Skip the dashboard tour. Pick up your own phone, scan the code and time how long it takes to get one photo in. If it asks you to download an app or invent a password, that’s your answer.

Then hand your phone to someone who has never heard of the tool and watch them without helping. It’s humbling, and it’s the only test that tells you anything.

Print the real sign at the real size and put it where it’ll really go. Then scan it from where a guest would stand, ideally holding a drink in the other hand.

Glossy paper under spotlights and a code the size of a postage stamp have humbled plenty of beautiful designs. Better to find out on a Tuesday afternoon than at the door.

Guests film the good bits: the speech, the confetti, the friend who absolutely should not have been handed a microphone. If the app chokes on video, you lose all of it.

Upload a long clip from your camera roll and see what happens. Then check it plays for someone else, not just on the phone that sent it.

Guests own their photos. To post them on your brand accounts you need their yes, and you need to find that yes again in six months when someone asks.

Check that guests see the terms before their first upload, and that marketing opt-in is its own honest question. If it’s buried in a footer, keep shopping.

The event is the easy part. The real test is the next morning, when you need the best twenty shots, who took them and whether you’re allowed to use them.

Ask to see what the organiser gets afterwards, not only what guests see on the day. If the answer is a zip file, picture yourself sorting it before your first coffee.