[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":158},["ShallowReactive",2],{"marketing-blog-blog\u002Fgroup-and-household-check-in-handled":3,"marketing-blog-related-blog\u002Fgroup-and-household-check-in-handled":138},{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"body":7,"category":117,"date":118,"description":119,"draft":120,"extension":121,"image":122,"imageAlt":123,"imageCredit":124,"imageCreditUrl":125,"meta":126,"navigation":127,"path":128,"readTime":129,"seo":130,"stem":131,"tags":132,"__hash__":137},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fgroup-and-household-check-in-handled.md","Group and household check-in, handled","The CheckInHub team",{"type":8,"value":9,"toc":106},"minimark",[10,14,17,22,25,28,34,37,41,44,61,64,68,71,80,83,88,96,100,103],[11,12,13],"p",{},"Most check-in advice quietly assumes one person, one ticket, one scan.\nReal doors are messier than that. A parent registers the whole family\nunder their own email. A team lead books six places for the away day. One\nguest holds the tickets for a table of eight and arrives twenty minutes\nbefore anyone else. The moment your guest list pretends everyone arrives\nalone, the queue starts to back up the instant a group reaches the front.",[11,15,16],{},"Handling groups well is not a clever feature you bolt on at the end. It is\na decision you make at registration, weeks before the door, about how\npeople who belong together are stored and how they come apart again on the\nnight.",[18,19,21],"h2",{"id":20},"decide-what-a-group-is-before-the-door","Decide what a group is before the door",[11,23,24],{},"The first question is structural. When someone books for several people,\nare you capturing each guest by name, or just a headcount under one\nbooker? The answer shapes everything that follows.",[11,26,27],{},"Capturing each guest by name costs the booker a little more effort up\nfront and gives you far more control at the door. You can check people in\nindividually, hand out the right named pass to each one, and know exactly\nwho actually turned up rather than who was booked for. Capturing only a\nheadcount is faster to register and weaker everywhere else: you cannot\ntell whether four of the six came, and you cannot give anyone a personal\npass.",[29,30,31],"blockquote",{},[11,32,33],{},"A group booking is not one big guest. It is several guests who happen\nto share a checkout. Store them that way and the door stays simple.",[11,35,36],{},"There is a middle path that works well for households and informal teams:\ncapture the lead by name and let them add the rest as they go, with named\nslots they can fill in later. The lead gets a single confirmation that\ncovers everyone, and you still get individual records underneath.",[18,38,40],{"id":39},"two-ways-a-group-reaches-the-front","Two ways a group reaches the front",[11,42,43],{},"On the night, every group arrives in one of two shapes, and a good\ncheck-in handles both without the steward having to think.",[45,46,47,55],"ul",{},[48,49,50,54],"li",{},[51,52,53],"strong",{},"All together."," The whole table walks up at once. The fast path here\nis to find the booking, check everyone in with one action, and hand out\nthe passes in a small stack. One scan, one moment, six people moving.",[48,56,57,60],{},[51,58,59],{},"Drip-fed."," The booker arrives first, the rest trail in over the next\nhalf hour. Here you need to check in part of a group and leave the rest\nopen, so that when the others arrive under the same booking, the\nsteward can find them and mark them in without re-doing the whole thing.",[11,62,63],{},"The failure mode is a system that only does the first shape. It checks in\nthe booker, marks the whole group present, and then has no clean way to\ndeal with the four who turn up later — or worse, shows them as already\narrived when they are still on the train.",[18,65,67],{"id":66},"keeping-the-count-honest","Keeping the count honest",[11,69,70],{},"Groups are where attendance counts quietly go wrong. If you mark a whole\nbooking present the moment the lead scans, your live number is now\nfiction, and every safety and catering decision that leans on it inherits\nthe error. The number on the screen should reflect bodies in the room,\nnot bookings opened.",[11,72,73,74,79],{},"The discipline is to check people in as they actually arrive, even within\na group, so the running total stays true. This matters most when the\ncount is doing real work — re-entry, capacity limits, a fire figure the\nvenue will ask for. We have written more on\n",[75,76,78],"a",{"href":77},"\u002Fblog\u002Fcounting-people-in-and-trusting-the-number","counting people in and trusting the number",",\nand groups are exactly where that trust is won or lost.",[11,81,82],{},"With CheckInHub the average check-in sits at around eight seconds whether\nit is one guest or one of six, because the slow part is never the scan. It\nis the steward working out what to do with a half-arrived family. Take\nthat decision off them and the group melts through the door like anyone\nelse.",[84,85,87],"h3",{"id":86},"a-note-on-passes-and-names","A note on passes and names",[11,89,90,91,95],{},"When a group is named individually, each person can carry their own pass,\nwhich matters more than it looks. A named pass means re-entry works for\neach guest on their own, a lost pass can be re-issued to the right person,\nand a session that needs to know who is in the room actually knows. A\nsingle shared pass for a table of eight collapses all of that into one\npoint of failure — lose it, and the whole table is locked out. If you\nwant to go deeper on the lost-pass problem, see\n",[75,92,94],{"href":93},"\u002Fblog\u002Fre-issuing-a-lost-or-forwarded-pass-safely","re-issuing a lost or forwarded pass safely",".",[18,97,99],{"id":98},"where-group-check-in-earns-its-keep","Where group check-in earns its keep",[11,101,102],{},"The events that lean hardest on this are the family-shaped and\nteam-shaped ones: school fairs, club open days, corporate away days,\ncommunity fundraisers. These are the rooms where almost nobody arrives\nalone and the booker-to-guest ratio is high. A check-in built only for\nsolo arrivals turns every one of those into a small negotiation at the\nfront of the queue.",[11,104,105],{},"The fix is unglamorous. Decide at registration whether you are storing\nnames or headcounts. Make sure your door can check in part of a group and\ncome back for the rest. Keep the count tied to arrivals rather than\nbookings. Do those three things and the group that turns up six-strong, or\nthe household that drips in across half an hour, stops being the thing\nthat holds up everyone behind them. They just arrive, get found, and go\nin.",{"title":107,"searchDepth":108,"depth":108,"links":109},"",2,[110,111,112,116],{"id":20,"depth":108,"text":21},{"id":39,"depth":108,"text":40},{"id":66,"depth":108,"text":67,"children":113},[114],{"id":86,"depth":115,"text":87},3,{"id":98,"depth":108,"text":99},"Registration & check-in","2024-02-23","One person books for six and turns up first. Here is how to check in families, teams and tables without breaking the queue behind them.",false,"md","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1569496736555-47c448d556f7?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop","Two stewards in reflective vests","K. Mitch Hodge","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@kmitchhodge?utm_source=checkinhub&utm_medium=referral",{},true,"\u002Fblog\u002Fgroup-and-household-check-in-handled",5,{"title":5,"description":119},"blog\u002Fgroup-and-household-check-in-handled",[133,134,135,136],"registration","check-in","guest list","groups","ExvvyByl4-By47847jyNMFJeuuxAoAn8Ln9ddUqDdm8",[139,146,152],{"to":140,"title":141,"description":142,"date":143,"category":117,"image":144,"readTime":145},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhen-a-guest-sends-someone-else-instead","When a guest sends someone else instead","A registered guest cannot make it and is sending a colleague. Here is how to transfer the place cleanly, so the badge, the pass and the headcount all still agree.","2026-08-11","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1704269523788-f2bb9885e583?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop",6,{"to":147,"title":148,"description":149,"date":150,"category":117,"image":151,"readTime":145},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhat-to-watch-while-the-doors-are-open","What to watch while the doors are open","The registration total is the number everyone stares at on the morning, and it is the least useful one once people start arriving. Here is what the live view is actually for, and the handful of things worth checking every ten minutes.","2026-08-07","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1785123059195-13accd32839b?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop",{"to":153,"title":154,"description":155,"date":156,"category":117,"image":157,"readTime":145},"\u002Fblog\u002Fcancellations-and-a-waitlist-that-works","The place that comes free: cancellations and a waitlist that works","A full registration list is not a full room. A waitlist turns the places that come back into seats somebody else wanted, but only if you make cancelling easy and release the places early enough to be acted on.","2026-08-06","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1507878866276-a947ef722fee?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop",1787334033393]