Latest Case Study
How our clients use event registration, badging and attendee management
READ MORE
Award winning event registration and badging
Find out about each of the awards we have won for our event registration and badging services.
Spotlight: ContactScanning
DISCOVER MORE
Partnerships
We partner with brands we know and trust to deliver technology that enhances our own.
Latest from the Blog
From industry insights and expert opinion, to product updates and company news, you'll find the inside track here.
Event badges occupy a strange place in the meetings and exhibitions worlds. Some organisers see only a mass of details to be handled. Yet they offer great opportunities for organisers. Added to that, some attendees clearly value them: there are people who have Confex badges going back 15 years or more on display. The same will be true of any industry sector events.
Experienced organisers know that what this means is that it's worth devoting real time to those little squares of card.
Our team has years of experience planning, designing, and delivering event registration and badging - from small conferences to large-scale trade shows: we've seen (and fixed) just about every registration and badge mistake imaginable.
In this blog, we'll explore the ways experienced organisers get the maximum benefit from their badges. And we'll reveal some of the biggest mistakes we've seen.
In its simplest form, a badge is a networking tool. Attendees at an event can quickly see who they're talking to.
If the badge has a barcode, it can be used to monitor the number of people entering an event. If the venue has a limit on the number of people, the badges can be used to make sure the number isn't exceeded.
At an exhibition where exhibitors go in before visitors, badges can be used to control access.
If the badge is for a paid event, it can be used to confirm that the person wearing the badge is entitled to attend. Our systems can even be set up at a paid event to stop a paying attendee passing their badge to a colleague and then getting a reprint.
At conferences, badges can be used to check that an individual has not already had a conference pack.
Attendees can have a phone app to use to scan other attendees' badges in order to record their contact details.
There are many reasons to use badges but having decided to use them, there are more questions to answer.
A badge is a badge, isn't it? Why all the fuss?
That depends on the organiser. For some the badge is a necessity, like providing coffee for the attendees. Those with more experience know that the choice of badge material and size can make a huge difference.
One of our onsite people was at a multi-day event with a 'necessity' type of organiser. Attendees spent two days going from hotel to venue to meetings and back again. Unfortunately, the organiser had chosen card badges rather than laminated paper to save money. By the end of the event, many of the badges looked very shabby. Even worse, so many attendees had badges reprinted that the organiser probably didn't make much of a saving.
The attendees headed home carrying very dog-eared event logos.
Then there's the badge size. In spite of what some organisers think, they can have bigger or smaller badges.
As one of our clients explained, "For my events, all I need on the badge is our logo, the attendee's name, their company name and a barcode. So long as the badge is big enough for all of that to be readable, I'm happy."
On another occasion, we had a client who wanted their badge to carry so much information that the badge would have been all but useless because nobody would have been able to read the content without a magnifying glass.
Our Project team persuaded them to decide what mattered most and not to overload the badge. Badges are a powerful tool for information, but only when that information is presented practically, with text large enough to read even for those without perfect vision.
The right material, the right size, now what about the content? This is an area where some organisers run into issues.
Some opt for a plain white badge, stick the logo in the corner, the barcode at the bottom and then they've got the middle for attendee's name and company.
That can work but it won't make much of an impact. It certainly won't stand out in photos uploaded to social media. And if this year's badge is indistinguishable from last year's there could be a loss of revenue caused by people using an old badge, depending on the event.
A better option is to chat with our Projects team. Once they understand a client's needs, they can get our graphics team to produce a design for the event.
One long-standing client said that getting our Projects team to test variations in badge design helped enormously to improve the branding and practicality of the badges. Testing different variations of data length allowed badges to be created with varying size of text for people with long names, while still being readable.
Another client explained that they needed a quick way to distinguish between different categories of attendee - Visitor, Exhibitor, Press and so on. They hadn't thought about using a colour band printed on the badge to do that. In other cases, we've helped clients use both sides of the badge for different things: logo and attendee name on the front and background information on the back.
We once worked with an experienced event organiser who said several attendees had struggled to read the badges. The previous designs looked fine except for the choice of colours. Whoever designed the old badges hadn't realised that around 8% of males in the UK are red/green colour blind, and roughly 4.5% of the UK population have a problem in distinguishing between colours.
There's then the question of functionality. Our team once had a long-standing client ask, how they could take badges to the next level. Among other things we suggested using barcodes. They'd only had a plain badge carrying attendee details in the past. Adding the barcode allowed them to use access control procedures, verify bookings for breakout sessions, check attendees only had one conference pack and provide a powerful networking tool for attendees to use with their phones.
It all came down to understanding what the organiser needed and coming up with tools to do the job.
Our projects team report that some organisers don't realise that there are so many ways to wear a badge. It might be in a plastic pouch with a clip - in the past we've been asked to provide magnetic fixings and stick-on clips. But the most popular option is the lanyard.
Apart from avoiding the need to clip a badge to clothing, it can be a revenue source.
If they're ordered well in advance of the event, they can carry a sponsor's logo. We often work with clients on tight budgets, where registration and badging can be one of the trickier areas to fund. Many sell sponsorship space, including on lanyards, to help cover costs. One client uses the extra revenue to upgrade to a more powerful registration solution.
A new organiser, working on their first event had missed the badge design guidelines we'd sent over. Their original artwork included most of the mistakes we see, but they had gone further and provided artwork for RGB reproduction instead of CMYK which we need for printing. Our project manager talked them through the issues before anything went to print and produced a badge that looked exactly as intended.
Another organiser sent artwork with the attendee type printed in the colour band at the bottom of the badge. Unfortunately the colour of the text was close to the background colour (think black on a dark blue background) making it hard to distinguish different types of attendees. Once again our team caught the error and quickly amended the design to prevent any issues.
Then there was the case of an organiser who struggled to fit their agenda onto the backs of the badges. They decided to use abbreviations but unfortunately, the organiser was the only one who understood what the abbreviations meant.
It depends on the event: some exhibitions only need badges for the exhibitors. Visitors pay their money and go in. The organiser doesn't need to know who they are or where they're from. In other cases, the organiser may need to analyse the profiles of the attendees, check each person's privileges, use badges for revenue protection, offer lead retrieval for exhibitors, provide networking opportunities for attendees… there are many reasons to use badges.
No. It's never too early. The sooner they're designed, the sooner they are off the organiser's to-do list.
For different events, different badge materials are needed - it depends on the event.
From our experience, laminated badges are a great balance. They provide durability while keeping costs low.
Badges can provide agendas and event information, event branding, access control, revenue protection, lead management and networking opportunities, data collection, verification of privileges… it's a long list.
Event badges can play a vital role and getting them right is worth the time it takes. Getting there means keeping a few things in mind:
Done well, a badge is more than a logistics tool - it's the first impression an attendee gets of the event, and often the last thing they hold onto once it's over.
With any luck, you can see that we know about badges. If you want more information, contact us.
Published 05.08.2026
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT EVENT BADGING
BACK
