My main gripe with conference badges is when people don’t wear them – usually because they consider themselves important enough that everybody already knows who they are! I remember one event some years ago where a well-known (at the time) record industry person’s name badge read “If you don’t know who I am you shouldn’t be here!”. Now that’s what I call having an ego.

I’ve attended some conferences/conventions where the badge also includes a passport-size photo of the delegate. This has been mainly because the badge also acted as a pass to a number of related events elsewhere in the host city. At one event (PopKomm 1999 in Cologne) the badge/pass even doubled as a free travel pass on the city’s buses/trams/metro for the duration of the convention.