Mastodawn

I developed this platform and have been using it within my circle to help us when organising events. This year, I tested it at PyCon Namibia 2026, where we used it for participant check-in. It reduced our workload significantly, we simply scanned QR codes with our phones instead of manually checking spreadsheets.

Features include:

- QR + Kiosk check-in
- Real-time dashboard
- Auto-generated PDF badges
- CSV reports with full data export
- More features (hidden)

It’s built with Python/Django .

After losing my job, a friend encouraged me to take it seriously, add more features, and open it to the community to generate income while I look for my next opportunity.
It has already been helpful at their company during workshops and corporate events all these years.
I will need your support once it is launched, testing and use it.
Currently, I’m unsure how to handle the payment gateway, as most of them don’t work here. Any advice?

I am also targeting organisers outside Namibia, and i need a global payment processor. I want to make it right and share the link.

@adamchainz @django @djangocon @djangochat @CodenameTim

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Benjamin Balder Bach

@muheuenga in my experience, the market for ticketing systems is very saturated, so in commercial terms, you won't be competing on price/features, as much as your relation to the local market.

if you can mature your system by gaining good local contacts and grow a user base that way, then I think you can succeed with a new system. You can be adding integrations to other popular systems within your context.

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Benjamin Balder Bach Mar 4

@muheuenga Re: payments - be careful here: You should try to avoid being a taxable entity that handles the entire revenue of an event.

What you probably want is to support a popular payment platform, then use the API tokens of the event organizer to direct payments to their systems.

The event organizer will have to handle approval/KYC with the payment provider that you direct them to use.

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Ngazetungue Muheue Mar 4

@benjaoming Thank you for the advice! My target is event organisers not ticket or attendees, helping them manage the event registration process. As you mentioned, this excludes ticketing, which is complex and already covered by existing platforms, so I deliberately avoided it.

Payments would come from organisers paying to use the platform for managing participants. For example, at PyCon Namibia, we used a separate platform for ticketing, and this platform handled check-in, sessions, attendance analytics, and reporting. We could quickly see who checked in, where participants were from, manage registration, and collect feedback and survey responses.

Everything was automated, organisers didn’t have to do anything manually, and the platform generated reports for the event. Many events don’t sell tickets locally or people can't afford, but organisers still need accurate participant data for sponsors, future events, and controlling access. Payment gateway came into picture because i was adviced to open it to my international community, initially i want to use EFT, just for local.

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Benjamin Balder Bach Mar 4

@muheuenga I know from my university studies already 13 years ago, that the UX needs of people staffing gates + event owners are NOT reflected immediately in the commercial ticketing systems. I think they focus on the most profitable/simple use-cases.

Here's an example: People scanning QR codes in dark rooms (concert venues etc) are blinded by bright screens on computers/phone apps, their retinas shrink and they cannot see the face of the people they let in.

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Ngazetungue Muheue Mar 4

@benjaoming That’s a great point, and that's why I think there’s room for improvement in this space.

Many systems work well in theory, but the real test is how they perform on the ground during a live event. Those operational details can affect the flow of the entire event, especially at entry points.

This kind of feedback helps me think more deeply about real-world use cases and how to improve the system beyond just “it scans a QR code.” That’s exactly the direction I want to move in, building something that supports the people running the event, not just the ticket transaction. Thank you, I really appreciate your feedback.