Sponsor Facebook Messenger created a wall where attendees could "send a message that matters" by leaving notes of encouragement and love.
Photo: Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Teen Vogue
Twitter Commons
Instead of giving away its usual branded swag, Twitter decided to give back by encouraging guests to donate to three nonprofits: Black Girls Code, Girls Inc., and the Las Vegas Victim’s Fund.
Photo: Jon Carmichael
Girlboss Rally
The third Girlboss Rally took place April 28 at the Reef in Los Angeles. Secret sponsored the Girlboss Radio Podcast booth, where the day’s speakers were interviewed. Attendees were invited to drop a question in a box outside the booth.
Photo: Chris Swoszowski
Refinery29 executive creative director Piera Gelardi at the Los Angeles edition of 29Rooms in December. Click here to see more images from the event.
Photo: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Refinery29
On March 29, one of the main stage presentations featured student chefs from Thistletown High School working with culinary instructor Keith Hoare. The crew offered ideas for recipes that reduce kitchen waste, such as using an entire chicken, as well as demonstrated techniques for deboning a chicken.
Photo: Courtesy of Green Living Show
Now in its third year, the Canadian Green Car Award was one of the show's attractions. A team of Canadian automotive journalists selected the Kia Soul EV as the 2015 Canadian Green Car Overall Winner and Category Winner, Battery Electric.
Photo: Courtesy of Green Living Show
The Sweat Equity Yoga and Fitness stage offered free yoga classes. The stage also hosted workshops and lectures covering health and nutrition.
Photo: Courtesy of Green Living Show
The Ecoparent Village offered activities for kids. The area also offered a breastfeeding room and a baby-change room with environmentally friendly diapers from Naty.
Photo: Courtesy of Green Living Show
Ikea erected a 14- by 24-foot art installation made of recycled toilet paper. The installation promoted Ikea's use of recycled napkins, toilet paper, and paper towels in Canadian stores.
Photo: Courtesy of Green Living Show
Real estate development, construction, and management company Minto set up an indoor park area with lawn chairs, umbrellas, and a grassy carpet.
Photo: Courtesy of Green Living Show
Livegreen, an eco-friendly home improvement company, offered a photo opportunity that let guests don green capes and pose in front of a backdrop that said: "You don't have to be a superhero to make our planet a little greener."
Photo: Courtesy of Green Living Show
Rehan Choudhry is evolving some of the strategies he learned from the Life Is Beautiful festival to develop a new conference format with lofty goals.
Photo: Antonio Abrego
1. Break the ice.
One of the primary functions of a name badge is to increase conversations and networking. For the ninth iteration of the Engage! luxury-wedding business summit, held in Las Vegas in 2012, name badges served as an icebreaker: The number of crystal charms on the tag identified how many times the badge-wearer had attended an Engage! conference. Veteran attendees had nine balls, while first-timers had one.
Photo: Readyluck
For the inaugural Teen Vogue Summit, held in Los Angeles in December, badges also aimed to spark conversation: Each one included the attendees’ social handle and a cause they were most passionate about. Guests could also customize the badges—which were adorned with the hashtag #Goals—with fun, on-theme buttons throughout the day.
Photo: Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Teen Vogue
TEDActive in Palm Springs, California, in 2013, had a similar idea: Buttons with blank fields labeled "Talk to Me About ... " invited guests to write a short list of topics they love or are knowledgeable about, to encourage meaningful mingling. Attendees could attach the buttons to their existing badges. The independent TED-style event TEDxWaterloo in Canada, takes it a step further, leaving titles and company names off of name badges. Instead, organizers leave 40 characters on the badges for attendees to finish the phrase “I'm chasing … ,” which gets conversations started among attendees on a deeper level.
Photo: Alesandra Dubin/BizBash
Another way to let guests express their personalities is through badge ribbons, which hang at the bottom of the badge. While ribbons often are used to designate event roles—speaker, alumni, etc.—they can also be used to break the ice. PC/Nametag offers seven themed “fun packs” of ribbons that can be customized with items such as emoji.
Photo: Courtesy of PC/Nametag
2. Kill two birds with one stone.
Badges are also an opportunity to give attendees necessary information—without making them carry around a heavy event program. At C2 Montréal last month, attendees wore klik name badges from Montreal-based technology company PixMob. In addition to displaying guest credentials in a large, easy-to-read format, the badges connected them to the klik technology—an audience engagement solution that can be used for ticketing and registration, data and analytics, event communication, and much more. The LED wearable can light up in 16-million different colors in response to remote control commands. In addition to badges, the klik technology can be used in wristbands and in buttons on lanyards; event organizers can rent or buy the wearables.
Photo: Mateo Casis
For Etsy’s first New York conference in 2013, organizers demonstrated simple changes to enhance sustainability. The conference program and badge were combined into one item to minimize waste and to keep attendees' hands free.
Photo: The Photo Booth Party
Another way badges can increase effectiveness is through the addition of a Poken. The device attaches to a badge's lanyard and comes in dozens of conversation-starting designs such as a panda bear, a ninja, and a bumblebee (as well as a simple black-and-white model). The device uses near-field communication, so simply tapping two together exchanges the information stored on them, such as contact information, social network profiles, documents, videos, and Web sites. After the event, users plug the Poken into their computer's USB port to see all the people and information collected.
Photo: Courtesy of Poken
3. Complement the decor.
If every attendee is going to be wearing a badge, it's a good chance to enhance an event's decor. For the 2016 edition of Engage!, held in Palm Beach, Florida, Vanessa Kreckel of Two Paper Dolls designed the colorful leather name tags, which tied into the event’s tropical theme.
Photo: Jeremie Barlow
National badge-design company PC/Nametag offers a variety of attractive options for events, including colorful badges printed on metallic silver. The lanyard colors can be matched to the badge to create an eye-catching tag that can complement an event’s decor.
Photo: Courtesy of PC/Nametag
Summer Brand Camp—an annual conference in Dallas for foodservice industry professionals working in human resources, marketing, and operations—incorporates camp-style elements every year. For the 2015 conference, organizers evoked a craft station at a kids’ camp, inviting guests to decorate their name badges with colored beads.
Photo: Jill Harper/Summer Brand Camp
For Be Inspired PR’s Tassels and Tastemakers networking event, held in Los Angeles in 2016, name badges added to the event’s simple yet upscale design. The multicolored tags, which simply listed attendees’ first name and social-media handle, were displayed on a wall designed by Couture Events.
Photo: Anna Delores Photography
4. Sometimes, less is more.
For smaller events, name tags don’t have to break the budget—or stick to a standard format. Artist marketplace Minted suggests a D.I.Y. option for event hosts using a simple button maker. The colorful round buttons are a simple, unobtrusive way to share guest names plus a small fun fact about them—which encourages conversation. Read more about the process on Minted’s Julep blog.
Photo: Melanie Blodgett for Julep
For New York Fashion Week in 2009, sponsor YKK—a zipper manufacturer—created unique lanyards for the badges every attendee needed to access the tent. Instead of a branded fabric strap, YKK supplied an oversize, functioning zipper, which gave attendees something to fiddle with while waiting for shows to start.
Photo: BizBash
At meeting space Convene at 237 Park Avenue, this year's festival hub, sponsor 3M activated a digital Wonder Wall that curated words from content attendees posted on social media about the festival. The wall was designed by GMR Marketing.
Photo: Will Ragozzino
3M's Wonder Wall featured an interactive "rainfall" element that allowed attendees to interrupt the falling digital water through their body movements, creating colorful figures on the screen.
Photo: Will Ragozzino
The festival hub featured a gallery of oversize magazine covers of past issues of Fast Company.
Photo: Will Ragozzino
Bumble Bizz, a new networking feature from dating app Bumble, hosted its Hive Pollination Station at the festival hub. The station featured ceiling branding, which was designed by Fast Company art director Katie Flanagan and installed by Burst Visuals.
Photo: Will Ragozzino
The Bumble Bizz area offered one-on-one mentoring sessions from a mix of business leaders.
Photo: Will Ragozzino
The Bumble Bizz station also featured a branded coffee bar.
Photo: Will Ragozzino
Sponsor Shell set up it Shell Synergy Food Truck outside of Convene. The activation invited attendees to "jump for their lunch," which was an interactive way for the brand to showcase its energy innovations and #Makethefuture initiative. A digital screen on the truck showed how much energy people generated when they jumped. The activation was produced by J. Walter Thompson London.
Photo: Will Ragozzino
U.C.L.A. partnered with the festival as part of its U.C.L.A. Optimists initiative, which explores how the power of optimism can change the world. The university's onsite activation was an interactive gallery wall, which was designed by Fast Company art director Carly Stern and fabricated by Duggal Visual Solutions. Guests could flip through notable university alumni via iPads mounted on the wall.
Photo: Will Ragozzino
Kerastase Club Event
Guests could fill up branded tote bags with full-size samples in the gifting area.
Photo: Vero Image
