GUIDE · THE PROCESS
How event accreditation actually runs, start to finish.
Nine steps from the first spreadsheet to the last laminate back in the box. The order matters more than the tooling: most accreditation failures are a step done in the wrong week, not a step missed.
THE SHORT ANSWER
The event accreditation process runs in nine steps: agree zones, define pass types, build the access matrix, set allocations, open applications, approve and check documents, produce credentials, run the gates, then reconcile and archive. The first four happen before anyone applies, and skipping them is the single most common cause of a chaotic pass office.
IN ORDER
- 01
Agree the zones
Walk the site plan and name every area access needs to be controlled into: front of house, backstage, arena, production compound, catering, campsite, roof, pit. Zones are places, not people. If you cannot point at a zone on a map, it is a pass type in disguise.
- 02
Define the pass types
Name the categories of person: crew, contractor, artist, artist guest, media, supplier, VIP, staff, volunteer, vehicle. Each pass type carries rules; individuals inherit them. Ten to twenty pass types covers most events. Forty means two of them are the same thing with different names.
- 03
Build the access matrix
Pass types down the side, zones across the top. Tick the cells. This grid is the entire accreditation policy in one artefact, and it is what a gate steward is really enforcing at three in the morning. Get it signed off by whoever carries the security responsibility, and date the sign-off.
- 04
Set allocations
Decide how many passes each supplier, department and artist party gets, before anyone asks. An allocation is a budget: it converts an unbounded negotiation into a number a supplier manages themselves. Leave a named contingency, and make it visibly smaller than everyone thinks.
- 05
Open applications
Send each group a form that only offers the pass types they are eligible for, with the deadline on it. Collect what you will actually check: legal name, photo, company, role, dates on site, vehicle registration, and any documents the zone requires. Every field you add is a field somebody has to chase.
- 06
Approve, and check the documents
Approval is a decision by a named person, not a rubber stamp. Route each application to whoever genuinely owns that call, check the documents that matter for the zone requested, and record the decision with the reason. Rejections need a reason too, because you will be asked about one of them later.
- 07
Produce the credentials
Print, encode or issue: wristbands, laminates, stickers, digital passes. Serial ranges tie a physical pass to a person or an allocation, which is what turns a found laminate into a name. Whatever you print is a snapshot, so record what changed after print day and reissue deliberately.
- 08
Run the gates
Gate sheets, scanners or both. The sheet a steward reads must match the matrix that was signed off, and the deny reasons need to be legible enough that a radio call takes ten seconds. Expect connectivity to fail somewhere on site and plan for the lane to keep moving when it does.
- 09
Reconcile and archive
Count the passes back, mark the ones that never returned, and export the record: who was accredited, who scanned in, what changed and who approved it. That export is your debrief, your licensing evidence and next year's starting point in one file.
Why the order is the whole job
Accreditation goes wrong in a predictable way. Applications open before anyone has agreed what the zones are, so the form asks people to choose an access level that does not exist yet. By the time the zones are settled, four hundred people hold a pass type that no longer matches the site, and someone spends a weekend reissuing.
Doing the four setup steps first costs an afternoon. Doing them after applications open costs a weekend, and the weekend is usually the one before the show.
Who owns which step
On a small event one person owns all nine. On a large one the split is usually: production owns zones and pass types, security owns the matrix sign-off, accreditation owns applications and approvals, and the gate manager owns the last two steps. Name the owner per step before you start, because the expensive arguments are all about who was allowed to say yes.
The bit almost everyone underestimates
Reconciliation. When the show is over there is a box of returned laminates, a list of passes that never came back, and a question from your client or your licensing authority about who was on site. If the answer lives in three spreadsheets and a WhatsApp thread, that is a day of work you did not budget for, and the answer is a guess.
Build the reconciliation step into the process at the start, not at the end. It is the only step that gets harder the longer you leave it.
Written from running accreditation on live events, and generalised so it is useful whatever you run it on. Last reviewed: 19 August 2026.
QUESTIONS THIS PAGE GETS ASKED
When should accreditation open?
For a festival, six to eight weeks before build starts, with a hard deadline two weeks before. For a single show in a venue, the week of. The deadline matters more than the open date: an open date with no deadline means everything arrives in the last forty eight hours.
Who should approve accreditation applications?
Whoever carries the consequence of getting it wrong. In practice that is the head of department for their own crew, the production manager for contractors, and the security lead for anything touching a restricted zone. The accreditation team routes and records the decision rather than making it.
What is the difference between accreditation and ticketing?
Ticketing sells entry to the event. Accreditation grants working access to areas of it, usually to people who are not paying, and it carries checks a ticket never does: documents, approvals, zone rights and an audit trail. The two lists are different lists, and merging them is how backstage ends up full.
How far in advance should the access matrix be signed off?
Before applications open, which for most events means eight weeks out. The matrix determines what the application form can offer, so building the form first and the matrix second guarantees a round of reissues.