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An event agency emailed at midday asking whether 300 delegate badges could be printed and delivered the same afternoon, for a UK Government trade roadshow opening the next morning. Double sided, delivered to a hotel on Whitechapel Road in E1. Quoted at 12:13, confirmed at 13:25, delivered at 16:56 — three and a half hours from go-ahead.
Written by Maciej Antosz, Production Manager at Silver Image London ·
This is an account of one job, not a turnaround promise. Send us yours and we will come back with a firm figure.
The times below are as they sit in the email thread. The brief arrived without a stock specified, which is the part that mattered.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| Before 12:13 | Enquiry in: 300 badges from an attached design, double sided, same-day print and delivery for an event opening the next morning. No hole punching needed — the agency would do that themselves. |
| 12:13 | Quoted, with the stock left as a question rather than a decision: 400 gsm if the badges were going to be hole-punched, 300 gsm if they were going into wallets as inserts. |
| 13:25 | Answer back: “we’ll be hole punching so 400 gsm is fine.” That single line was the go-ahead and the specification at the same time. |
| 16:56 | Delivered to the hotel by bike courier. Three hours and thirty-one minutes from the confirmation email. |
Written up from the email thread. The agency and the four people on the thread are not named; the event and the printed item are, because they are the work.
A badge is not finished when it comes off the press. It gets a hole punched in it, or it slides into a plastic wallet, or it hangs off a lanyard clip — and each of those wants a different card.
400 gsm when the badge is hole-punched. The punch removes material from exactly the place that then carries the entire weight of the badge for two days. At 300 gsm the ring of card left around the hole tears out of a lanyard by the second coffee break; at 400 gsm it holds. This is the single most common reason badges get reprinted mid-event.
300 gsm when the badge is an insert. If it slides into a wallet, the wallet carries the load and the card only has to sit flat and be readable. Thicker stock here is worse, not better: it bows inside the sleeve and jams when a delegate tries to swap it.
So the quote went out with both prices and the question attached, rather than with an assumption. The answer came back in one line and the job went on the floor. Guessing 300 gsm to look cheaper would have cost the agency a reprint on the morning of the event, in a hotel, with 300 delegates arriving.
The agency asked for them trimmed and unpunched, and that was the right call. Punch position depends on the lanyard clip being used, and the clips were with them, not with us. Punching 300 badges to a guessed position is 300 badges in the bin if the clip is a different width.
On an urgent job it is also the fastest split of work: printing and trimming happen on a press, punching happens with a hand tool that anyone can operate at the venue while the room is being set up. We did the part that needs a machine, they did the part that needs the clip in hand.
Stock options, sizes, lanyard and wallet choices are on the ID badge and name tag printing page. For work that has to be finished inside the working day, see same day printers.
Tell us the size, the quantity and when you need it. We come back with a firm price, and we check the artwork before anything goes on press.
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