Case study

Running the night

I host events and build the software around them. Milk & Henny connects the practical parts of a night: finding the details, getting a ticket, arriving, joining in, and finding the photos afterwards.

Context
Milk & Henny / Presenter / 2025–26
Focus
Events, tickets, admission, attendee tools
Project
milkandhenny.com

A guest needs to know where to go and what to do next. The person at the door needs a quick answer about admission. As the host, I need to keep those experiences connected without spending the night moving information between separate tools.

AreaWhat I built and why
Getting in

Built event pages, ticketing, QR check-in, and staff lookup tools.

Guests have an admission path; staff can distinguish a valid ticket from one already used.

Joining in

Built attendee tools and event scoring, and connected games to the event platform.

A match can contribute to the wider event without making the game depend on its points system.

Following up

Built event communications and connected the site to galleries and Pitch Night.

The event has a place for information before the night and things people want to return to afterwards.

ChoiceWhy it matters
Let the database settle admissionOnline check-in claims a valid, unused ticket in a Postgres transaction. If two scanners submit the same ticket, only one can claim it. Offline admission still needs reconciliation; it cannot settle a duplicate across disconnected devices.
Keep playing separate from pointsGames publish their results; the event layer decides eligibility and event points. A points feature should not be required to finish a match.
A night, from two sides
  1. BeforeGuests find the event and get tickets.Hosts publish details and manage availability.
  2. At the doorGuests show a ticket.Staff scan it or use a lookup path.
  3. In the roomPeople play and take part.Hosts run activities and manage event points.

The platform supports a guest journey and the staff work behind it in one application. I can build around the event itself, rather than treating tickets, activities, and the archive as unrelated sites.

Pitch Night Studio is one example: people can prepare a deck, publish an edition, and present it on a shared screen with phone controls.

Hosting gives the interface a practical test: can someone understand it while a queue is forming or a room is waiting? That makes the recovery path part of the main design. A staff member needs a next step when a scan fails, as much as a green confirmation when it works.