The Customer

ORM London Opens new site is a digital agency that develops innovative business tools based on web, mobile and touch technologies. They created a tool to help event organizers efficiently check-in guests at gatherings both large and small, ranging from the UEFA Euro 2012 football championships with thousands of attendees per game to intimate, highly exclusive corporate parties hosted by brands like Roche, Monitise and Arsenal FC.

The Challenge

Traditionally, event organizers have used paper lists to manually check-in guests, a process that is both slow and prone to human error. The challenge was to increase the efficiency of guest check-in at these professional events.

The Socket Mobile Solution

ORM replaced the paper checklist with version 2.0 of Event Check-in, an application with a fully self-service element, an important feature for international event organizers who wanted regular and reliable usage from a check-in system.

Through Event Check-in, each guest can be registered with the quick press of a button or scan of their unique QR code whether printed out or emailed to the guest and displayed on their phone. The portable and pocket-sized Socket Mobile S740 barcode scanner is certified by Apple for iOS devices and connects wirelessly to an iPad via Bluetooth.

With Event Check-in’s incorporation of the Socket Mobile S740 Bluetooth barcode scanner and Apple iPads, the product has experienced dramatic growth in new markets, including Australia, Canada, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East.

The rising success of Event Check-in amongst a diverse clientele and different size events demonstrates how iPads are becoming the norm in events. It also shows how Event Check-in is an easily adaptable tool for professional event organizers. The solution is used at events with guest lists ranging from 100 to 4,000 persons.

The Results

The Socket Mobile solution improved customer service with faster check-ins and fewer errors. This contributes to a better overall event experience for guests.  Flexible software enables event organizers to configure multiple sessions per event, incorporate branding and customize other features. Security was enhanced with more detailed attendance tracking. Reporting features also make it easy for organizers to evaluate attendance data after an event.

CORPORATE EVENTS: Event Check-in has been used at many challenging events with a prestigious range of clients, including large corporations such as Thompson Reuters and Ernst & Young, as well as leading marketing and advertising agencies like Amplify and Centigrade.

Most notably, Event Check-in was used for Castrol’s VIP hospitality throughout the UEFA Euro 2012 football championships, where 2,000 QR codes, 60 iPads and 55 Socket Mobile barcode scanners were deployed at six cities in Poland and Ukraine. Guests were tracked for arrivals, transfers and departures as well as attendance at related events, outings and of course, matchday hospitality.

ORM London managed the e-ticketing for the Converse Block Party, a free underground music festival and skateboarding exhibition held in dozens of cities around the world. Event Check-in generated QR-coded e-tickets, which were emailed to competition winners to be presented on entry. Because of the robust Socket Mobile S740 barcode scanner, both printed and electronic versions were accepted at the entrance. Roughly 2,000 guests were efficiently processed.

SPORTING EVENTS: Mobile check-in technology has also made its way into the world of sports, where the easy-to-use S740 Socket Mobile barcode scanner provides a great way of tracking participants in large-scale athletic competitions.

Event Check-in’s Socket Mobile solution was used at the Nike British 10K. Roughly 20,000 runners raced past famous London landmarks including Big Ben, the EDF London Eye and St. Paul’s Cathedral to raise money for hundreds of British charities.

The mobile solution was also employed at the Thames Path Challenge, a grueling endurance challenge in the UK where more than 1,500 participants traversed 50km or 100km along the Thames River and raised funds for their favorite charities. Hosted by Action Challenge, International Challenge Event Organizers, the Thames Path Challenge printed QR codes on competitors’ race bibs, which many runners pinned to their backpacks. The QR codes were scanned not just to check in athletes, but to track each competitor at various checkpoints until they crossed the finish line. This provided a detailed breakdown of each competitor’s times and offered event organizers an accurate picture of where every individual was in the race.

Mahesh Ramachandra, Head of Product Development at ORM London, said, “Since restructuring the pricing for event organizers who use QR codes and multi-session events, we have seen a huge rise in event agencies, mainly in Europe and the U.S., incorporating Event Check-in into their operations, and using it at a variety of client events.”

For example, international marketing agency Centigrade uses Event Check-in regularly at premiere product unveilings and other events for clients such as aircraft company Flexjet and automobile manufacturers Lamborghini, Bentley, and Bugatti.

Consisting of an Apple iPad, the ORM Event Check-in application and a Socket Mobile barcode scanner, this mobile solution enables event organizers to greatly speed up guest admissions, enhance security, and quickly look up detailed guest information on the fly.