The first thing you associate with any conference is the conference badge. It serves as a reminder of your conference for your attendees but also offers much more.

Conference organizers must pay close attention to which type of conference badge to use. The main purpose is to offer secure identification for both the conference organizer and attendees, but there are many more purposes.

The importance of conference badges today

In the early days of conferences, badges, although in simplified form, became essential and popular among attendees. Nowadays, conference badges are far more complex. While they often incorporate advanced technology, they still have the same purpose as conversation starters.

Often, people attending conferences don’t know most of the other attendees. The conference badge’s role is to stimulate communication and provide identification for conference organizers. A well-designed badge can help people remember the name of someone they talked to the day before.

Conferences are all about networking, and badges make that much easier. No one would ever visit a conference without the potential for good conversations and new connections.

Conference badges are the first branding point of your event. They help you generate brand awareness about your event. Even after the event, people like to share photos on social media depicting great times at the venue with their badges on.

Event badges have come a long way since the early days of being just sticky notes on your shirt. Today, they look professional, communicate important information about attendees, and help the conference organizers to provide security and access.

Ground rules for conference badge design

Besides many other functionalities, high-end professional event platforms allow organizers to create complex categories and pass for different types of stakeholders (i.e., exhibitors, speakers, attendees, or vendors).

With all that complexity, there are some ground rules for any conference or event organizer:

• Badge design should be clean, as less is always more
• Everyone must wear their badge, or the whole concept fails
• The badge should be at least 10x15 cm in size

Badge printouts can be done on-site or remotely, which strongly affects processing speed and whether or not you will have nervous queues at the registration desk.

High-end platforms use badge printers that save a tremendous amount of time. Platforms like run.events use high-speed, industry-leading technology to print branding and attendee information onto a blank badge in seconds. There is no need to lose time digging around in a pile of already-printed badges when you can issue them the moment the attendee approaches the registration desk.

Using this approach, organizers can make processing attendees at the registration desk two to three times as quick. Fewer queues, more happy people!

Badge efficiency

Besides the ground rules when defining your conference badge, you must remember the following six facts to increase badge efficiency:

• The attendee’s first name must be displayed much larger than their last name
• Test your badge size and its readability from at least 15 meters away
• Put the conference logo in the corner, and don’t make it too big. The conference attendees already know everything about it.
• On second place in the hierarchy of visibility should be information about the attendee’s company name, and third, their role
• Invest in lanyards that prevent badges from flipping or spinning round
• Use a QR code for badge scanning

Organizers tend to use standalone apps or professional event management platforms for various aspects of their conferences. Besides being able to control multiple aspects of your conference efficiently, platforms usually come with a fast and reliable app that allows badge scanning using a QR code. Once the conference is finished, all data are securely stored and are distributed to various stakeholders.

If networking and badge scanning work without hiccups, organizers can expect visitors to register to attend the conference again next year.

The conference badge is the front face of your event 

The type of conference badge the organizer selects can say a lot about their event. A full-color laminated badge is much better than a ‘paper with the name’ inserted in a plastic holder.

We suggest putting as much thought into the badge as you do into conference brochures, factsheets, and other collateral materials. Choosing the type of badge you want to use, the supporting technology required, and its overall readability provides important ways to maximize the opportunities offered by your conference.