Buying a ticket to a live event should feel like tapping a card at a subway gate, instant, intuitive, and forgettable. When it’s not, you notice. The delay, the friction, the lag, it’s jarring.
Behind that illusion of effortlessness is a high-stakes environment where every millisecond matters. A failed scan leads to a stalled line. A login issue can disrupt an entire entry queue. And at scale, these aren’t edge cases, they’re existential risks.
At Avenue Ticketing, where I lead product strategy, we don’t build systems for the conference room demo. We build for the stadium gate when the Wi-Fi’s down and the energy’s high. I’ve seen it firsthand, one scan becomes the hinge between order and chaos.
Here’s how we design real-time infrastructure and UX systems that thrive under pressure, support thousands of users simultaneously, and quietly disappear into the background once they’re working.
Scoped Socket.IO: Real-Time, Without the Noise
Mass broadcast systems are noisy. It’s the digital equivalent of shouting in a crowded stadium, messages collide, data floods the pipes, and latency creeps in.
We scoped Socket.IO rooms using unique event IDs, allowing only relevant clients to receive targeted updates. This avoids data congestion and reduces server load by as much as 60% in high-concurrency zones.
Takeaway: Real-time scale isn’t about broadcasting more. It’s about whispering to the right people at the right time.
Login That Vanishes: OTP and Keychain Authentication
Nothing ruins momentum like a password wall. Especially when it appears five minutes before a headline act begins.
Our system eliminates passwords. We use OTP-based authentication for fast onboarding, then persist login state using encrypted keychain storage on the device. Even offline, users stay securely signed in.
Result: Logins that feel like magic, but meet enterprise-grade compliance and reliability.
Scan Success in Less Than a Second, With or Without Internet
Scan latency is more than a delay. It’s a stress multiplier. Every extra second increases crowd tension slows staffing responses, and threatens flow.
We engineered a dual-layer system: Redis as a lightning-fast cache, backed by a primary database. If connectivity fails, cached credentials take over instantly. The fallback is silent and automatic.
In our most challenging deployments, rural music festivals, and underground venues, we’ve maintained over 99.5% scan reliability.
Takeaway: If it only works online, it doesn’t work in the real world.
Undo-First Ops: Recovery in Real Time
Even the best systems encounter human error. But what separates usable tools from excellent ones is how gracefully they recover.
We designed staff dashboards to support real-time undo. Whether it’s a mistaken check-in or a refund, staff can reverse actions with a tap. The system syncs that change instantly across every connected device.
Takeaway: Recovery isn’t a backend job, it’s a frontline expectation.
Visual Feedback in 100ms: Confidence You Can See
Event staff are often under pressure, scanning hundreds of tickets on mid-range Android phones. Misreads and rescans slow everything down.
To help, we integrated expo-barcode-scanner and Reanimated to ensure visible confirmation appears within 100ms of a scan. That split-second cue reduced accidental rescans by 20% and significantly improved check-in confidence.
Takeaway: Speed isn’t just about code, it’s about psychology.
Micro-Trust: Subtle UX Signals That Matter
Reliability isn’t always loud. The best trust-building details are often invisible unless they’re missing.
We show recognizable card icons at checkout, generate PDF receipts in seconds, and issue loyalty badges in the background. These tiny UX touches reinforce stability and give guests unconscious confirmation that everything is working as it should.
Takeaway: The difference between “this works” and “this feels right” is micro-trust.
Cross-Platform Parity: Familiarity Across Devices
Guests often switch platforms, desktop to mobile, email to app. Every inconsistency in experience introduces cognitive load and doubt.
We implemented shared component libraries across platforms to unify layout, error handling, and navigation. Buttons behave the same way. Flows mirror each other. Whether you’re on an iPhone, Android, or Chrome browser, you feel like you’re in one cohesive system.
This boosted mobile conversion by 12% and halved support tickets related to confusion.
Takeaway: Familiarity is functionality.
Race Condition Resilience: Defense in Depth
A race condition at the gate, two devices scanning the same code within seconds, can break many systems.
Our approach uses a three-layer defence:
- Optimistic UI: Instant visual feedback.
- Revalidation: Re-checks system state in the background.
- Atomic Writes: Ensures only one state change goes through.
This architecture guarantees clean results in dirty conditions, tast-moving crowds, redundant devices, and network jitter.
Takeaway: Real-time systems must protect themselves from being too real.
Designing Forward: Anticipating the Unknown
Speed is table stakes. What’s next is foresight.
We’re actively rolling out:
- Edge-based QR validation (to support full offline check-ins)
- Predictive queue modelling (to prep staff and guests in real-time)
- PWA support (for instant-access browser-based experiences)
These features aren’t about shiny tools, they’re about getting ahead of what will go wrong before it does.
Takeaway: Anticipation is the new performance.
Let the System Get Out of the Way
The best UX isn’t loud. It doesn’t demand attention. It lets the event flow, guests moving, staff smiling, nobody asking “What went wrong?”
At Avenue, we don’t just build for uptime. We build for invisibility. We want our systems to be so intuitive they disappear, reliably, predictably, again and again.
Because when you’re managing an event for 30,000 guests, the best software is the one no one notices.
Final Thought: Build for the Human Beat
All great infrastructure has a rhythm. When it’s right, it’s unspoken. Guests don’t talk about how fast the check-in was, they just remember how easy everything felt.
At Avenue, we design for that rhythm: the cadence of unbroken moments, fast handoffs, and the absence of friction. Not just for the sake of engineering pride, but because humans perform best when systems support their flow and then step aside.
Invisible infrastructure isn’t a luxury in live events, it’s the standard we’re building toward.
References:
Ably. (April, 2023). Building realtime infrastructure: Costs and challenges. Ably Blog. https://ably.com/blog/building-realtime-infrastructure-costs-and-challenges
Amazon Web Services. (October, 2022). What is event-driven architecture? https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/eda/
InfoQ. (August, 2023). Realtime event-driven ecosystem: Design patterns and architecture. https://www.infoq.com/articles/realtime-event-driven-ecosystem/
Seetharam, U.G.N. (May, 2023). The complete guide to event-driven architecture. Medium. https://medium.com/@seetharamugn/the-complete-guide-to-event-driven-architecture-b25226594227
Design Bootcamp. (July, 2022). UX analysis: Ticket booking platform (concert and events). Medium. https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/ux-analysis-ticket-booking-platform-concert-and-events-d6c3fecf3035
(Image by Mudassar Iqbal from Pixabay)
