Working the door

The door is the only part of your event every attendee experiences, and it is usually the part with the least planning. A slow door in the cold turns a good night into a badly run one before anyone has heard a track, and a door that loses count leaves you with no idea what actually happened.

Staff it properly

The minimum viable door is two people with separate jobs.

• Scanner. Does nothing but check tickets and admit people. Fast, repetitive, uninterrupted.
• List and money. Guest list, walk-up sales, questions, problems, anything that takes more than three seconds.

The reason to split them is that one slow interaction should never stop the queue. If one person is doing both, a single guest list dispute holds up forty people.

Above about 250 capacity, add a third person outside the door managing the queue and the last-entry line, and make sure security is briefed on your policy rather than improvising their own.

Test the technology before doors, not at doors

Every scanning setup fails in the same three ways: a dead battery, no signal, and nobody having actually used it before.

• Charge the door phone and bring a battery pack. Scanning with the screen at full brightness for four hours drains a phone fast.
• Check signal at the door position. Doorways in basements and behind thick walls are exactly where signal dies. Server-verified scanning needs a connection, so if the door has no signal, find out at 6pm and move the scanning position or get a hotspot.
• Scan a real ticket. Issue yourself one and run it through. Then check that the reversal works, because you will need it.
• Know the manual fallback. Every ticketing system worth using has a short code or a name search for screens that will not scan. On Dizko every ticket carries a short reference like DZ7K2M9QRT, and the door screen has name and code search alongside the scanner.

Handle the guest list like a real system

A guest list in a group chat is not a guest list. One source, printed and on a screen, with plus-ones written next to names and an initial showing who approved each one.

Close it. A hard cutoff the day before removes the entire category of 6pm requests, and it lets you tell the venue an accurate expected number. Anyone added after that is a decision you make on the night, in person.

Decide the refusals in advance

Whoever is on the door will face people who are too drunk, people without ID, people with a screenshot of someone else's ticket, and people who are being aggressive. They need to know the answer before it happens, and they need to know you will back them.

Write three lines into your run of show: what gets someone refused, who has the final say, and what the de-escalation move is. Then say it out loud at the door briefing.

Cash, if you take it

Count the float in front of a second person, keep it in one place, and do a mid-night drop into the safe or the office rather than accumulating a night's takings in a bag at the entrance. Reconcile against the door count before anyone goes home.

Better: take cards. A card reader at the door removes the float, the drop, the reconciliation argument and the people who walk away because there is no cash machine nearby.

Manage the queue

The queue is part of the event. Two rules keep it civil: people should be able to see it moving, and they should know what is happening. A person walking the line telling people how long it is worth more than an extra scanner most of the time.

Announce last entry clearly and post it in advance. People planning to arrive at 1:30 need to know if the door closes at 1:00.

Get the headcount right

Your door count is the input to everything: your no-show rate, your next budget, your venue negotiation, your sponsor recap. If you scan every entry, the number is automatic and you can watch it live during the night. If you are counting by hand, use a clicker and one person, not four people estimating.

Record three numbers at the end: tickets sold, people admitted, and comps used. The gap between the first two is your no-show rate, and it is the single most useful planning number you own.

The last thirty minutes

Doors do not really close. Late walk-ups, people coming back out for a cigarette, someone who lost a friend. Keep one person on the door until last entry has passed and the flow has actually stopped, and make sure re-entry policy is clear and consistent, because inconsistent re-entry is the most common source of an argument at 2am.