QR codes at a festival: the twelve places they go, and the one mistake that breaks them

The mistake is pointing a code at something that will change. A code on the Main Stage board that links to running-order-v3.pdf is wrong the moment an act cancels. A code on the bar that links to a menu PDF is wrong when the cider runs out. The organiser then either reprints the sign or, more often, leaves it pointing at stale information, which teaches everyone on site to stop scanning.

The fix is to point every code at a short, stable address on your own website: yourfestival.com/main-stage, /bar, /welfare. Those pages can change every hour. The code never has to. This is also what makes a permanent static code the right choice for a festival rather than an editable one on a subscription: you do the editing on your own site, where you already have the login, and the code on the board keeps working in five years' time. The difference between static and dynamic codes, if it is new to you.

If your website cannot host a handful of short pages, sort that out before ordering any signage. It is a bigger problem than QR codes.

In rough order of how much trouble they save the info tent.

1. Site map. Entrance boards, the printed programme, the wristband leaflet. Point at a map page you can update when the silent disco moves.
2. Stage boards. One code per stage, each to that stage's page with today's set times. The single biggest reducer of "what time is X on" questions.
3. Bar and food menus. Prices, allergens, what has sold out. On the bar front and the queue barriers.
4. Welfare and first aid. Where the welfare tent is, the on-site number, what to do if a friend is unwell. Put it on every toilet block, where people are on their own with their phone.
5. Lost property. A form, so the report gets made from the campsite at midnight rather than never.
6. App download or Wi-Fi. A single code that lands on the right app store for the phone scanning it, or a join code for crew Wi-Fi.
7. Feedback. Exit gates, bar, campsite noticeboard. A survey people can fill in while queueing gets ten times the responses of one emailed a week later.
8. Sponsor activations. One branded code per sponsor stand, in the sponsor's colours, pointing where their contract says. Sponsors like a scan they can see in their own analytics.
9. Traders and vendors. Each stall sign links to that trader's page. Generate them from the trader list in one batch.
10. Campsite and car park. Pitch rules, quiet hours, the shuttle timetable, when the car park opens on Monday.
11. Wristband and ticket admin. Registration, cashless top-up, the terms, on the wristband insert or the entry lane signs.
12. Next year's tickets. On the exit signs, the last bar sign, and the thank-you email. The cheapest early-bird push you will run.

A code is comfortably scanned from about ten times its own width. That single rule sizes everything.

• Wristband insert, programme, table card: 2 to 3 cm. Read in the hand.
• Bar front, stall sign, toilet block: 8 to 12 cm. Read from a metre.
• Stage board, entrance board, campsite noticeboard: 30 cm or larger. Read from three metres, over other people.
• Anything meant to be scanned from a moving queue: bigger than you think, and repeated along the barrier.

Always place the code from a vector file (SVG or PDF), sized in the artwork. Scaling a small PNG up to a board makes the edges soft, and soft edges are the main reason big codes fail in sunlight.

Three rules from the printer's side. Dark code on a pale background, always; a festival palette of teal on orange, or white on yellow, will not scan outdoors. Leave clear space around the code of at least four of its small squares on every side, and do not let artwork, borders or a logo run into that space. And put the festival logo in the middle of the code if you like, but keep it under a quarter of the code's width; larger than that and the error correction cannot make up for what the logo covers.

Gloss laminate and Correx both scan fine. Mesh banners are the one surface to test first: the holes break up small codes, so on mesh go large.

Before the artwork goes to the printer, print every code once on ordinary paper and scan each one with two different phones. Check that each opens the page you intended, not just a page. Initial the sheet. Then do it again on the first sign off the press. Every organiser who has skipped this has a story about a stage board pointing at the wrong stage.

If you order from us, the PDF contact sheet that comes with a bulk order is built for this check: every code, its label and its full destination on one page. Festival and event codes, from 30p each.