AWU has had a badge mailing option for a few years now. You do still need to "check-in" with your ID when you get there, but the line moves pretty fast, and they have a separate line for people who need extra help. Runs very smoothly!
Many long-running, modestly-sized Science Fiction and Fantasy cons have been doing this for years. I'd be happy to pay for shipping to get my furry con badge beforehand!
Furry Weekend Atlanta started offering the option to have a wristband mailed out to attendees last year. You do have to pay for shipping for an attendee registration, though it;s included for the higher sponsor tiers. It's only a partial solution, however, as you still had to go to registration to activate it. There was supposed to be a separate line for this, but I didn't see it and had to go through the reg line anyway this year. Thankfully it wasn't a long wait.
One thing for furry cons can do is: - have a registration block where you select a time to pick it up or - have multiple pickup zones based on the first letter of the name, for example
I worked registration for AC this year for 8 hours on Thursday and on the following days as well. A mailing system is a must going forward. I'm headed to GenCon next week, and they offer a badge shipping system. Additionally, fill out the AC survey if you attended. They ask what can be done better for next year, and they actually read the responses. If you volunteered you can also fill out the staff/volunteer survey as well. AC was my first furry convention, and I plan to be back next year. God help them find a solution for next year. 😂 Love your content Finn! 😎🧡💜
They have to do a lot of things at AC the attendance, even watching at home I knew it would be over 15k, but 17K shocked me. and then the super long lines, no room in I think the dealers den, etc. there’s no way the con can keep running the way it is as the attendance goes from, maybe 20k next year too then 22k then 25 and eventually 30k.
FWA had a mail option for our rfid wristband. Had to wait 10m to verify my ID for access to certain rooms. It worked great, and made registration at the third largest con a breeze.
Best approach is probably the hybrid approach, offering as many ways to get your badge as possible. Whatever ends up working, I hope we can eventually dispense with the line issue. Great video!
AWU did this and it was nice. All you had to do was give your ID to prove it is you- and you are good! In fact you had the option to have it mailed or pick up in person
Put a rfid inside the badge, give it a randomly unique generated identifier that is know to the convention, then you'll just need to scan the badge to be sure that they are not counterfeits.
I remember going to Anthro Northwest last year, showing up and expecting there to be a massive registration line, but there wasn't! I showed up at the desk where they handed out badges and I was like "where's the line??" and was pleasantly surprised to get my badge with ease. Pros of a smaller con I suppose lol
Identity verification is a difficult problem for sure. I think the current approach doesn't do anything to combat badge sharing, tho mailing badges does increase the risk of badge forgery and duplication. FWA's mailed wristband approach is optimal imo, but I understand why some cons may not want to go that route. (I have some ideas on how to solve these with badges, but that's a convo for another time lol.) Cost and behind the scenes complexity, though, arent as difficult problems to solve as I think most folks make it out to be. Just make badge mailing optional with a fee of $5 + postage, disable the option a month out from the convention, and use the $5 to pay trusted volunteers like $50/hr to mail badges. Leave all other, current reg processes in place for those who opt out. For simplicity, disallow international attendees from choosing this option, but give them a dedicated line at reg so they arent left out from the benefits. This wouldn't solve every problem, but I think it'd significantly reduce the problem space! ^^
i just went to my states local con (AWU) and they mailed out everyone's badges and all i had to do to get in is scan my id and badge then i ready ready to go. of course you can pickup or get your badge when you get there that's what my friend had to do but it was pretty quick!
I wonder if the hotel staff can help with the badges, they already have to checkout the room, could hand the badges there too and it's not too far fetched, big conventions usually team up with more than just one hotel
My local con (AWU) does mailed badges but requires them to be activated at the con. You just scan your ID and a unique QR code on your badge, and then you're good to go. Theres still a line, but it goes WAY faster. FWA also did at-con activation for the mailed wristbands to check IDs, and it was super fast
I love seeing all the comments about AWU! I'm on the organizing board and have been sine the start of the con. We've come a long way and im so glad to see so many positive comments about our registration system. We have a wonderful team and I'm thankful that i get to work alongside so many talented people.
I'm in favour of a hybrid solution, but literally anything to get people inside. as long as people arent waiting outdoors, a long line is only an inconvenience.
The convention badge has one single purpose: saying that you can enter the convention space because you paid for it. The neck badge is flawed since you can lend your lanyard to someone else and then they become able to attend the convention as if they were you; you can begin to stop that sort of fraud if you add a numbered colored waterproof bracelet that requires the number in the card to match the one in the bracelet, but you can't verify that if not by stopping everyone and checking every single one who gets in or out, which is not feasible; in order to make that feasible, you'd need a mix of an RFID bracelet and cameras system with portals that tells security personnel to stop the people circled in red from entering the convention space because their RFID bracelet isn't responding... and then the budget for security exploded. There are no easy answers on how to make a volunteer-driven convention succeed, but it's good that we're having this talk, so smaller conventions' experience might improve, even if their line is just one hour long. Above that, I think that there should be more smaller events, that furries should spend more time hanging out with local furs and buying from local artists.
Great explanation, I knew I could count on you for a well-researched overview of the issue. I was wondering the same thing myself after dealing with the long lines at Anthrocon. I hadn’t considered some of those downsides of mailing badges, but like you suggested it could probably still be part of the solution, even if not the only solution.
perhaps the only part of a furry convention that has been a tedious one, as someone who's also an anime fan it feels weird having to queue for badges for our local furcon, when in our anime conventions it's commonplace to just register and have your con badge mailed in months in advance, while still having counters open for picking up pre-orders or onsite purchases during or before the event itself
I have been to commercial conventions for 40 years, and most of them mailed out badges in advance, but they were paper badges to be inserted into a standard plastic clip-on badge holder, and later it was embossed plastic credit card badges. This was before internet, smart phones, or QR codes and it worked. However mailing in advance collectable individualized souvenir plastic tags, such as are being used now would be more difficult and costly. I would happily forego a souvenir badge for the convenience of a mailed paper badge with a QR code to avoid waiting in line outside the Pittsburgh Convention center in high heat and humidity conditions and then having to wait again in long lines inside. Which is what happened at the recent Anthrocon. I am considering making a t-shirt which says "I survived the long lines at Anthrocon 2024". A combination of technologies could be found using available commercial systems.
Oh god! as someone who struggles with scoliosis, not as severe as I need a crane or helping aid, but being standing with no much movement hurts my back and feet like crazy and probably my weekend will be impacted by that, I would LOVE the shipping system, it would change my con experience 100%
Would be nice if there were kiosks and all you had to do was scan a QR code sent to your email and the machine dispenses your badge after scanning the QR code.
I guess that would work for locals or in the same country. Maybe just do registration for international attendees? Because I don't trust USPS with anything nowadays that gets shipped to my country, Mexico.
I was wondering about that you have to stand in line to get your ticket for the con, not only furry cons but US based comic cons as well. Here in Germany for at least all of the anime conventions you´ll get your ticket via mail or since 2020 as a self print-out or a QR code on your phone. Yes, they say that they´ll check your ticket during the convention too, but I never experienced it. And yet the visitors still complain about the lines to get into the halls (they have to scan/see your ticket at the entrance anyway).
everyone's saying this, but AWU does a great job of mailing out badges! i was only in line for about 4 ish minutes before i got checked in. and there's still desks for those who didn't get their badges mailed or just want a day pass! they scan your badge, check ID, then you're good, easy as that
I'm working on two conventions. The idea is nice, but only in theory. I don't think we can implement it. We can only issue the badges after acceptance of the ToS, privacy policy and after age & id verification. Some things could be done online, yes., but the age and ID verification is one thing that would be really hard to do, if we want to hold everything according to our local laws. There would be a lot of complicated things to consider and a high risk of getting in trouble that I personally don't want to take responsibility for. But thanks for this video. It got me to do some brainstorming and I like some ideas you talked about in the last part of the video. :3
One major problem I foresee with the mailing of con IDs is that people will simply forget them at home. In my experience of cons in the US & UK, no badge means no access, and given that many cons have preprinted badges with your details on it, it might not be possible in all cases to reproduce a forgotten badge. It also opens up a gap for dishonest individuals to ghost attend a con on a duplicated badge. We run a much smaller furry convention in South Africa, so we don't have this as a major problem just yet. In our particular case, the check-in registration system is also useful to confirm numbers of attendees on any particular day, and to follow up on folks who are meant to arrive, but hasn't yet. Since we are a small community we check in on stragglers to see if they are okay.
What about atomizing the registration... Like taking advantage of any franchise or something like that? Helped out by an informatics system or anything. For instance. When a product raffles a price by collecting packages, you go to the associated franchise and leave them. You can reclaim them as well...
I was at ac this year and omg the line was long 😭 I think they had to stop registration the first day because how bad I was! Luckily we got our badges before it shut down but my ankles were killing be (I was wearing docs so they definitely didn’t have lol)
I feel like it's not just a furry convention thing either. There is an anime convention I go to every year as well, and that woukd go a long way. I feel it'd go a long way in every convention.
I think this is a dumb idea for sending the badges through the mail. it could get lost in the sorting office. I would pickup the badge on site so it doesn’t get lost in the post or delayed
AWU has had a badge mailing option for a few years now. You do still need to "check-in" with your ID when you get there, but the line moves pretty fast, and they have a separate line for people who need extra help. Runs very smoothly!
Many long-running, modestly-sized Science Fiction and Fantasy cons have been doing this for years. I'd be happy to pay for shipping to get my furry con badge beforehand!
Furry Weekend Atlanta started offering the option to have a wristband mailed out to attendees last year. You do have to pay for shipping for an attendee registration, though it;s included for the higher sponsor tiers. It's only a partial solution, however, as you still had to go to registration to activate it. There was supposed to be a separate line for this, but I didn't see it and had to go through the reg line anyway this year. Thankfully it wasn't a long wait.
One thing for furry cons can do is:
- have a registration block where you select a time to pick it up
or
- have multiple pickup zones
based on the first letter of the name, for example
I worked registration for AC this year for 8 hours on Thursday and on the following days as well. A mailing system is a must going forward. I'm headed to GenCon next week, and they offer a badge shipping system. Additionally, fill out the AC survey if you attended. They ask what can be done better for next year, and they actually read the responses. If you volunteered you can also fill out the staff/volunteer survey as well. AC was my first furry convention, and I plan to be back next year. God help them find a solution for next year. 😂 Love your content Finn! 😎🧡💜
It was at the top of my list of suggested improvements on the attendance survey!
They have to do a lot of things at AC the attendance, even watching at home I knew it would be over 15k, but 17K shocked me. and then the super long lines, no room in I think the dealers den, etc. there’s no way the con can keep running the way it is as the attendance goes from, maybe 20k next year too then 22k then 25 and eventually 30k.
FWA had a mail option for our rfid wristband. Had to wait 10m to verify my ID for access to certain rooms. It worked great, and made registration at the third largest con a breeze.
FWA is the gold standard for big convention registration in my opinion
Best approach is probably the hybrid approach, offering as many ways to get your badge as possible. Whatever ends up working, I hope we can eventually dispense with the line issue. Great video!
AWU did this and it was nice. All you had to do was give your ID to prove it is you- and you are good! In fact you had the option to have it mailed or pick up in person
Put a rfid inside the badge, give it a randomly unique generated identifier that is know to the convention, then you'll just need to scan the badge to be sure that they are not counterfeits.
I remember going to Anthro Northwest last year, showing up and expecting there to be a massive registration line, but there wasn't! I showed up at the desk where they handed out badges and I was like "where's the line??" and was pleasantly surprised to get my badge with ease. Pros of a smaller con I suppose lol
That was the con I volunteered to help at registration for! All things considered, it went pretty smoothly!
I wanna go to ANW soooo badly cuz the family friendly vibes appeal to me. Im happy to hear its an easy process to go lol
Identity verification is a difficult problem for sure. I think the current approach doesn't do anything to combat badge sharing, tho mailing badges does increase the risk of badge forgery and duplication. FWA's mailed wristband approach is optimal imo, but I understand why some cons may not want to go that route. (I have some ideas on how to solve these with badges, but that's a convo for another time lol.)
Cost and behind the scenes complexity, though, arent as difficult problems to solve as I think most folks make it out to be. Just make badge mailing optional with a fee of $5 + postage, disable the option a month out from the convention, and use the $5 to pay trusted volunteers like $50/hr to mail badges. Leave all other, current reg processes in place for those who opt out. For simplicity, disallow international attendees from choosing this option, but give them a dedicated line at reg so they arent left out from the benefits.
This wouldn't solve every problem, but I think it'd significantly reduce the problem space! ^^
i just went to my states local con (AWU) and they mailed out everyone's badges and all i had to do to get in is scan my id and badge then i ready ready to go. of course you can pickup or get your badge when you get there that's what my friend had to do but it was pretty quick!
I wonder if the hotel staff can help with the badges, they already have to checkout the room, could hand the badges there too
and it's not too far fetched, big conventions usually team up with more than just one hotel
My local con (AWU) does mailed badges but requires them to be activated at the con. You just scan your ID and a unique QR code on your badge, and then you're good to go. Theres still a line, but it goes WAY faster. FWA also did at-con activation for the mailed wristbands to check IDs, and it was super fast
AWU, or AnthroWeekendUtah, does this! Though it is a smaller con, the line is extremely short! This year we got inside within 10 minutes.
I love seeing all the comments about AWU! I'm on the organizing board and have been sine the start of the con. We've come a long way and im so glad to see so many positive comments about our registration system. We have a wonderful team and I'm thankful that i get to work alongside so many talented people.
It's definitely working, all of the positive mentions of the con made me put it on my schedule for next year! Keep up the good work!
I'm in favour of a hybrid solution, but literally anything to get people inside. as long as people arent waiting outdoors, a long line is only an inconvenience.
I'd Love them to mail, them means now I can collect convention badges without attending!
This is a really good point!
The convention badge has one single purpose: saying that you can enter the convention space because you paid for it. The neck badge is flawed since you can lend your lanyard to someone else and then they become able to attend the convention as if they were you; you can begin to stop that sort of fraud if you add a numbered colored waterproof bracelet that requires the number in the card to match the one in the bracelet, but you can't verify that if not by stopping everyone and checking every single one who gets in or out, which is not feasible; in order to make that feasible, you'd need a mix of an RFID bracelet and cameras system with portals that tells security personnel to stop the people circled in red from entering the convention space because their RFID bracelet isn't responding... and then the budget for security exploded.
There are no easy answers on how to make a volunteer-driven convention succeed, but it's good that we're having this talk, so smaller conventions' experience might improve, even if their line is just one hour long. Above that, I think that there should be more smaller events, that furries should spend more time hanging out with local furs and buying from local artists.
Great explanation, I knew I could count on you for a well-researched overview of the issue. I was wondering the same thing myself after dealing with the long lines at Anthrocon. I hadn’t considered some of those downsides of mailing badges, but like you suggested it could probably still be part of the solution, even if not the only solution.
perhaps the only part of a furry convention that has been a tedious one, as someone who's also an anime fan it feels weird having to queue for badges for our local furcon, when in our anime conventions it's commonplace to just register and have your con badge mailed in months in advance, while still having counters open for picking up pre-orders or onsite purchases during or before the event itself
You might have made it easier for con lines with the idea of badge runners however the problem could be over crowding said badge runners.
I have been to commercial conventions for 40 years, and most of them mailed out badges in advance, but they were paper badges to be inserted into a standard plastic clip-on badge holder, and later it was embossed plastic credit card badges. This was before internet, smart phones, or QR codes and it worked. However mailing in advance collectable individualized souvenir plastic tags, such as are being used now would be more difficult and costly. I would happily forego a souvenir badge for the convenience of a mailed paper badge with a QR code to avoid waiting in line outside the Pittsburgh Convention center in high heat and humidity conditions and then having to wait again in long lines inside. Which is what happened at the recent Anthrocon. I am considering making a t-shirt which says "I survived the long lines at Anthrocon 2024". A combination of technologies could be found using available commercial systems.
Oh god! as someone who struggles with scoliosis, not as severe as I need a crane or helping aid, but being standing with no much movement hurts my back and feet like crazy and probably my weekend will be impacted by that, I would LOVE the shipping system, it would change my con experience 100%
Would be nice if there were kiosks and all you had to do was scan a QR code sent to your email and the machine dispenses your badge after scanning the QR code.
Registration lines make me feel super super lucky to be a vendor. We wouldnt be able to set up in time if we were on the regular reg line
i was at AC, i got unlucky and got stuck in the line for 3 hours before i got inside...
I guess that would work for locals or in the same country.
Maybe just do registration for international attendees?
Because I don't trust USPS with anything nowadays that gets shipped to my country, Mexico.
Yes, please do this! TFF line was awful, I was in fursuit.
I was wondering about that you have to stand in line to get your ticket for the con, not only furry cons but US based comic cons as well.
Here in Germany for at least all of the anime conventions you´ll get your ticket via mail or since 2020 as a self print-out or a QR code on your phone.
Yes, they say that they´ll check your ticket during the convention too, but I never experienced it. And yet the visitors still complain about the lines to get into the halls (they have to scan/see your ticket at the entrance anyway).
everyone's saying this, but AWU does a great job of mailing out badges! i was only in line for about 4 ish minutes before i got checked in. and there's still desks for those who didn't get their badges mailed or just want a day pass! they scan your badge, check ID, then you're good, easy as that
I'm working on two conventions. The idea is nice, but only in theory. I don't think we can implement it. We can only issue the badges after acceptance of the ToS, privacy policy and after age & id verification. Some things could be done online, yes., but the age and ID verification is one thing that would be really hard to do, if we want to hold everything according to our local laws. There would be a lot of complicated things to consider and a high risk of getting in trouble that I personally don't want to take responsibility for.
But thanks for this video. It got me to do some brainstorming and I like some ideas you talked about in the last part of the video. :3
One major problem I foresee with the mailing of con IDs is that people will simply forget them at home. In my experience of cons in the US & UK, no badge means no access, and given that many cons have preprinted badges with your details on it, it might not be possible in all cases to reproduce a forgotten badge. It also opens up a gap for dishonest individuals to ghost attend a con on a duplicated badge.
We run a much smaller furry convention in South Africa, so we don't have this as a major problem just yet. In our particular case, the check-in registration system is also useful to confirm numbers of attendees on any particular day, and to follow up on folks who are meant to arrive, but hasn't yet. Since we are a small community we check in on stragglers to see if they are okay.
Like I said before in discord: either automated badge machines or digital badges
What about atomizing the registration... Like taking advantage of any franchise or something like that? Helped out by an informatics system or anything.
For instance. When a product raffles a price by collecting packages, you go to the associated franchise and leave them. You can reclaim them as well...
I was at ac this year and omg the line was long 😭 I think they had to stop registration the first day because how bad I was! Luckily we got our badges before it shut down but my ankles were killing be (I was wearing docs so they definitely didn’t have lol)
one idea I thought sounded good was pre assigned registration times based on badge purchase date and time.
I feel like it's not just a furry convention thing either. There is an anime convention I go to every year as well, and that woukd go a long way. I feel it'd go a long way in every convention.
Well ill say yes it will. But it depends on the popularity of the con itself. Awesome job.
Start registering days before the con, like on Monday.
Well perhaps do a trial-and-error and see if it works?
I attended Anthro Weekend Utah. they mailed our badges. registration was scan badge, scan ID, (beep) done.
Would it be better to break down the lines into groups; like Group A for names A-D, Group B names for E-I, etc?
b4 i watch: yes
I love you Finn!
Use a smaller con as a guinea pig huh? 🤔
Aww your fursuit it's so cute
I love your videos, ❤
I think this is a dumb idea for sending the badges through the mail. it could get lost in the sorting office. I would pickup the badge on site so it doesn’t get lost in the post or delayed
Agreed.