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Three Ways to Check In to Fashion Week With Lincoln Center’s Fancy New Computer System

The bulk of Fashion Week stress for attendees is simply getting their butts physically into their seats at shows. Checking in to a show in the tents at Bryant Park was often an exercise in patience, as much of the time hundreds of showgoers had to wait in line for a PR person to physically check them in with those antiquated things known as paper and pens. But organizers want to minimize the clusterfucks and nuisance of checking into Lincoln Center shows as much as possible this season. About 80 percent of designers showing at Lincoln Center opted to use the fancy new computer-based check-in and RSVP system for their shows. The system is meant not only to help keep crashers out, but mostly to help designers track who went to their shows. Before Fashion GPS came out with the new software, designers relied on those old paper lists filled out by PR firms, but the new computer system will give them a much more accurate picture of just how A-list their audience turned out. While people may have gone into some shows in the past with paper invitations in hand, without checking in, this season, everyone has to check in to every show using the new computerized system.

But since the system is new, it will probably be confusing for the first day or so, especially to notoriously tech-fearing fashionphiles. But everyone should be able to get into every show they need to get into just as they have in the past. Below are the three ways you can check in. Internalize them before you hit Damrosch so you’re not the annoying confused person causing a scene and being rude to security, or just generally making the place feel as horrible as an airport security line.

Check-in method No. 1: Press credentials.
This season, press credentials come with a unique bar code and pretty photo of their owner. If you have press credentials and are RSVP’d under your name for a show, you can scan your bar code at the airport-esque kiosk, get a printout of your seat assignment, and be on your way. The photos are to prevent the credentials from getting passed around to or stolen by people who shouldn’t have them. If you try to get past security at the entrance with someone else’s credentials that you found on the ground or something, guards may not let you in. But you can still get in without credentials if, say, you’re just on the list for one show. Read on for details.

Check-in method No. 2: E-mail proof of seating assignments.
Individuals RSVP’d for shows will receive seating confirmation via e-mail. These will get you past Lincoln Center security guards. The e-mail will have a bar code that attendees can scan at the kiosks to print seat assignments and get in. If, last-minute, you are not able to go to a show, you can alert the show’s PR team and send a substitute with your e-mail. The bar code on the e-mail can be scanned from a smartphone or a printed piece of paper. Once your seat is scanned in, if a devious person who shouldn’t have the ticket gets their hands on it and tries to scan it in, they won’t be able to.

Check-in method No. 3: Talk to a PR person.
In case technology fails you, real people will be on hand to check you in. However, this season, they’ll have computers instead of tedious gigantic binders full of lists. But again, once you’re checked into the online system, no one else can get in under your name.

First blogs, now this. Where, oh where will technology bring fashion next? Get ready, industry!

Three Ways to Check In to Fashion Week With Lincoln Center’s Fancy New Computer System