Community college event parking covers everything a campus hosts beyond its classes: the outside group renting a hall, the open house, the community lecture, graduation week. Many of those guests have never parked on campus before, and few of them hold a permit. El Camino College, a community college of about 33,000 students near Torrance, California, runs its parking permits on HONK. It now runs its event parking on HONK Guest Events as well. On November 19, Mari Baquir from El Camino’s Facility Rentals team joins HONK for a live webinar on how it works. HONK’s guide to event parking management covers the wider picture.
What Did El Camino College Change?
It handed the booking to the departments and automated the invoicing. The change came in three parts. Campus departments got total booking independence, so a department books parking for its own event without routing the request through the parking office. Invoicing became automatic. And event parking became a process that runs in the background, rather than a task someone has to start each time.
El Camino runs its permits on HONK too. In January it replaced its legacy permit system, and its administrative teams now spend less time on manual tracking, accounting and reconciliation. The webinar’s guest speaker, Mari Baquir, works in Facility Rentals. Facility rentals are a good test of any event parking setup, because an outside group renting a hall brings guests the college has never met.
How Do Departments Book Parking Without the Office Losing Control?
The parking office sets the rules once, and departments book inside them. It is department self service, with parking services keeping full oversight and control. That split works when the office decides which lots events can use, how many spaces each event can take and what they cost. The department picks the date, adds its guests and books.
Each event gets its own portal. Guest Events sets up a link for a single event, an event that runs several days, or a recurring series such as a weekly evening program. The department shares that link with its guests, while parking services keeps oversight of every one. Nobody types a guest list into a spreadsheet, and nobody at the office approves each event by email. The office’s job moves from processing requests to setting policy and reviewing the exceptions.
What Does Automated Invoicing Change?
Nobody chases a department for payment after the event. On the old setup, event parking is billed after the fact. The office counts what each event used, works out the charge and sends an internal invoice, often weeks later. Then someone follows up when it is not paid, and someone else reconciles it against the parking budget.
Guest Events billing is automated, with instant payment tracking and no more chasing down invoices, and it is one of the two changes El Camino leads with. For the parking office, payment is tracked as events happen, instead of rebuilt from a list at the end of the month. A department that can see what its last event cost can plan the next one better. Finance gets one record of every event instead of a pile of internal charges to match.
What Happens to Signs, Paper Passes and Cones?
Fewer of them, because each guest gets a link instead of a pass. Guest Events is built to cut the cost of signs, paper passes and parking cones. A guest with a link from the host already knows where to park and is already covered. There is no pass to print, and fewer cones and temporary signs are needed at the curb.
Guests get in with a QR code or a web link, with no app to download and no account to create. That matters most for the guests a community college sees once: the parent at graduation, the speaker at an evening lecture, the group renting a room for a Saturday. Permanent lot signs still matter, and HONK’s guest checkout lets a driver without a booking pay from a QR code on the sign. What goes away is the temporary kit the office puts out and collects for each event.
What Should a Parking Office Ask Before Switching?
How the rules, the money and the records will work. Three questions are worth bringing to HONK’s webinar on November 19, or to any vendor demo.
First, the rules: which lots and how many spaces a department can book without asking, and what happens when an event needs more. Second, the money: how a department’s charge reaches finance, and how a guest who pays for themselves is handled next to a sponsored one. Third, the records: how enforcement knows a car in an event lot belongs there, and what the office can see afterward about who booked and who arrived.
Write down how your campus handles each one today, including who does the work. The gap between that list and the answers you hear is the case for changing, or for waiting.
How Can Another College See Guest Events Running?
By watching El Camino explain it on November 19. HONK built Guest Events to make campus event parking effortless while cutting admin time and costs. Departments book their own events inside the office’s rules, invoicing is automated, and guests get in with a QR code or a web link.
How El Camino College Mastered Campus Event Parking with HONK runs live on Thursday, November 19, from 2 to 3 PM ET, with Mari Baquir of El Camino College and HONK’s Evan Mageau and Rick Onorato. Department booking and automated invoicing are the two changes El Camino made, so the parking office’s questions on both are a good place to start. Until then, HONK’s on demand webinar, A Simpler Way to Manage Campus Events, shows the tool, and a demo can start from your own event calendar.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is community college event parking?
It is the parking for everything a community college hosts beyond its classes, from facility rentals and open houses to lectures and graduation. Most of those guests hold no permit.
Can campus departments book their own event parking?
Yes. HONK Guest Events lets departments book parking for their own events while parking services keeps oversight and control. El Camino College gave its departments their own booking this way.
Do event guests need an app?
No. Guest Events gives guests a QR code or a web link, with no app to download and no account to create.
Sources
- HONK, How El Camino College Mastered Campus Event Parking with HONK, webinar registration page, read 2026-10-12
- HONK, El Camino College Moves Parking Permits Online with HONK, press release, 15 January 2026
- HONK, Guest Events announcement, LinkedIn post, 9 October 2026
- HONK, A Simpler Way to Manage Campus Events, on demand webinar page, read 2026-10-12
- El Camino College, El Camino College, college website naming the El Camino Community College District, read 2026-10-12
