QR codes for event and conference apps
An event app is only useful if people install it before the first session. You get a few moments of attention — at registration, on the badge, on the first slide — and one code has to work for every phone in the room.
The moments that count
- Confirmation email: a link, not a code — it opens the right store on the phone that reads it.
- Badge and lanyard: a code people carry all day.
- Posters at registration and in the halls: scanned in the queue, when people have time.
- The opening slide: one large code, on screen long enough for a room to scan it.
Why one code, not two
Two codes next to each other — one for iPhone, one for Android — make every attendee stop and choose, and some scan the wrong one. A single code that routes by device is simpler to design and impossible to get wrong. Huawei phones go to AppGallery, and attendees on a laptop get your event website.
Before, during and after
- Before: while the app is in review, point the link’s iPhone destination at your TestFlight public link or at your event website. Print the code. When the app goes live, change the destination — the printed badges keep working.
- During: watch scans by day. A spike after the keynote and nothing on day two tells you where to put the next reminder.
- After: point the link at next year’s registration page or a recording, or pause it. A paused link shows a clear page instead of an error.
Knowing what worked
Give the badge, the posters and the slide their own links and codes, and compare scans afterwards. With store campaign attribution on, where your plan includes it, App Store Connect and Google Play Console show installs per link. Organisers who run several events a year can keep one team per event or per client.
Practical notes
- A code on a slide needs to be large: a quarter of the screen height is a good minimum for the back of a hall.
- Conference Wi-Fi is often slow. A link that goes straight to the store, with no page in between, loads faster than one that renders a chooser.
- Attendees scanning inside Instagram or Telegram see a prompt to open the link properly, instead of a blank in-app browser.
SetLinks does not check people in, sell tickets or run the agenda. It gets them from a printed code to the right store, and shows you how many did.