How a Mobile Ticket Scanner Busts Will-Call Lines

Pre-purchased tickets are often picked up at will call. Arrangements for lost or forgotten tickets are handled at will call. Even some mobile tickets get checked at will call. Inevitably, lines form — and at busy events, long ones. CodeREADr’s Lookup feature (originally introduced in 2011 as “Search and Tap”) exists to break those lines up.

The CodeREADr app rapidly scans printed and mobile tickets, but when there is no ticket to scan — a lost confirmation, a name-only reservation, a guest-list entry — staff can search the attendee database by name directly in the app and tap to check the person in, creating a scan record without a barcode. The same duplicate checking that protects scanned tickets applies to Lookup entries, so a ticket redeemed by search can’t be redeemed again at the gate.

Online search is used when real-time validation is required and the venue has good connectivity. On-device search works against a database downloaded to the device beforehand, for faster response times and for venues where internet is unavailable or unstable. Both methods check the ticket database for current status and validity.

Smartphones and tablets are easy to carry and inexpensive compared to dedicated scanning hardware and POS terminals. With just a handful of mobile devices running CodeREADr, will-call and access control staffing can be scaled to the crowd — add a device wherever a line starts forming, and every device sees the same database. For a ready-made setup, see the Scan Tickets specialized service, which combines rapid scanning, duplicate flagging, and a live attendance count with minimal configuration.