[ST] No paper badges at arisia. No.

[Dave Belfer-Shevett]

Carsten Turner wrote:
> On badge size:
> We've never been locked into the credit-card type badge. I've asked 
> Shayde in the past, and he's never said that he couldn't make paper 
> badges like we've had in the past.
>   
I've said fairly strongly that I feel changing the badge format back to 
paper stock would be a poor choice.  I've also said frequently that 
making paper badges presents many challenges.  I'm very disappointed 
that this conversation is coming up -again-, as I feel that I've had it 
every year for the past 4 years.  We might as well trot it out again...

> Going to a paper badge yields some advantages:
> A. They're cheaper.
>   
Perhaps by a very small margin, but the hassle factor is enormous.  
White badge stock is on the order of  11 cents per badge, plus 4 cents 
per badge for printer ribbons plus 5 cents per badge for a clip.  That's 
20 cents per badge.  For on the fly, high quality, collectible badges 
that don't fold, spindle, mutilate, or fall apart when your average 
arisia sleeps on it.  Going full color is an option as well, and adds 
about another 15-20 cents per badge (it fluctuates).  I find the full 
color PVC badges to be far superior to anythign printed on cardboard.

4 up index card sized laser printer cardboard stock is about $15/100 
sheets, or about 3 cents per card.  Convention badge holders are about 
25cents each, ink is -ridiculously- expensive for inkjet printers  Toner 
carts are around $150 for 5000 prints, or about .03/page.   Note we will 
most likely get far less use out of those cartridges due to the fct that 
cards have graphics and large text on them.  If we do pre-printed 
graphic cardstock, we eliminate some of that, but the price of the basic 
stock probably quadruples.

Add to that that I can print a badge ever 4 seconds or so, I have 3 
printers that run in rotation (one goes down, the other takes up the 
slack and we continue printing while we affect repairs). 

> B. Assuming we get a "six-up" 8.5x11 card of badge stock, we can print 
> badges at con on a common ink jet/ laser printer.
>   

NO, NO, and NO again.  You have 5 people in line, they either wait 
around for a 6th person to show up so you can print an entire sheet, or 
you waste a badge stock.  The cost is high, the speed is low, the hassle 
factor is enormous.  One person wants a reprint?  How are we going to do 
that?  Ask Peter Adkinson of Gencon Indianapolis what happens when you 
use 6 up laser badge printers.

> C. In the past, fans have liked them, as typically the badge holder can 
> be used as a place to stash one's ID and maybe a few bucks if one's 
> costume doesn't have pockets.
>   
Fans have also expressed huge excitement at the very nice full color 
badges, even on the black and white ones we've done in the past few 
events.  If you don't like not having an id pouch, then perhaps we 
should invest in badge pouches for the badges.  They cost around $.25 
each.  We could sell them at the reg desk for $0.50, and I guarantee we 
would have no problem making back the costs of the stock.
> D. Paper badges are bigger, so a sticker won't obscure so much of the 
> badge. On top of this, there's more room for artwork, and we can print 
> the attendee's name in larger type, so those like myself (who have 
> vision problems) can actually read the things.
>   
If you don't like the size of the badge name on the badge, then I 
suggest you bring that up during the time we're designing the badges.  
They have plenty of room, we have plenty of options for layout and 
design.  We can print up to 96point type (normally we print in about 56 
point), but graphic space loses.    We've had this debate over and over 
and over and over again ever since I implemented the new badge system.  
I've run over two dozen events with CONGO and the badge printers so far, 
printing something like 40,000 badges.  The positive feedback I get from 
these FAR outweighs the negatives.

If that weren't enough information, here's some more tidbits.

* We do not have a process to move a registration line efficiently and 
quickly printing on the fly badges on paper.  We don't have the 
printers, we don't have the stock, we don't have the experience.   We'd 
have to re-engineer the process (again) to match an outdated and frankly 
archaic system.  And we have to do this in 10 weeks.
* We could go back to preprinting the badges and putting them in boxes.  
People may have forgotten how painful and slow a process of finding the 
persons badge in the boxes, and checking them in is. 
* I have never run CONGO with a paper badge system and I have no 
interest in doing it now.
* The head of Arisia Registration has stated that she has no interest in 
changing the badging system for this year, and neither has her boss, 
(head of finance), and neither has the conchair.

Can we consider this issue closed?


    -dbs, really tired of this argument.