When Walk-ins Are a No-No

At the door registrants make it difficult for your volunteers, and some venues will not accept walk-ins to their facility In the cases where a venue is adamant about its security policies, you can assure that there will not be walk-ins by not publishing the venue on your invitations and announcements.  In such cases, it is also a good idea to close registration earlier, say a day ahead of the event because you will need to send an email to all the registrants telling them where to go the day before an event.  Why the day before? So your attendees can plan and know where they are going and so you can be comfortable that they got the venue information in time.   When building security issues do not allow you to accept at-the-door registrants, you have an excuse to control attendance.   Keeping in mind that in many cases at the door registration is difficult to manage, even when a venue allows for it, it is a good policy to discourage on-site walk-in traffic by either not publishing a venue or by charging a lot more for anyone showing up at the door. Security is not the only issue that makes walk-in registration tough. On site staff or volunteers also have to work harder keeping pace with at the door registrants.