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QR Codes for Flyers and Posters

The first hundred scanners get the seats. The flyer never finds out.

The Print Room, a letterpress studio, letterboxes two thousand flyers for a twelve-seat Saturday workshop. The flyers are in the post already, and the seats will be gone by Tuesday.

The scan is

The rule engine

ScanEvery scan enters hereScan countEarlyEarly1EarlyEarlyEveryone elseEveryone elseSign up, earlySign up, earlyexample.com/workshop/sign-upexample.com/workshop/sign-upThe next dateThe next dateexample.com/workshop/next-da…example.com/workshop/next-date

What the scanner gets

Sign up, early

Early. The first hundred scans take the sign-up branch, and the flyer this scanner is holding says nothing about that.

The counter is kept at the edge and read on every scan that passes through a scan-count rule, then compared to the tiers. It is close rather than exact: under heavy concurrency two scanners on either side of the boundary in the same second can both be told they were the hundredth, so for seats the tier is a ceiling with a little give.

Get this wrong and the flyer keeps opening a sign-up form for a room that filled on day three, and two thousand of them are already in the letterboxes.

no subscription · pay per scan · nothing to cancel

Printed by the thousand, useful until the seats are gone

A flyer is the cheapest print there is and the hardest to take back. The offer on it outlives the capacity behind it: the workshop fills on day three and the letterboxes keep delivering for a fortnight. A date-based end is the wrong shape when the thing that ends is a count.

  • The offer on the flyer outlives the capacity behind it.
  • A date-based end is wrong when what runs out is seats, not days.
  • A poster stays on the wall for weeks after the thing it advertised.
  • Nobody knows which batch of flyers did the work.

What the print room set before the run

  1. One tier on the rule, in scans

    The rule counts scans, not days. The first hundred take the early branch; everyone after takes the next.

    { "tiers": [100], "tierNames": ["Early"] }
  2. After the boundary, the next date

    Scan one hundred and one opens the next-date list instead of a sold-out form, without anyone signing in.

  3. A second life for the same flyer

    When the next run is announced, repoint the code. The flyers still in drawers open the new date.

  4. Split the report if you want it split

    One code per batch, or a source tag per neighbourhood, and the analytics show which delivery did the work.

What a flyer code can do that a flyer cannot

  • Scan-count tiers scans

    A branch for the first N scanners and a branch for everyone after, evaluated on the scan itself.

  • No reprint when the offer closes

    The end of the offer is a branch, not a new print run.

  • The poster frame, from the same account

    Showcards wrap the code in a poster, a table tent, signage or a sticker, drawn by the same engine you download from.

  • Analytics per code

    Each flyer batch is its own line if you give it its own code.

  • Burst-priced

    1 credit per scan, however many arrive on launch day. No monthly allowance to run out of.

  • The rule, priced

    5 credits, every change · add, edit or remove · a save that changes nothing is free.

Real previews

What a flyer opens

Three real pages the same printed code can land on, before and after the seats go.

A street market flyer
A fundraiser poster
An open-day poster

These are not screenshots. Each frame is the page itself, rendered by the same code that answers a scan.

Questions

How does the code know it is the hundredth scan?

A counter for the code is kept at the edge and read on every scan that passes through a scan-count rule. The rule compares the running total to the tiers you set.

Is the scan count exact?

It is close, not exact. The counter is kept beside the redirect and is approximate under heavy concurrency, so two scanners on either side of the boundary in the same second can both be told they were the hundredth. For seats, treat the tier as a ceiling with a little give.

Can a flyer offer end after a number of scans instead of a date?

Yes. That is what the scan-count rule is for. If the offer also has a date, add a time rule after it; rules compose.

What does the flyer open when the seats are gone?

Whatever you put on the next branch: the next date, a waiting list or the all-day page. It is a page you chose, never a dead link.

Should I print one code for the whole run or one per neighbourhood?

One code if you only need the offer to close. One per batch, or a source tag per batch, if you want to know which delivery produced the scans.