Louisiana Association of Computer Using Educators

How ATS Helped LACUE Events Transition to a Premium Badge Solution

The Client

Louisiana Association of Computer Using Educators (LACUE) is a technology group for educators in Louisiana. The purpose of LACUE is to provide a professional nonprofit organization in the State of Louisiana, which recognizes and promotes the use of computers in education. The ultimate goal of LACUE is to achieve improvement in the understanding of technology and have technical training available for educators.

Senior Association Coordinator, Jennifer Constantin, has been in her position for 12 years. She plans all of the LACUE events throughout the year. Jenny enjoys the fact that educators use what they learn at the LACUE conferences in their classrooms.

The Challenge

Before making the transition to a premium badge solution with ATS, the LACUE team manually preprinted over 1500 badges in their office on custom paper cardstock. This perforated cardstock included the attendees’ name badge, receipt, drink tickets, and door prize tickets. The team worked multiple days and many hours manually merging the registrants’ data from a spreadsheet to preprint each badge and then file in alphabetical order. “The most painful part was the time that it took to complete the process. We spent days printing and organizing into about 15 file boxes.”

• Preprinting and manually entering the attendee’s information was not an adequate use of time for Jenny and her team. She said, “We would have to print for three days before the premium badge solution. It was not going to work anymore.”
• The attendees were equally frustrated with the perforated paper cardstock considering they had to stuff their badges in their badge holders. They easily lost tickets in the process.

As the LACUE events began to grow, the LACUE team developed new partnerships. To give these high-level partners recognition, it was important for LACUE to find a badge solution that allowed them to highlight their partners’ colored logos directly on the badge.

The Solution

Premium Badge Solution including Print on Demand

“We have some high level partners and now we are able to incorporate their sponsorships on the premium badge stock.”

ATS provided a premium badge solution that would work best for all of their LACUE events. With the non-tear vinyl stock, they were able to print on demand. Pre-show, this allowed them to save plenty of time and energy to put towards other events’ priorities. The print on demand feature made registration lines brisk and efficient. They were also able to do away with badge holders and clip the lanyard directly to the badge keeping all pieces of the badge together.

This premium badge solution has also allowed space to add their schedule of events, highlight their new high-level partners with color logos, and still have room to sell additional sponsorships. “We now have the option to sell a lot more sponsorships. We can sell space on the inside of the badge and even on the tickets”.

The Result

“There were no problems with printing. There were no problems onsite. The attendees loved the premium badge stock because they had everything on their lanyard clip. We didn’t have to worry about anything falling off.”

Since the change to premium badge stock, LACUE has eliminated the preprinting and manual preshow process for their events. Moving to the premium badge solution has saved Jenny and her team valuable time to dedicate to other tasks. LACUE’s preshow process had always been a big concern, and now with premium badge stock and print on demand, LACUE’s new approach is effortless and flawless. “We trusted ATS — the badge change ended up being a huge success.”