WordPress Event Ticketing

Long before we started scanning event tickets with our phones, barcodes were already shaping the modern world. Today, they are the backbone of barcode scanner ticket check-in, making the entire process fast, reliable, and consistent. The idea dates back to the late fifties when David Collins, then an undergraduate working for the Pennsylvania Railroad, noticed how slow and error-prone manual identification of railroad cars was. He moved on to MIT, earned his degree, and unknowingly kicked off a technological shift that would quietly take over the world.

Jump ahead to 1974. In an American supermarket, a pack of Wrigley’s chewing gum became the first item ever scanned with a commercial barcode. After that, barcodes spread everywhere. Today we struggle to imagine logistics, retail, medical tracking, or event ticketing without those tiny printed patterns or the now-familiar square QR code.

Formats evolved over the decades, but the core idea is unchanged. A code contains characters. A scanner reads them. A system reacts. Simple. Reliable. Fast.

At Tickera, we embraced that simplicity and expanded it with QR capabilities to create an efficient and highly reliable ticket validation system. After years of powering events of every size, we are convinced that barcode and QR scanning is still the fastest and most accurate method of checking tickets in.

Checkinera app or barcode scanner?

The Checkinera app for iOS and Android was designed to give event staff a fast way to check in attendees using the camera on their smartphone or tablet. The app connects directly to your event website, retrieves ticket data, and updates check-ins in real time.

Smartphone scanning is ideal for most events. If your check-in points are well lit and attendees arrive steadily, the built-in device camera is more than enough. Where smartphones can slow down is in low-light situations. Camera sensors need a moment to focus, and while that doesn’t matter much at small venues, when thousands of people arrive at once, a single extra second per scan can create a noticeable bottleneck which we have discussed previously here.

This is where dedicated barcode scanners step in.

The combination of mobile device + scanner creates a streamlined barcode scanner ticket check-in workflow that eliminates autofocus delays and keeps the entrance line moving smoothly. Dedicated scanners read instantly, regardless of lighting conditions. They eliminate autofocus delays entirely, which significantly improves throughput when speed is essential. Checkinera supports connecting barcode or 2D scanners directly to the mobile device running the app, either via USB cable or wirelessly through technologies such as Bluetooth. In other words, if you prefer scanning with a handheld scanner instead of the built-in camera, Checkinera is perfectly comfortable with that workflow.

Which barcode scanner do we recommend?

The question lands in our inbox constantly, and the honest answer remains the same: there is no single “best” scanner.

Barcode scanners are everywhere. The market is full of models that all do the same fundamental thing. The main difference between them is how they connect. Some scanners are wired via USB. Others are wireless or Bluetooth. Higher-end models can read 2D codes (including QR), but if you are using standard barcodes on your tickets, QR scanning capability is not required.

Functionally, once connected, the scanner behaves exactly like a keyboard. It reads the code and “types” the value into the Checkinera app for validation. The app does the rest.

One detail worth keeping in mind is the keyboard layout of the device to which the scanner is connected. Because scanners act like keyboards, the layout matters. If the layout is wrong, barcode ticket check-in results may look strange or incomplete.

What about using multiple barcode scanners on one device?

Technically, a computer or mobile device may allow more than one scanner to be connected at the same time. However, scanners behave just like keyboards, meaning all connected scanners act as a single input device. Using multiple scanners at once on a single device would be similar to having two people typing on one keyboard simultaneously. In theory, it works. In practice, you would not like the result. For speed and accuracy, one scanner per device is always the correct approach.

Can you use a generic barcode/QR scanning app instead of Checkinera?

Short answer: No.

There is nothing wrong with other scanning apps, but they only read the code. They do not know anything about your event. They do not connect to your website or validate tickets in real time. Tickera tickets aren’t just codes printed on paper. Behind every code is live data that resides on your website: ticket status, available check-ins, attendee information. Checkinera communicates with your website using the URL and an event-specific API key, which is why it can instantly confirm whether a ticket is valid.

Generic scanner apps simply cannot do that.

If reliability, speed, and real-time validation matter, Checkinera is the right tool.

Happy ticketing.