What Goes Into A Meeting -- On Site Registration and Check In

Welcome to Planners' Pointers! 

One of the considerations in planning your event is at door registration and check in.

 At door registration is also called on site registration and is defined as the  process of signing up for an event on the day of, or at the site of, the event (Convention Industry Council).

Check in sort of defines itself as if you have pre-registered, giving your name to the registration people and picking up your materials, name badge.    

How do you plan for attendees registering at the door? The guideline is one person for 50 attendees at the busiest time. If you have done this event before, then  post event evaluations will tell you that long registration lines were a problem.  If you haven't done the event before, have more registration people available. Better you not need them then to have long lines of people waiting to check in or register.

How do you control the registration area?  The easiest way seem to be to have one area for those who have pre-registered and those who will do at door or on site registration.  Those who have pre-registered will probably spend less than half the time checking in as those who did pre-register so you will need fewer people to work in the pre-reg area.  Having several people working in the on site area to take registration information and money will decrease wait time.  Technology is making on-site registration more efficient and easier.  Cvent, among other on-line registration companies, has a program that says that all you need is a computer and you can set up a registration kiosk that will handle both those who have pre-registered and those who do on-site registration.  The program will even print name badges with bar codes.

 Making sure that registration is pleasant and quick will be the best first impression an attendee will have and may set the tone for the rest of the event.

Planners Pointers is a blog and talk cast to help beginning event planners with their event planning share ideas on planning better events, books to read and websites to discover. Planner's Pointers is written by  Mary Pam Kilgore, CMP,  of Kilgore Business Services.  You may reach me through my website www.kilgorebusiness.com  You can find podcasts of Planner's Pointers at http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/73353