for the worst

All of this should ideally take less than 30 seconds! If you have 8 registration stations, that means you can process almost 1000 attendees per hour!

Oh god, I'm really running out of steam here. content is hard. someone else take over, please~