Skip to main content
A bib is the number a participant wears to identify them during your event. There are two ways to get bibs onto participants, and the check-in app supports both.
  • Assign in advance. You decide who has which bib before event day, using Bibs & waves in your dashboard. Participants can be told their number ahead of time, and check-in is a matter of confirming it.
  • Assign at the desk. Participants arrive without a bib. Your team gives out a bib and records it at check-in.

​
Assigning bibs in advance

A wave is a start group with its own range of bib numbers — a first and a last bib number. Events that set off in stages use waves to keep each group’s numbers together. In your dashboard, Bibs & waves takes a CSV of your waves and their bib numbers. You then filter the participants on your Startlist — the list of everyone registered — pick the wave to put them in, and assign in bulk. You’ll see a preview of the changes before anything is applied, and a warning if the wave doesn’t hold enough bibs for everyone you selected. If you assign in advance, these check-in app settings matter:
  • Require a bib to check in is on by default, and works well here — everyone already has a number, so nobody should take part without one.
  • Enforce bib validation rules holds your team to the numbers you’ve set as valid for each race or wave, so a mistyped bib is caught at the desk.
  • Allow bib reassignment decides whether your team can move a bib to a different participant when something has gone wrong.

​
Assigning bibs at the desk

If participants arrive without a bib, your team assigns one during check-in. They can scan the bib with the device camera or with a handheld barcode scanner, or type the bib number in. For this to work, turn on:
  • Allow manual bib entry, so your team can type a number rather than only scanning one.
  • Prevent duplicate bibs, so the same number can’t be given to two participants.
Leave Enforce bib validation rules off unless you’ve set up valid ranges — with no rules to check against, it will only get in your team’s way. If your bib numbers contain letters, turn on Alphanumeric bibs. Advanced bib setup then lets you allow specific characters — hyphen, square brackets, space and comma — if your bib numbers use them.

​
Using both

Nothing stops you doing both: assign most participants in advance and let your team hand out spare bibs at the desk for on-the-day entries or replacements. Set the app up as though you were assigning at the desk — Allow manual bib entry and Prevent duplicate bibs on — so your team can still record a number that wasn’t planned. All of these settings live on the Check-in role. See Bib rules.