This was asked about on the SMOFs list, so I'll put in the same answer here that I did there:
I went to a lot of EveCons and CastleCons (Washington DC area) in the late 80's through mid 90's, and photo ID con badges were considered routine. The only other large east-coast con I went to in those days was Balticon, which did not. Have not gone to a con in that area in ~10 years.
I worked security/door guard, and I was supposed to check the face on the badge against the face on the person. The utility of this was highly irregular, as you can probably guess.
I also worked registration making the badges. There were typically 2 or 3 photo stations. Each had 4 chairs, two high, two low. People sat in the chairs. A photo was taken with a polaroid on a tripod. A square punch was used to punch out each face. The photo was stuck to a square in the center of the badge blank (badges printed at reg) and laminated. Since it was a polaroid, there were no negatives, so the con did not end up with pictures of the attendees.
My understanding is that this was SOP at government/DOD/big corps that needed photo ID's in the pre-digital days. The gear (camera, tripod, punch, laminator) were all government surplus. Most of the con staff and many of the attendees worked in places that required badges like this (presumably non-SF convention organizations would take more than one photo and keep the extras). Nobody really thought much of it, it was pretty much taken for granted.
Have not seen photo badges used anyplace else. I do not remember if fen had to put their real names on the badge or not, nor do I recall what sort of ID was required to pick up a badge.
no subject
I went to a lot of EveCons and CastleCons (Washington DC area) in the late 80's through mid 90's, and photo ID con badges were considered routine. The only other large east-coast con I went to in those days was Balticon, which did not. Have not gone to a con in that area in ~10 years.
I worked security/door guard, and I was supposed to check the face on the badge against the face on the person. The utility of this was highly irregular, as you can probably guess.
I also worked registration making the badges. There were typically 2 or 3 photo stations. Each had 4 chairs, two high, two low. People sat in the chairs. A photo was taken with a polaroid on a tripod. A square punch was used to punch out each face. The photo was stuck to a square in the center of the badge blank (badges printed at reg) and laminated. Since it was a polaroid, there were no negatives, so the con did not end up with pictures of the attendees.
My understanding is that this was SOP at government/DOD/big corps that needed photo ID's in the pre-digital days. The gear (camera, tripod, punch, laminator) were all government surplus. Most of the con staff and many of the attendees worked in places that required badges like this (presumably non-SF convention organizations would take more than one photo and keep the extras). Nobody really thought much of it, it was pretty much taken for granted.
Have not seen photo badges used anyplace else. I do not remember if fen had to put their real names on the badge or not, nor do I recall what sort of ID was required to pick up a badge.