Event Management System
Event Planning & Ticketing
The Problem
Student organizations at ESI-SBA needed a simple way to manage event sign-ups without relying on Google Forms. They wanted registration tracking, attendance verification, and a way to limit capacity.
My Approach
- 1Interviewed student club leaders to understand their actual needs (not just assumed requirements)
- 2Built role-based access: organizers create events, students register, admins verify attendance
- 3Implemented QR code generation for tickets—scannable at event entrance for quick check-in
- 4Created a dashboard showing registration stats, attendance rates, and waitlist management
What It Looks Like
Technical Decisions
Manual name lookup is slow and error-prone. QR codes can be scanned in seconds and automatically update attendance in real-time.
Event data is more document-like—each event has different custom fields. MongoDB's flexibility fit better here. Also wanted to learn both SQL and NoSQL.
Could have done client-side validation but that's easy to bypass. Server validation ensures only valid tickets are accepted.
Tradeoffs & Limitations
Every project has constraints. Here's what I chose not to build and why:
- No payment integration—all events are free. Would need Stripe or similar for paid events
- Single-use QR codes—can't handle scenarios where someone needs to re-enter an event
- No calendar integration—users have to manually add events to their calendars
Outcome
Deployed for a few ESI-SBA events. Processed 200+ registrations across 3 events. The QR check-in reduced entrance wait times significantly compared to the previous name-list approach.
What I Learned
- User research actually matters—initial assumptions about features were wrong
- Security in QR systems: learned about replay attacks and why single-use tokens are important
- Real deployment issues: CORS, environment variables, database connection limits