Comment by johannes1234321
16 days ago
There is still the main purpose of those things: Verifying people are allowed to enter.
That is (aside from sponsors, who want their logo there) a reason why it looks as it looks and having it somewhat different from event to event.
A shared programmable batch would require scanning them while entering each room, which creates bottlenecks at doors and more effort as each door needs staff and tech (and as soon as you have staff and tech at each door you can also provide all information there, thus the gain of being able to share information into the badge is gone) and you get to privacy issues.
And then half the badges people bring are broken and most participanta didn't ever have one/lost it/forgot it.
I feel like the paper slips solve those problems already, in the same way they are solved today with single-use plastic badges.
The plastic ones can already be forged, switching to paper wouldnt make it any easier as long as you don't publicize what it will look like in advance.