When you’re preparing to organize a live event, dozens of checklist items demand your attention. It can be overwhelming, especially as you get closer to go time. One of the most tedious and time-consuming tasks can be printing out each of the attendee badges and sending them out to everyone.
How much time could you save if you didn’t have to do this?
Your event guests will need badges, but there are better options than pre-printing them. Instead, on-demand badge printing the day of the event may save you a world of time and stress. Here are some great reasons to switch to onsite badge printing at your next event.
1. Friendly to the Environment and Your Budget
When you pre-print badges, you must print out everything. This means printing out badges for registrants who may not actually show up for one reason or another, resulting in a lot of wasted materials.
On-demand badge printing, however, means you only print badges for attendees who are present on the day. The money you save on wasted materials makes onsite badge printing easy on the environment and on your wallet.
2. Allows for Accommodations
No-shows are just one of the reasons you could end up throwing away badges. Some attendees will come to the event needing to fix spelling errors or change the title or job position listed on their badge.
If you have opted for pre-printed badges, you may still need an onsite badge printer to make these accommodations, throwing away the existing badge. Again, this can be wasteful and costly.
Choosing the right event registration software also allows for easy fixes to badge information, syncing it across all platforms for the remainder of the event. On-demand, custom event badges make the process easier for event employees and create a great first impression on your guests.
3. Creates More Opportunities for Upsells
Even if names are all spelled correctly, guests at your event may want to upgrade to VIP status once they arrive. With pre-printed badges, you must either reprint a new badge or add a mark to the existing badge. Neither is ideal, and both will cost more money.
Instead, opt for onsite badge printing. When paired with event software that allows for one-click VIP upsells, attendee badges will update automatically to reflect their upgraded status.
4. Creates a Faster Check-In Process
No guest wants to be met with long, slow-moving lines when arriving at a live event. You might think that on-demand badge printing could slow down the check-in process. However, the opposite is true.
When you choose to go with pre-printed badges, you will need several event employees to sort through the piles of badges as each attendee arrives. This process makes for a messy look and a bottleneck at check-in.
Alternatively, with the right event registration software, attendees print their badges as they check in, and everything is done in seconds. This addition will streamline the whole process and keep the lines moving.
5. Frees Up Time and Manpower
Pre-printing and sorting badges before your event can take hours—seriously, it feels like it will never end. That’s to say nothing about going through badge piles to find each guest’s badge at the start of the event. It’s a long and tedious process requiring a lot of staffing.
When you choose to print badges on-demand, however, you only need a few tech-savvy employees available to help guests with any snags. This way, your employees can focus on other areas in need, both before and during the event.
6. Allows for More Attendees
Because pre-printing badges is the norm, most events must close their registration days or even weeks before the start of the event to have time to print and distribute. This can really shorten the registration window, causing you to lose dozens of potential attendees.
With on-demand badge printing paired with innovative event registration software, you can keep registration open through the start of your event. Guests can quickly register, upgrade to VIP status, and check in within minutes, and it can all be done onsite. This choice gives you more time to advertise, generate interest, and bring in more registrants and more revenue.
7. Helps You Track Attendance
It can be challenging to gauge precisely who is present at your event. However, with badge printing on-demand, event management software can automatically update attendance when the badge is printed.
This process has several advantages. First, you can keep an accurate attendance record to help you gauge the amount of food, drinks, and seats to order. You can also more easily follow up with attendees through email afterward to ask for feedback and send direct advertising for future events.
Overall, there’s really no reason to keep pre-printing hundreds or thousands of badges before your live events. When printing on-demand saves you time and money and adds so many additional advantages, why not make the switch?