How Far Can 4,649 Invitation Tickets Be Tracked?

The short version

Across the 90 days from 2026-07-18 to 2026-10-16: 14 events held, 21,329 completed orders, 37,218 tickets issued, and 27,187 check-ins, for an attendance rate of 73.0%. Broken down by channel, invites accounted for 4,649 orders and on-site staffed box offices (POS) for 3,158. Put plainly, organizers sent out more tickets as invitations than staff sold by hand at the counter.

On the ground, invitations tend to be the tickets people fuss over most and record least. The guest list lives in a spreadsheet, the sending happens from one person's inbox, and the check-in is a paper list at the door. Three scattered records that never get merged once the event ends.

Why invitations fall out of "things we manage"

Invitations involve no payment. No payment means they aren't part of settlement, and anything outside settlement is something nobody opens at closing time. The revenue report shows paid sales only, and invitations get a single line: *this many went out*.

Yet in the flow of people through the door, an invitation carries exactly the same weight as a paid ticket. To the person standing at the entrance, taking a seat, or adding to the density inside a gallery, free and paid are indistinguishable. For a seated performance, an invitation is also a seat you can no longer sell.

When the second-largest block of issued tickets sits outside your numbers, everything downstream gets blurry. Attendance rate, audience records, the contact list for your next event announcement — all leaking from the same hole.

Tracked invitations vs. untracked ones

The difference isn't whether you hand out invitations. It's whether each invitation carries a unique identifier. Write a name in a spreadsheet and mail a paper invitation, and you know only who it went to. Whether they actually showed up has to be confirmed by hand at the door all over again.

Issue invitations as orders, and each one comes with its own QR code and recipient details. Delivery goes out through the recipient's channel, and at the entrance it's scanned on the same device, the same way as a paid ticket. That's why all 27,187 check-ins can be counted against a single standard.

• Issuing: upload the list → one code per person, with duplicates and reissues logged
• Delivery: the invitation goes out with a ticket link. Failed deliveries are recorded too
• Entry: the same scanning flow as paid tickets. No separate paper list required
• Reporting: paid and invited are separated by channel and appear in the same report

How to read a 73.0% attendance rate

The 73.0% in this 90-day set comes from 27,187 check-ins against 37,218 tickets issued. It's an all-in figure covering both paid and invited tickets, and reasons for no-shows by channel aren't part of this data. So there's no basis here for saying *they didn't come because it was free*.

What matters isn't the reason — it's whether you can ask the question at all. When invitations are tracked, you can ask the data: which invitation batch had low turnout? when did the delivery go out? should we send to this same group again? When they aren't tracked, those questions end with whatever the coordinator happens to remember.

The gap widens at venues with long run periods and finely divided invitation groups. At the Lee Ungno Museum, opening, group, and partner-institution invitations circulate constantly; at trade fairs held in exhibition halls like SETEC, organizer, exhibitor, and buyer invitations each run off a different list. Multiple lists mean somebody has to add them up by hand.

The moment an invitation becomes a record

When invitations are issued within the order system, the contact details of everyone who attended sit in the same table as paid buyers. Which means you don't have to leave out "the people who came on invitations" when you announce the next exhibition. Invited guests are usually the group most likely to return — but with no record, that list gets rebuilt from scratch every single time.

Operations get simpler too. Fewer people scanning paper lists at the door, and a reissue request takes one name search. During a stretch with 14 overlapping events, that small difference reshapes a coordinator's day.

To sum up: the goal of managing invitations isn't control. It's making the 4,649 that are already going out visible in the first place.

Frequently asked questions

Are invitations scanned the same way as paid tickets?

Same device, same flow. Invitations are also issued with a unique QR code for each ticket, so there's no need for a separate paper list at the door. In reporting, paid and invited appear together but separated by channel.

Is it normal for invite orders to outnumber on-site sales?

The figures here cover 2026-07-18 to 2026-10-16 across 14 events. In that window, invitations came to 4,649 and on-site staffed sales to 3,158, so invitations were the larger share. The ratio shifts with the nature of the event, so rather than generalizing, it's better to look at your own channel breakdown first.

Can you tell how much of the 73.0% attendance rate came from invitations?

This set is an all-in figure — 27,187 check-ins against 37,218 tickets issued — and no-show reasons by channel aren't included. That said, if invitations are issued as orders, you can open up attendance by batch separately.

What about lists already being managed in a spreadsheet?

Upload the list and move to issuing one code per person. Use the existing name and contact columns as they are, and once delivery and check-in happen inside the system, your audience records start accumulating from the next event onward.