EMC Tickets: End-to-End Digital Ticketing With Wallet Integration

Problem Statement

Event organizers often struggle to unify digital ticketing, marketing automation, and on-site operations. EMC Tickets aimed to deliver a smooth ticketing solution that bridged online purchase, automated customer communication, and on-site check-in without relying on bulky enterprise systems.

Technical Development

EMC Tickets' platform was built on a Node.js backend with Shopify integration, utilizing custom coding and third-party APIs to create an automated ticket generation system. The technical challenge was creating a robust webhook-based system that could process orders in real-time while maintaining Shopify's e-commerce functionality and integrating with multiple external services.

This required:

‍Custom Webhook Processing: A dedicated webhook handler that processes Shopify order updates in real-time, specifically targeting POS (Point of Sale) orders to ensure immediate ticket generation.

‍PassCreator API Integration: Seamless integration with PassCreator's API to generate professional digital passes with custom branding, barcodes, and event-specific information.

‍QR Code Generation: Automated creation of unique QR codes for each ticket, stored as SVG files for optimal quality and accessibility across different devices.

‍Klaviyo Email Automation: Integration with Klaviyo's marketing platform to automatically send confirmation emails with ticket details and access links to customers.

‍Order Management Enhancement: Custom metafield updates and order notes that store ticket information directly within Shopify orders for easy reference and management.

Challenges

Real-time Processing Reliability: A major challenge was ensuring the webhook system could handle high-volume order processing without duplicates or missed tickets. The solution was implementing a sophisticated deduplication method and order tracking systems to prevent duplicate pass creation while maintaining processing speed.

‍Multi-Service Integration Complexity: Coordinating between Shopify, PassCreator, and Klaviyo APIs required careful error handling and retry logic. The system needed to gracefully handle API failures while ensuring no orders were lost in the process.

‍Sequential Ticket Numbering: Ensuring proper ticket numbering across multiple line items in a single order was another hurdle. The team overcame this by implementing a global ticket counter that maintains sequential numbering regardless of how many different ticket types are purchased in one transaction.

‍Email Delivery Optimization: Many customers expect immediate confirmation when purchasing tickets. I implemented a queuing system with delayed notifications to ensure all tickets for an order are created before sending the confirmation email, preventing partial or duplicate notifications.

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Conclusion

The EMC Tickets system successfully merged marketing automation, ticket pass generation, and physical qr printing into one streamlined pipeline. By combining Klaviyo, Passcreator, and POS printers, EMC created a hybrid ticketing model that met modern expectations for digital convenience while still accommodating physical ticketing.

This project highlights how integrating best-in-class tools can outperform monolithic ticketing platforms, delivering both customer satisfaction and operational control.