Blog · Ticket sales
Static or dynamic QR codes for tickets: what actually changes
Dynamic QR codes are marketed as the secure choice, but they solve exactly one problem — and bring a few of their own to the door. Here is when they pay off, and when they just add friction.
Anyone setting up online ticket sales and QR check-in for an event hits the same question early: should each attendee's code be fixed, or should it rotate every few seconds like the code in a banking app?
The short answer: the dynamic QR solves a single problem — and not every event has that problem.
The problem a dynamic QR solves
A static QR code can be screenshotted and forwarded. Someone buys one ticket, sends the capture to five friends over chat, and six people turn up at the door with the same code.
A dynamic QR expires within seconds, so a screenshot is worthless by the time it reaches the entrance.
The problems it creates
It requires the attendee to have the app — and battery. A code that regenerates needs a working device. The printed PDF stops being valid, and there is always someone who arrives with a paper ticket.
It requires connectivity at the door, or synchronised clocks. Validating something that changes over time forces both sides to agree on what time it is.
It complicates access for guests and press, who usually receive their badge by email the day before.
The alternative that is almost always enough
At most events the real fraud is not the copy itself — it is the copy that gets in twice. And that is solved without a dynamic QR:
Duplicate-scan control. The first person through the door gets in; the second scan of the same code is flagged. Whoever forwarded their ticket discovers it only works once.
An on-screen duplicate alert, so the scanner user at the door decides: sometimes it is a parent showing their child's QR, and that deserves to be told apart from someone trying to sneak in.
Named tickets, when the capacity justifies it: the code carries an attendee name, and it is checked at the door.
With those three in place, forwarding a ticket stops paying off — without forcing anyone to install anything.
When a dynamic QR is worth it
- Large capacities with an active resale market, where fraud has real money behind it.
- Venues with automatic turnstiles and no member of staff to resolve incidents.
- Events where the ticket has a high face value, so the fraud is worth the effort.
Outside those cases, our experience is that a static QR with duplicate-scan control covers 90% of events — and avoids the most expensive failure in event access control: someone with every right to enter who cannot get in because their phone died.
What we recommend
Start with static codes and duplicate-scan control. Measure how many duplicate alerts your event actually produces. If they are anecdotal, you have your answer. If there are many, then the conversation about dynamic QR codes is justified by data — not by fear.
QRACCESS works this way out of the box: the mobile scanning app flags repeated scans on screen, online or offline, and every record ends up in the panel. If you are sizing the door itself, see how many QR scanners your event needs.