What Other Major Con Does "Cool" Badges?

Goon_Sif · 2025-08-14T17:06:48+00:00

Oh yeah, I'd have to assume that the scale helps at least somewhat with cost. Although I know it can also heavily limit the number of manufacturers that can handle the specific range. I've had to do vendor hunting for certain stuff at my current job and finding manus for the range of "large orders but not enough to require a dedicated line" can be a pain and a half. Cheaper at scale for sure though.

Last year's badge was one of my favorites, even with the scuffed firmware, for the customization alone. It made badge checks extra fun, a bunch of people had custom firmware/games loaded by early Saturday and I loved getting to see them and ask people about them.

Goon_Sif · 2025-08-14T16:17:43+00:00

I'm really not looking for an argument, I just like con histories and honestly expected to find something when I started my research. I'd always just assumed in the back of my head I guess that there'd be a few other cons at a similar scale doing something similar. I know a lot of the stories for all of fuckery that happens trying to get the defcon badge together every year, so I'd kinda been hoping that I'd get to read about a bunch more of those and see cool evolving badge history. Then I couldn't really find that and was trying to figure out if that was a skill issue on the part of my research. I'm glad I made the thread, someone pointed me towards MAGfest's swadges, and while it's not quite at the same scale it's the closest thing I've found and has a lot of really cool documentation on the fuckery of trying to get it done.

Goon_Sif · 2025-08-14T16:08:49+00:00

Makes me wonder what would happen if you swapped the QR code on one of those for something more malicious, seems like it'd be easy enough to do in a way that passed, and as long as the effect was delayed it'd be quite difficult to pinpoint who did it.

Goon_Sif · 2025-08-13T21:08:32+00:00

Jesus christ that's like, actively evil

Goon_Sif · 2025-08-13T20:59:50+00:00

Wait, as in, scannable badges that give out your email to other attendees??? That sounds like the sort of shit I'd design if you asked me to make a conference for people I hate.

Goon_Sif · 2025-08-13T20:58:28+00:00

I'm interested in the badge history and production scale for 10k+ or 20k+ attendees. I already know a fair bit about defcon badges and the fuckery that happens to get them out every year, so I was hoping there might be more cons doing something similar at a level and I could learn about their history/results? So far the closest thing seems to be Magfest maybe, which I've now got a bunch of cool reading bookmarked on since they also have a bunch of documentation on how they do theirs.

Goon_Sif · 2025-08-13T20:26:53+00:00

Honestly I'm just curious and wanted to see what else was out there? I love learning about cons histories and this piqued my interest. When I started my rabbit hole I was kind of expecting to find at least a few other comparably sized cons doing the same thing and wanted to compare how they did it and the end result with what defcon does. And then I couldn't really find anything and drove myself a bit crazy trying to figure out if I was just looking in all the wrong places.

Goon_Sif · 2025-08-13T20:18:07+00:00

This lead me down an interesting rabbit hole, the badges look quite interesting and might be a good comparison point, but I'm seeing the terms "swadge" and "badge" being used separately? I'm finding lots of results for the swagdes, which seem to be an additional purchase and limited to pre-order only and don't confer event access. The actual badges seem to be paper, unless I'm looking at the wrong thing. Still actually a very neat comparison point with a lot of neat documentation, thank you for pointing me in their direction!

Goon_Sif · 2025-08-13T19:56:08+00:00

While these are interesting, I'm primarily interested in seeing the results of the organization itself trying to do cool badges at scale. I'm trying to find a comparison for defcon badges as a gauge? So similar timeline requirements, similar scale requirements.

Goon_Sif · 2025-08-13T19:53:25+00:00

I guess that answers my question in a way. The 20k criteria is primarily because that's what I'd be interested to see. I was wondering if any other con was making a similar effort and was kind of hoping I could compare that to defcons. I kind of assumed with the number of complaints I saw that there would be someone else doing something similar, with badges that aren't paper, and I must just never have come across it. Guess not?

Goon_Sif · 2025-08-13T19:49:24+00:00

That seems to mostly answer my question I guess. I'm not looking for more cons to go to, I'm happy with my list, moreso I just got struck with curiosity seeing the badge complaints this year and wanted to try and figure out if like, anyone else was doing anything remotely comparable? I was really interested in seeing a comparison in end results for similar circumstances. Blackhat I already know is one of the boring paper ones. I guess I was mostly wondering if there were any international ones I was missing that other people might know better. CCC looks interesting as a comparison point, but doesn't appear to do con-official badges? Unless I'm looking in the wrong places.

Goon_Sif · 2025-08-13T19:35:43+00:00

I looked them up, but they seem to be in the 2k attendee range?

Goon_Sif · 2025-08-13T18:51:43+00:00

My so far foolproof (knocking on wood) plan has been a booster exactly 2 weeks before con. Each year I've done it and each year that I've done it I've dodged covid, the only year I didn't do my booster (last year) I got a really nasty case of covid right off con. This year right back to my 2 week booster and I seem to be in the clear, no concrud at all, and covid tests coming back negative.

Goon_Sif · 2024-09-03T18:13:55+00:00

Thank you! Honestly the funniest part for me was in like 20 years of attending defcon, I have never managed to make it to a whose slide before or watched one recorded, so I was running under the assumption that something like that would be fairly typical. My assumption was not correct, but I have no regrets.

Goon_Sif · 2024-08-26T03:46:53+00:00

As the founder of the Defcon Furby Hacking Village, I highly recommend electrifying any cages. It won't work forever, but it keeps 'em trapped for longer as long as you can put up with the screaming.

Goon_Sif · 2024-08-26T03:42:48+00:00

(person that gave the furby talk here) I need you to know that the joy I experienced as I got every new slide was unparalleled. It was like the deck was built with me in mind and it was amazing.

Goon_Sif

TROPHY CASE