Guide · Door operations
How to scan tickets at the door without buying hardware
How to scan QR tickets at the door using only phones, with no extra hardware to buy.
You do not need to buy anything to scan tickets at the door. Any phone with a camera and a connection is the scanner. A QR ticket is an encoded ticket ID, and the scanner checks it against the platform's records in real time.
Here is how to set it up so the door runs smoothly on the night.
1. The hardware is a phone
Any phone with a working back camera and an internet connection works as a scanner. If your venue has spotty cell coverage in the door area, run a quick speed test from the spot the scanner will stand. If it is bad, ask the venue if you can get on their wifi for the night.
Some promoters buy dedicated handheld scanner hardware. For a small or mid-size show, you do not need it. The hardware costs more than a whole show's platform fees and adds a thing that can break or be forgotten in a car. Phones are fine.
2. Invite door staff as scanners
From the event dashboard, open Door scanners and invite each door staff person by email. They will get a link to sign in with their email. Once they accept, they can open the scanner on their own phone for your event.
Scanner users only see the scanner for events you invited them to. They do not see your sales data, your other events, your payouts, or any other organizer feature. They cannot refund tickets or edit anything. This is on purpose.
If a staff member loses their phone or you fire them between shows, revoke their access from the same panel.
3. Test scan before doors
Before doors open, do a real scan. Either scan one of your own comp tickets, or have a friend buy a free RSVP ticket and scan that. Then scan it a second time so the door staff see what an already-used ticket looks like.
The reason for this is not to test the scanner. The scanner works. The reason is so your door staff know what the screen looks like in each case, in advance, before they are doing it with a line of people watching.
4. Brief staff on the three scanner states
Green: valid
The ticket is real and has not been used. Let them in. If you are also doing wristbands or age checks, this is when. The buyer's name shows in the scanner result so you can confirm ID if your event requires it.
Amber: already used
Someone already scanned this ticket in, on this phone or another door phone. Each QR checks in once, and the first scan wins. The most common cause is a buyer who screenshotted their ticket and sent it to friends: the first person in used the QR, and everyone after them gets amber. The scanner shows when the code was first used and the name on the ticket.
How to handle: ask the person for their name and the email they bought under. If your dashboard shows their name on a separate order, they have their own ticket somewhere else (different email thread, different phone). If not, this is a duplicate-share attempt and they need to either pay at the door or step aside.
Train your door staff to be calm, not accusatory. Most duplicates are honest mistakes by friends sharing a flyer. A few are deliberate. Either way, the answer is the same.
Red: invalid
The QR code is not a valid ticket for this event. Common causes:
- The buyer has a ticket for a different night at the same venue.
- The QR is from a different event entirely, or is not a DIY Stubs ticket at all.
Take a moment to look at their email confirmation. If they have a valid ticket for tonight on a different screen, scan that. If they do not, they need to either buy at the door or step aside. Same calm tone.
5. Practical day-of stuff
- Power strip at the door. Running the camera and scanning for three hours straight drains phone batteries fast. A six-outlet strip and three charge cables solves it.
- Brightness up. Phone brightness on the buyer's side affects scan speed. Tell buyers to crank their screen brightness all the way up if the first scan does not catch.
- Lighting at the door. If the door area is dim, scanning is harder. A small LED light pointed downward at the scan zone makes a real difference. The bartender almost always has a clip light somewhere.
- Multiple scanners during the rush. Doors-open plus 15 minutes is the peak. Have two scanner stations running in parallel during that window if your venue is bigger than about 150.
- Walk-up sales. If you let people buy at the door, decide in advance how. The simplest setup: a tablet open to the public event page so the door staff (or a dedicated cash person) can ring up walk-ups, and the buyer gets the QR ticket on their email like any other.
Edge cases worth thinking about ahead of time
- Buyer's phone is dead. They can sometimes pull up the email on a friend's phone. If not, look them up by name or email: on the web, the event's ticket holder list is searchable and can resend their ticket to another email. The DIY Stubs Organizer iPhone app, coming to the App Store, will also let you check them in by hand from its guest list.
- Wifi or cell goes down. The browser scanner checks each code live, so it needs a connection. Print the ticket holder list sorted by name before doors, and if the connection drops, mark people off by hand and reconcile after the show. Offline scanning will come with the DIY Stubs Organizer iPhone app once it is released on the App Store.
- Group orders. One buyer with five tickets gets five QR codes in their email. Most just show all five on one phone and the scanner takes them one at a time.
- Passing a ticket to a friend. There is no transfer step that swaps the code. The QR works for whoever scans it first, so a buyer can simply send it to a friend. If they need it at a different email, resend it from the ticket holder list: it is the same single-use code, not a new one.
After the last person walks in
Open the event's ticket holder list and filter to Redeemed. It shows exactly who was checked in and who was not. Compare that to your sold count. The difference is your no-shows. Track this across shows; it is useful planning data.