[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":143},["ShallowReactive",2],{"marketing-blog-blog\u002Fsplitting-the-door-into-lanes-when-the-queue-builds":3,"marketing-blog-related-blog\u002Fsplitting-the-door-into-lanes-when-the-queue-builds":124},{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"body":7,"category":102,"date":103,"description":104,"draft":105,"extension":106,"image":107,"imageAlt":108,"imageCredit":109,"imageCreditUrl":110,"meta":111,"navigation":112,"path":113,"readTime":114,"seo":115,"stem":116,"tags":117,"__hash__":123},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fsplitting-the-door-into-lanes-when-the-queue-builds.md","Splitting the door into lanes when the queue builds","The CheckInHub team",{"type":8,"value":9,"toc":94},"minimark",[10,14,17,22,25,28,37,44,48,51,58,62,65,77,84,88,91],[11,12,13],"p",{},"Most doors are built for the average minute and then fall over in the busy one. For an hour either side of the start time, arrivals do not trickle, they surge, and a single line that coped fine at half past nine becomes a forty person queue at ten. The instinct is to add another person to the same desk. The better move is usually to stop running one queue at all.",[11,15,16],{},"Splitting the door into lanes is the oldest trick in front of house, and it still works because it sorts the fast arrivals from the slow ones. A guest with a pass ready to scan does not belong behind a walk-up who needs registering from scratch. Put them in the same line and the quick one waits on the slow one. Put them in separate lanes and each moves at its own pace.",[18,19,21],"h2",{"id":20},"sort-by-how-much-work-the-arrival-needs","Sort by how much work the arrival needs",[11,23,24],{},"The useful way to divide a door is not by ticket price or seniority, it is by how long each person takes to process. Three broad lanes cover almost every event.",[11,26,27],{},"The scan lane is for the majority: pre-registered guests with a pass on their phone. This is the eight second path, a code read and a badge in hand, and it should be the widest lane you run. Most of your crowd lives here, so give it the most positions.",[11,29,30,31,36],{},"The help lane is for anyone who needs more than a scan. A walk-up with no registration, a name that will not come up, a group booked under one person, a guest who needs their pass reissued. These take a minute or two each, and that is fine as long as they are not holding up the scan lane behind them. We wrote about the walk-up side of this in ",[32,33,35],"a",{"href":34},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwalk-up-registration-without-the-chaos","walk-up registration without the chaos",".",[11,38,39,40,36],{},"The self-service lane is the one that runs itself. A tablet on a stand lets confident, pre-registered guests check themselves in while your crew works the other two lanes. One kiosk quietly absorbs a steady stream of straightforward arrivals, and it costs you no staff to keep open. We made the fuller case in ",[32,41,43],{"href":42},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhen-self-check-in-kiosks-pay-off","when self check-in kiosks pay off",[18,45,47],{"id":46},"signpost-the-lanes-before-anyone-joins-the-wrong-one","Signpost the lanes before anyone joins the wrong one",[11,49,50],{},"A lane only helps if people pick the right one before they are stuck in it. A guest who queues for ten minutes in the scan lane only to be sent to the help lane has had the worst of both. Two clear signs at the head of the queue, read from a distance, do most of the work: one that says have your pass ready, one that says need to register or need a hand. A crew member walking the front of the line to split people early is worth more than a fourth desk position.",[11,52,53,54,36],{},"VIPs and speakers are their own quiet case. They rarely want a velvet rope, but they do want to not queue, so a discreet lane staffed by someone who knows the guest of honour on sight keeps them moving without a fuss. We covered the etiquette of that in ",[32,55,57],{"href":56},"\u002Fblog\u002Fhandling-vips-and-latecomers-at-the-door","handling VIPs and latecomers at the door",[18,59,61],{"id":60},"give-each-lane-its-own-login-not-its-own-list","Give each lane its own login, not its own list",[11,63,64],{},"Here is where a lot of split doors come undone. The moment you run three or four lanes, you have three or four people all checking guests in at once, and they cannot each work from a copy of the list. Two crew mark the same person in from different desks, or someone checks in against this morning's export and misses the guest who registered last night. The queue looks fast and the count goes wrong.",[11,66,67,68,72,73,36],{},"The fix is that every lane reads and writes the same live record. Each crew member gets their own login on their own device, and every scan lands in one shared count the instant it happens. Nobody works from a stale list, because there is no list to go stale, only the live data. We pulled that apart in ",[32,69,71],{"href":70},"\u002Fblog\u002Fgiving-crew-their-own-lanes-and-logins","giving crew their own lanes and logins",", and the reason it matters for the number is in ",[32,74,76],{"href":75},"\u002Fblog\u002Fcounting-people-in-and-trusting-the-number","counting people in, and trusting the number",[11,78,79,80,36],{},"Groups deserve a word here too. A household or a company block booked under one name can either sail through one gate together or jam a lane while someone works out who is actually here. Handling the group as a group, rather than five separate lookups, is what keeps that lane flowing, which we walked through in ",[32,81,83],{"href":82},"\u002Fblog\u002Fmoving-a-group-through-a-single-gate","moving a group through a single gate",[18,85,87],{"id":86},"collapse-the-lanes-as-the-rush-fades","Collapse the lanes as the rush fades",[11,89,90],{},"Lanes are a response to volume, not a permanent fixture. Once the surge passes and arrivals go back to a trickle, three half-idle lanes are just crew standing around. Fold them back into one as the queue thins, move a person off the door to help inside, and leave the kiosk running to catch the stragglers. The point of splitting the door was never to look busy, it was to get a full room inside without anyone feeling the wait. When the wait is gone, so is the reason for the lanes.",[11,92,93],{},"CheckInHub is built for exactly this shape of door: many crew, many lanes, many devices, and one honest count underneath all of it. It has checked in more than 125 000 guests that way, most of them in about eight seconds, and none of them from a spreadsheet. Split the door when the queue builds, keep every lane reading the same live record, and the busiest ten minutes of your event stop being the ones you dread.",{"title":95,"searchDepth":96,"depth":96,"links":97},"",2,[98,99,100,101],{"id":20,"depth":96,"text":21},{"id":46,"depth":96,"text":47},{"id":60,"depth":96,"text":61},{"id":86,"depth":96,"text":87},"Registration & check-in","2026-07-06","One long line at the front door is the slowest way to get a full room inside. Sorting arrivals into a few clear lanes keeps everyone moving and the count honest. Here is how to split the door without splitting your crew's attention.",false,"md","https:\u002F\u002Fimages.unsplash.com\u002Fphoto-1712903276943-71d12d1696a7?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop","Attendees arriving at an event registration desk","Unsplash","https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002Fs\u002Fphotos\u002Fevent-registration",{},true,"\u002Fblog\u002Fsplitting-the-door-into-lanes-when-the-queue-builds",6,{"title":5,"description":104},"blog\u002Fsplitting-the-door-into-lanes-when-the-queue-builds",[118,119,120,121,122],"registration","check-in","front of house","queue","crew","sesOAjEKyFcP6OzQOHFOUvEBqarKrlXCt7gm0qFcAjw",[125,131,137],{"to":126,"title":127,"description":128,"date":129,"category":102,"image":130,"readTime":114},"\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",{"to":132,"title":133,"description":134,"date":135,"category":102,"image":136,"readTime":114},"\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":138,"title":139,"description":140,"date":141,"category":102,"image":142,"readTime":114},"\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",1787334027061]