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Forum - View topicNEWS: Ohio Anime Con Uses RFID Technology to Track Attendees
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ladychaos
 Posts: 3 |
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Oh. I thought they were just scanning the badges to make sure they were real...
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Zoe
 Posts: 898 Location: Austin |
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1337, eh?
Nice to see some conventions moving into the future. |
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xstylus
 Posts: 272 |
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Depends on if you consider 1984 the future or not. 
Frankly, I'm incredibly creeped out by the idea. I shall never attend a convention that keeps a log of where I'm at or where I've been. |
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BenBrown
 Posts: 46 |
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Almost makes you wonder if that was on purpose, or maybe they had 2000 attendees that were just exceptionally skilled. From the phrasing of the article it sounds like they were hand scanned, which is sorta lame, you can do that sort of thing with proximity scans on RFID these days, although for more money. Heck they could have done the same thing with bar-codes on the badges. Or had them tattooed on their 1337 foreheads. But still pretty cool. |
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Faceman
 Posts: 300 Location: Boston |
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Well, it makes sense to use RFID tracking. It does definitely stop counterfitting of badges (especially if they don't know RFID is being used) and will help them map out attendance numbers, peak time for Dealer's Room and any other panels they use it for. Would probably also make lines faster, as people just have to wave it over the scanner and get a *BEEP* than for door-staffers to visually check every single badge.
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CorneredAngel
 Posts: 854 Location: New York, NY |
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As I understood, they were hand-scanned for dealer's room entry, and captured remotely for the number of people sitting in main events and other panel rooms at particular times. |
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Wizel603
Posts: 1 |
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eventually it won't need to be even that intrusive. Just a quick pinprick when you show up for registration to confirm your true identity and only a second of your time for them to record your identity number from the embedded rfid in your wrist, which will then allow you quick access through doorways in the convention center without all the holdup caused by staffed badge checks. There will be no more forgetting of your badge in your hotel room, and dealers will know with a glance at their payment system if they can sell you that 18+ doujin you have picked up. Plus you will always be able to find out where your buddies are since the system records everyone who passes through any of the monitored access points, be they panel rooms or the enterence to the convention center itself. I love the future. can't wait to see what 2084 is like. |
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Kaiser Mike
Posts: 10 Location: Cincinnati |
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Hey, I'm the conchair of this event.
To answer a few technical questions: There were no area readers, the tags we used were the cheapest we could get, and the readers were all home made. We couldn't do prox scans, and are not looking to. It takes barely a second for the gopher at the door to bring the hand-held scanner within an inch or so of the badge. Dealers room, main programming, and game room were all checked. The hallway with the panels and video games had a scanner as well, though those rooms were not individually scanned. Our paid attendance at the time of closing ceremonies was 1336, so when we mentioned it at the end of the con, someone in the audience came forward to register again so our our convention would be "1337". It was pretty funny. As for the privacy issue, the database was a simple I/O kind of thing with the list of activated RF tags in it. If your RFID was in the system the light turned on, if it wasn't it didn't. We have yet to attach personal data to the activity data, and I personally am very hesitant to do so. Only myself and my reg head will ever be allowed to see where any specific person was. When we merge the databases to look at demographic trends so that we can better plan next year, I will make sure that all the personal info (name, address, email, etc) is removed. Overall the new technology worked fantastically. I look forward to developing it farther for next year. -Michael Beuerlein Anime Punch 2008 Convention Chairman |
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Cardcaptor Usagi Doremi
 Posts: 12 Location: Ohio |
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 Aw, gee. There was an anime con in Columbus and I didn't know?! There are hardly ever anime cons near here...
The tracking system is kind of creepy, but it may be used to make cons more fun, by losing the events that aren't very popular - in that case, I'm all for it. |
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Jozoiscute
 Posts: 252 |
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That's cool and kinda creepy at the same time.
Think about it....if you kept the badge as a memoir, they would know where you live!!!
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Serge
 Posts: 162 |
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Bit extreme if you ask me. lol
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DKong
 Posts: 152 |
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Regardless. I was at the con. Being manual scanners, I think it actually took longer than the traditional "look at the badge" system of the past. For a small(ish) con like AP, it's fine. But for Otakon, I'd imagine a hand scanner would make lines a lot longer. And a proximity scanner would be kinda pointless. If 5 people walked in and it gave the green light to 4 of them, would there be technology available to be able to figure out who has a fake badge? If so, cool. If not, then it's pointless. Though I am looking forward to this in the future. To anyone who thinks this is creepy or extreme- you don't fully understand the technology... Last edited by DKong on Tue Apr 15, 2008 4:33 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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CorneredAngel
Posts: 854 Location: New York, NY |
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um...and since you filled out the registration form, they already do. |
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kokuryu
 Posts: 915 |
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This has been pretty much SOP at most conventions that I have attended during the past 20 or so years. It is only getting some extra page room because "RFID" was bought up. Back then, they just used barcodes and still scanned people when they went in and out of the buildings and in and out of the dealers room and scanned for access to the guest/VIP area to make sure they were allowed to be there. Its handy technology.
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tauromachine
Posts: 3 Location: Boston, MA |
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I think something like this is definitely where other events will start to go in the future. Speaking as someone that works on planning a convention, I've been asked if something like this could be implemented to give people an opportunity to add themselves to someone's mailing list or whatnot. San Diego Comic Con does something like this (I think with barcodes instead of RFID, though) and I heard great things about the results it brought in for driving new business to exhibitors that got in on that action. It could also potentially be really valuable to industry, which generally gets a convention favors and prize support in return. Those prizes, of course, end up going back into contests and stuff at the con, so lucky attendees reap the rewards.
Big-time professional trade shows use proximity RFID and all kinds of tracking stuff to generate all kinds of data, which (naturally) can be sold back to exhibitors later. At the same time, though, those kinds of shows are working with a lot more money and totally different registration systems. You can put something together like Michael mentioned here on the cheap, but it (I guarantee without even seeing it) would lack the depth of what the big trade shows would do. At the same time, the same privacy concerns everyone's mentioned were stressed as important to the guy chairing the event, so I've got no reason to think there'd be abuse. It's still a good idea to provide an opt-out, though. If the con was this past weekend, though, I'm sure there's plenty to worry about right now without dithering over next year's opt-out policy. |
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