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I couldn’t come up with examples of the Republican political convention credentials, but I did come up with these examples from past Democratic conventions. These days, I’m sure that security requirements have upped the ante on credential design.

As shown in these stock metal badges, convention centers, city tourism bureaus, and other entities often provide blank stock that can be used for those events without sufficient budgets to create badges of their own.

As I was leaving the event business in 2002, we were just starting to look at RFID tagged badges so we could track attendee movement around a show floor, and at fingerprint and iris readers to verify identity.

But if I were to go back into the event business anytime soon, I have to confess I would try very hard to find one of these old manufacturers and go retro. I have a feeling a silk ribbon badge with gold trim would be a hit right about now in a world of generic plastic versions.

I do know one thing for certain. No matter what sort of technology show producers come up with, there will always have to be some way to identify people as they mill around a convention floor. Otherwise, we’d all avoid each other worried that we could never possibly remember that person’s name. My only special requirement for convention badges is that they show the person’s name on both sides, please!