Also calledBadgingOn-site badgingBadge production
Print on arrival or print in advance
Printing on arrival keeps the data current and handles the third of registrations that change in the final week, at the cost of a printer per lane. Pre-printing is faster at the door but freezes the data early and creates a wall of uncollected badges. Most shows print on arrival for visitors and pre-print for exhibitor staff, who are known well ahead.
What has to be on the badge
A name readable from two metres, the organisation, an access category that stewards can see at a glance, and a QR the scanners read. Sponsor logos and session tracks are optional; legibility is not.
Why it belongs with registration
If badge printing is a separate supplier, every late registration, name correction and ticket-type change becomes a file transfer. When the printer reads the registration record directly, a change made at nine in the morning is on the badge at nine-oh-one.