Re: The terrible Pre-Reg line

[baka.livejournal.com]

Why doesn't Dragon*Con send out badges before the con?
Does anyone know? I'm just thinking "you know, why bother to register when you can just walk up and get a ticket next year" besides it being cheaper, I think I'm willing to opt out of a 3-4 hour line for 50 bucks.

Comments

[eoywin.livejournal.com]

Dragon*Con doesn't send out pre-reg badges before the con because if they send them beforehand some people would counterfeit them.

[critus.livejournal.com]

My assumption is because of the fact that they are constantly battling fraud. I don't now how bad it was this year, but I know that last year there were apparently several folks set up in a hotel room with a color printer and a laminating machine selling badges.

[seferin.livejournal.com]

1. People could duplicate them
2. People could attend the con with fakes you can't tell apart without checking by hand
3. Security to prevent me giving my badge to someone else, claiming I never got it, and getting a second membership free
4. Post office might actually lose it
5. The cost of postage for 50,000 is prohibitive, and I pity the mailman who unloads that mailbox

[auroraceleste.livejournal.com]

I'm not a con staffer in reg or any area that has any effect on this, but I'd bet the reason is that it gives people more time to counterfeit badges. In reality they're just paper and a lamination that can be had for about $200 in materials, all told, so all that potential criminals are missing is time to use a high-quality scanner to make enough badges to turn a profit on their investment and totally screw over the convention.

[keita-yuki.livejournal.com]

could you imagine that mailbox... some poor soul would put in 1 letter to many and BOOM letter explosion and a horror of papercuts.

[critus.livejournal.com]

The flip side to that is that Gen Con sends out badges well in advance. They have bar codes on them, though. I have never actually noticed anyone SCANNING one of those bar codes, but I assume they mean something.

[everyinchofme.livejournal.com]

As someone who's worked Reg and Security before in a minor capacity for other conventions I would cite this as one of the Top 5 reasons why.

[mommy09.livejournal.com]

I understand that they are worried about counterfeits, lost badges, and other issues.

But given the huge popularity of the event, they really need to find a better way to register people. I stood in line for hours Thursday evening and almost got turned away mere feet away from the door leading to the maze. Then it turned out that there was no line for last names A-B, so I was able to skip ahead and get out of there at a reasonable time. That long line was murder, though, and if I hadn't been able to get in that night, I would have missed the Shatner/Nimoy panel I wanted to see so badly the next morning.

I think I'm just going to show up much earlier next time. Or have an early-arriving friend pick up my badge for me.

[rayhne.livejournal.com]

We went over at 2:10 and they were already registering. Got through in 50 minutes.

[wiebke.livejournal.com]

I think I heard this very questions asked about 800 times while I was in the line. All I know is, the one thing I miss about being staff (opted out this year) is, duh, NO LINE for a badge!

[wiebke.livejournal.com]

I live walking distance away. Next year I should just work at home that Thursday. I hope I can remember to!

[plastisine.livejournal.com]

I must have gotten extremely lucky then. I went over about 6 PM Friday and waited for maybe two minutes. I'd been worrying the entire week about standing in that awful line and if I'd have time to make a 9 PM photoshoot.

[paradisacorbasi.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me that if we had our photos on our badges, that'd make it tougher to counterfeit them.

But only a little.

[wicked-swann.livejournal.com]

It took me two and a half hours to get my badge on Thursday, and the volunteer who gave the badge to me was a complete and utter jackhole. He saw where I lived (a tourist destination) and immediately became insulting and rude.

At Comic Con it took me two and a half MINUTES to get my badge. They printed it out right there and popped it into a badge holder. Why can't Dragoncon do this?

This was the only way that Comic Con was better than Dragoncon, however.

[meowwl.livejournal.com]

If they'd simply split the line into names at the door, instead of sending everyone through the human hamster maze, it would have gone a BUCKETLOAD faster! The human rat maze zigzagging around creates corners....people STOP at corners to yak and whatnot! Stopped people slows down the line. Also, if you know a line is going to be longer, due to the number of pre-registrys in that name group, split the line further, maybe even on a floating basis. Have one person going from line to line to take a chunk of each pre-reg book as needed and register a cluster of people...like I noticed the C-D line was the longest when I came in...so have the floater grab Dav-E and split the line partly, then when that line is shortened, move to the next problem spot.

[wolfchylde.livejournal.com]

Trust me, there ARE better ways of handling registration... but sending badges out ahead of time is absolutely NOT one I could envision them using. Fraud is a very GOOD reason not to do so, as are the problems (and expense) of mailing badges back to the attendees.

Some form of automated check-in would probably be FAR superior, and could allow the volunteers to work on printing out labels for badges rather than looking through books hoping to find a pre-reg. I've been to conventions where you check in by putting in your email and a confirmation code and they print out a checkout stub that you scan and then your badge gets printed for you... however I am not sure how feasible that would be for the sheer volume of attendees.

[earendilgrey.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of time could be saved if they broke up the alphabet and put like A-K in one room and the rest in another. That would help a bit on the lines.

[wicked0witch.livejournal.com]

Last year I got in line around 3:30 on thursday, and got through in a few hours... this year, after being kicked out of line after being in it over an hour thursday night around 9:30, I got up at 6 am friday, got some coffee and got in line. Yeah, It was early, and they didn't let us in till 8 am, but I had my badge by 8:20.

Plus, I got to sit there in my PJs, glasses, and ponytail (the most comfortable I was all con) and made some friends that looked exactly the same. I think it was an awesome way to kick start the weekend (even though I was working on about 2 hours of sleep). I'm going to do the exact same thing. It's worth saving the $50 and putting it towards costumes or fun stuff from the dealers room, and I still got back before any of my roommates were even awake.

[arasirsul.livejournal.com]

I cannot begin to imagine the line to pick up badges if they had to shoot a picture of us as well. Yikes!

[paradisacorbasi.livejournal.com]

I was thinking more like we send a photo of ourselves in the email or something so they could print the badge and photo and name all at one time.

Like I said, I don't think it's really a viable solution.

[dijitao.livejournal.com]

In my experience the biggest problem with the pre-reg line was in the last 50-feet. Once you had to break apart based on last name whole thing just became a big mess. This was further complicated by the attempts of the staff to keep all of the booths busy by calling out letters and asking people to come to the front. Too many people would come forward, things would backup and then you couldn't actually get to the booth you needed to go to.

The remedy is to make all booth able to process all names.

There are many ways to accomplish this, I recommend the following: Put computers and label printers in each booth. Keep a ridiculous number of backups available in the event that a device fails. Write software that can look up a person and print the label for their badge. Print out an additional label and stick it in the book where the person signs for their badge and have them sign beneath it.

I believe this will work since the software would be fairly simple, and while printing out the label will take time the time will be made up by more efficient use of the booths, and the faster look up time.

If this all sounds too complicated, I suppose another solution would be to just make the point where you break off in the sub-lines by last name happen much earlier.

[lilithschilde.livejournal.com]

I agree with this.

They could easily put a binder in each line and print out 1 tag for the badge and one tag for the binder. People could sign the binder page just like they do now to show they've gotten their badge, and on the computer it would be set up to show that badge has been picked up so duplicates aren't given out.

This way there's no "people with last names Ga-Ra come with me to the front of the line" and 60 people suddenly rush forward and cut off all the people who've been waiting for hours. Given, I was one of the mass rushing forward, but I did feel slightly bad about it.

[jemmafey.livejournal.com]

I concur. My sister and I registered before the con and arrived to pick up our badges. OMG! The line went on and on like thread pulled from a spool. Even if we had stood in that line and waited, we would have missed the panels we'd hoped to attend. We ended up not even going to Dragon*Con. How could I ask my sister to stand in such an insane line for me? I mean, they were selling popcorn! I was so disappointed. I'd kept my suitcase packed since last year. That's how much I look forward to attending this event. I don't know why the lines were so much worse this year. Clearly someone should rethink the system. I wasted the money my dad and grandmother had given me to buy tix. But either way I wasn't going to be able to participate in the scheduled events as I'd planned. :( I don't think I'll be going next year. My heart breaks each time I see people's pics from D*C on their journals. It's silly, but my costume is staring up at me with sad, neglected eyes.

[maxineofarc.livejournal.com]

There are vendors that specialize in handling registration for conventions and similar events; D*C should look into contracting with one. They wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel or even necessarily buy their own equipment. Going to a barcode system would eliminate the need to break people down alphabetically.

With tens of thousands of attendees, it's beyond ridiculous that their registration system is 3-ring binders.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

5. So make it a part of your badge cost (and optional) to have it mailed to you?