3 Reasons Every Event Should Use ID Cards

It may be hard to believe if you live here in Canada, but spring is around the corner, and, as the warm weather arrives, so too do all the events – music festivals, food festivals, parades, conferences, etc. For the activity-inclined, this is absolute heaven, but for event organizers it can be a time of great stress and long hours, as they attempt to market and oversee their perfect event.

Event organizers understand that, in order to pull off a well-attended, safe and smooth event, you need a little forethought and a lot of help. One small thing you can do to make the whole process easier is use ID cards, which, as you’ll see in this short list, can help with security, branding and staff visibility, making for a safer, smoother event. With summer looming, it’s time to start looking to buy a card printer for your upcoming event.

Security

It’s a no-brainer that ID cards can help with security. They ensure that you keep certain areas restricted to staff – like, for instance, backstage at a music festival – and even among staff can restrict where certain people can and can’t go. Running with the music festival example, it’s understandable that you might not want concession staff wandering back into the offstage area where a lot of expensive equipment is kept; ID cards allow event organizers to denote tiers and hierarchies of access, allowing for a safer, smoother event. Colour coding ID cards can also allow organizers to more effectively delegate tasks.

Branding

There’s no time to market an event like during an event, especially if yours is the type of event that relies less on presales and more on foot traffic, like a parade for instance. ID Cards can function as small advertisements in and of themselves, but you can further reinforce the branding by ordering branded lanyards. This can also be a great way to tie in sponsors, as you can offer them a spot on the lanyard, which is visible to all event-goers and surrounding members of the public. Along with posters, apparel and giveaway swag, ID Cards and lanyards make for great viral marketing.

Visibility

During the event, it’s crucial that event-goers know who to go to in case of a question or, more pressingly, an emergency. Having all staff wear ID cards means that people can easily seek them out – the last thing you want is hundreds of people scrambling around looking for the bathroom! In the event of an emergency, the sooner a staff member is notified, the sooner the problem can be averted. Every organizer hopes for a smooth event, and that starts with understanding that an event is like a business: there are customers who need help, employees there to help them, and a clear delineation between the two.

Whatever your event, you want it to be smooth, safe and well attended. While ID cards can’t achieve all these things alone, they’re a necessary tool in any event organizer’s belt.