Event Pass Examples

Event pass and festival pass design ideas

Event passes are typically colour-coded by access level (general admission, VIP, backstage, crew) so stewards can identify entitlement at a glance without checking a list. Many organisers print the event date and a sequential number on each pass to prevent duplication, and some add a barcode or QR code for scan-in entry at gates. Lanyard-compatible punched holes are a common addition for multi-day festivals and conferences.

Our event passes are 70 x 100mm and portrait, rather than the 86 x 54mm of a standard card, and the reason is simply that a pass has a different job. A membership card is carried and read at arm’s length by the person holding it. A pass is worn, and read by somebody else, often across a barrier, often in poor light, often in a hurry.

That extra area is what buys you a legible access level at ten paces. On a credit-card-sized pass, “BACKSTAGE” has to be small enough that a steward has to lean in and focus; at 70 x 100mm it can be a banner across the whole width.

They are printed on 680-micron plastic, which is what gets a pass through three days of a British festival — rain, a lanyard sawing at the hole, being slept in — and still scanning on the Sunday. Paper and laminated passes do not survive that, and a pass that has gone soft is a pass a steward has to squint at.

The single most effective thing you can do with an event pass is colour-code it by access level, and then let the colour do almost all the work. General admission, VIP, backstage, crew, artist, trader, contractor — each gets its own colour, and each colour gets one large word.

Everything else on the pass is secondary. The event name, the dates, the sponsor logos, the terms on the back — all fine, all useful, none of it the thing a steward is reading at a gate at eleven at night. The passes in the examples above that work best are the ones with a bold block of colour and a single word that can be read before the wearer has finished walking up.

Two practical points that come up on nearly every job. Put the access level on both sides, because a pass on a lanyard spends half its life face-backwards. And keep colours genuinely distinct — a red and an orange that look different on your screen can be indistinguishable under coloured stage lighting.

Sequential numbering is close to standard on event work, for a reason that has nothing to do with admin: a uniquely numbered pass is far harder to duplicate usefully, and if one goes missing you can void that number rather than everything. Specify a start number and we run on from it, or send an Excel file with the exact numbers.

For scanned entry, a barcode or a QR code turns each pass into a ticket your gate system can check. Barcodes come in Code39, Code128 and EAN5 — ask your scanning provider which they read. QR codes need to be square and at least 15mm, and can carry a different code on every pass from an Excel file, which is what you want if entry is one-scan-only.

Lanyard holes are punched to order, and we can supply the lanyards too, which saves running two suppliers against the same deadline. Prices start at £119 for 25 passes including free UK delivery, based on one artwork file, with VAT and extras on top.