When you organise a WordCamp you get to a point where you need to issue coupons for speakers, organisers, volunteers and sponsors. Usually, coupons are “shared” with others from that group: volunteers will share a coupon code, speakers will share a different coupon code, and so on.
Using a shared coupon code also means that we need to verify every coupon that was used: is the buyer entitled to use the coupon code? Not every WordCamp team does this, but the WCEU team does this.
For WCEU 2023 below is an overview of coupon codes that are needed:
- Photographers: 24
- Volunteers: 190
- Speakers: 70
- Organisers: 99
- Sponsors: 208
Total of 591 coupon codes
As you can imagine this number causes quite a huge workload on the team that is responsible for the tickets, especially when they come across a name that is not on the list: then these names need to be flagged and also verified. Maybe this name was initially missed on the list? Or maybe this name is replacing someone else?
Smaller WordCamps may have around 125 coupon codes, but they don’t have a dedicated team just for the attendee services, but probably one person responsible for the tickets and verifying the coupon codes.
Using a personalised and unique code for everyone entitled to a coupon code is the best solution. Coupon codes are matched against a name and if there’s a mismatch: you know who to approach.
Also: the personal coupon code can’t be shared endlessly with other people who are not involved in the WordCamp.
And, not less important: it saves us from cancelling tickets that have been booked by people who shouldn’t use the tickets and also from hurting people’s feelings as they might feel offended when we contact them to inform them.
There are WordCamps that have created workarounds for personalised coupons, all were done through some side coding solutions, not as a real solution. So there is definitely a need for personalised coupon codes.
In the past couple of weeks, Vagelis Papaioannou developed a plugin that generates personalised coupon codes. You can find his repository on GitHub. It’s an add-on to the CampTix plugin. This plugin would really help WordCamp organisers create personalised coupons and save them a lot of time and unnecessary work.
Note: this post is a summary of a post in Slack.