[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":168},["ShallowReactive",2],{"marketing-blog-blog\u002Fcharging-and-cabling-at-the-door-sorted":3,"marketing-blog-related-blog\u002Fcharging-and-cabling-at-the-door-sorted":150},{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"body":7,"category":130,"date":131,"description":132,"draft":133,"extension":134,"image":135,"imageAlt":136,"imageCredit":137,"imageCreditUrl":138,"meta":139,"navigation":140,"path":141,"readTime":142,"seo":143,"stem":144,"tags":145,"__hash__":149},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fcharging-and-cabling-at-the-door-sorted.md","Charging and cabling at the door, sorted","The CheckInHub team",{"type":8,"value":9,"toc":121},"minimark",[10,14,17,22,25,28,31,47,51,54,57,63,67,70,87,96,100,103,111,115,118],[11,12,13],"p",{},"You can have the best check-in software in the world and still lose the door to a flat tablet. Power is the least glamorous part of a front-of-house setup and the part that fails most quietly. A device that was at 80 per cent when doors opened is at 12 per cent two hours later, nobody noticed it draining, and now you are checking people in on a phone while it charges in a cupboard. Cabling is the same story from the other direction: a loose cable, a tripped extension, a charger that walked off with a member of crew.",[11,15,16],{},"None of this is hard to solve. It just has to be solved before the event rather than during it, because the door is the one place you cannot pause to sort out power. A little planning here buys you a setup that runs all night without anyone thinking about it.",[18,19,21],"h2",{"id":20},"work-out-your-real-power-budget","Work out your real power budget",[11,23,24],{},"Start by listing everything at the door that needs power and how long it has to last. Tablets and phones for scanning. The kiosk, if you have one. A printer for spare passes. A card reader, maybe. Lighting, if the entrance is dim. Each of these has a battery life or a draw, and the question is simple: will it last from setup through to the last arrival, with the safety margin you need.",[11,26,27],{},"Be honest about the margin. A tablet rated for eight hours of light use will not give you eight hours running a bright screen, scanning continuously and connected to wifi. Plan for a good deal less than the spec sheet, and plan for the setup time before doors as well as the event itself. The device has often been on for an hour before the first guest arrives.",[11,29,30],{},"A short checklist for the power audit:",[32,33,34,38,41,44],"ul",{},[35,36,37],"li",{},"List every powered item at the door and its realistic runtime.",[35,39,40],{},"Add the setup hours to the event hours when you check it lasts.",[35,42,43],{},"Decide which items run on mains and which on battery.",[35,45,46],{},"Identify the one or two items you cannot afford to lose, and give them a backup.",[18,48,50],{"id":49},"mains-where-you-can-battery-where-you-must","Mains where you can, battery where you must",[11,52,53],{},"The reliable default is mains power for anything that has to last the whole event: kiosks, printers, the main check-in tablets if they are in a fixed position. Battery is for the things that move, the roaming scanner walking a queue or checking a second entrance. Trying to run a fixed, all-night device on battery alone is asking for the 12-per-cent moment.",[11,55,56],{},"Where you do run on mains, the cabling becomes the risk. A trailing cable across a walkway is both a trip hazard and a single point of failure, since one person catching it can pull the power on your whole door. Route cables along edges, tape them down, and keep them out of the line people walk. The tidiest doors run their power around the perimeter and bring it in to each station, rather than stringing it across open floor.",[58,59,60],"blockquote",{},[11,61,62],{},"The cable nobody taped down is the one that gets kicked, and it always gets kicked at the busiest moment.",[18,64,66],{"id":65},"a-small-kit-that-prevents-most-power-failures","A small kit that prevents most power failures",[11,68,69],{},"You do not need a generator. You need a modest, deliberate kit that covers the common failures. The contents that earn their place:",[32,71,72,75,78,81,84],{},[35,73,74],{},"A couple of power banks, charged, for the roaming devices.",[35,76,77],{},"A spare charger for every device type, kept at the desk, not in someone's bag.",[35,79,80],{},"An extension lead with enough sockets, plus one more than you think you need.",[35,82,83],{},"Cable tape and a few cable ties.",[35,85,86],{},"One fully charged spare device, ready to swap in.",[11,88,89,90,95],{},"That spare device is the quiet hero of the list. When a tablet does die despite your planning, a charged spare means the door swaps it out in seconds rather than improvising. This is part of a broader point about what to carry, which we cover in ",[91,92,94],"a",{"href":93},"\u002Fblog\u002Fspares-what-to-carry-and-what-to-skip","spares: what to carry and what to skip",".",[18,97,99],{"id":98},"loaning-kit-out-and-getting-it-back","Loaning kit out, and getting it back",[11,101,102],{},"If your scanners, power banks or tablets are loaned to crew or moved between entrances, the power question becomes a tracking question. A power bank that left with the door team at the second entrance is no use to you if you cannot find it, and a borrowed charger has a way of disappearing into a bag at the end of the night. Knowing who has what, and against whom, turns a vague pile of kit into something you can actually account for.",[11,104,105,106,110],{},"This is where treating door hardware as loaned equipment, with a record of who took what, pays off. It is the same discipline whether you are loaning a scanner for the evening or a whole kit bag for a multi-day event. We go into the mechanics in ",[91,107,109],{"href":108},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwho-has-the-radio-equipment-loans-solved","who has the radio, equipment loans solved",", and the principle is that kit you can track is kit you get back.",[18,112,114],{"id":113},"build-the-door-so-power-is-boring","Build the door so power is boring",[11,116,117],{},"The goal with power and cabling is for nobody to think about it all night. That happens when the fixed devices are on mains, the moving ones have charged banks, the spares are at the desk, the cables are taped to the edges, and one person has glanced at the battery levels every so often rather than discovering them at 12 per cent. None of it is clever. All of it is the difference between a door that runs itself and a door that has a small crisis halfway through the evening.",[11,119,120],{},"The software at your door will quietly read passes at around eight seconds a person all night long, but only if the thing it runs on stays alive. Sort the power and the cabling before doors, keep a sensible kit of spares, track anything you loan out, and the least glamorous part of your setup becomes the part you never have to think about again.",{"title":122,"searchDepth":123,"depth":123,"links":124},"",2,[125,126,127,128,129],{"id":20,"depth":123,"text":21},{"id":49,"depth":123,"text":50},{"id":65,"depth":123,"text":66},{"id":98,"depth":123,"text":99},{"id":113,"depth":123,"text":114},"Equipment & loans","2024-08-23","Flat batteries and trailing cables undo a good door faster than any software fault. Here is how to power a check-in point that lasts the night.",false,"md","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1769029269011-b32f787c288c?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop","A person holding a blank white ID badge","Sasun Bughdaryan","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@sasun1990?utm_source=checkinhub&utm_medium=referral",{},true,"\u002Fblog\u002Fcharging-and-cabling-at-the-door-sorted",6,{"title":5,"description":132},"blog\u002Fcharging-and-cabling-at-the-door-sorted",[146,147,148],"equipment","loans","hardware","tPyRm7iaN44ykFG88CKRqf89IG9-LvfUPuK83gz_hHk",[151,157,162],{"to":152,"title":153,"description":154,"date":155,"category":130,"image":156,"readTime":142},"\u002Fblog\u002Floaning-kit-against-a-guest-not-a-hope","Loaning kit against a guest, not a hope","Lending event kit on trust means chasing it later. Tie every loan to a checked-in guest and a return time, and the kit comes back on its own.","2026-05-22","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1608222351212-18fe0ec7b13b?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop",{"to":108,"title":158,"description":159,"date":160,"category":130,"image":161,"readTime":142},"Who has the radio: equipment loans, solved","Radios, scanners and lanyards walk off every event. Treating equipment as loans against named people turns the end-of-day hunt into a checklist.","2026-04-03","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1669101602104-bfa264a17cce?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop",{"to":163,"title":164,"description":165,"date":166,"category":130,"image":167,"readTime":142},"\u002Fblog\u002Ftracking-loaned-scanners-across-a-multi-day-event","Tracking loaned scanners across a multi-day event","Over three days, kit walks. Here is how to track loaned scanners against the crew who hold them, so nothing goes missing on the last get-out.","2026-03-27","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1758543102397-e14b5dfdd8bd?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop",1787334029966]