Badges
Design badge templates, assign them by ticket type, registration path, or price tier, and print them through the Cockpit badge queue on the day of your event.
Updated May 26, 2026
Mercleo Events generates attendee badges from templates you build in the Badges tab of your event dashboard. Each template controls the layout, fields, and QR code that appear on a printed badge.
You assign templates to attendees through a three-axis priority chain — registration path, price tier, ticket type — so different attendees automatically get different badge designs without manual re-assignment.
Template list and assignment priority
Open the Badges tab at /{slug}?tab=badges to see all event-level templates. Each row shows the template name, whether it is the event default (marked with a star), how many ticket types are currently assigned to it, and a Cloned label if it originated from an org-level master.
Clicking New template creates a blank 101.6 × 76.2 mm canvas with a single "Full name" element already placed. Use Clone from master to pull a pre-built template from your org's master library instead of starting from scratch.
Three assignment cards below the template list let you point each axis to a specific template:
- Registration paths — highest priority.
- Price tiers — middle priority.
- Ticket types — lowest priority before the event default.
When Mercleo assigns a template to a confirmed ticket, it walks the chain: path → tier → type → event default. The first match wins. Per-ticket operator overrides are never overwritten by this chain.
The Recompute existing tickets button re-runs the priority chain across all confirmed tickets that do not already have a pinned operator override. Use it after changing an assignment to re-assign tickets that were created before the change.
Template actions: the star icon makes a template the event default; Edit opens the designer; Duplicate copies the template; Delete is blocked when tickets are still assigned to that template.
The designer
The badge designer opens inline when you click Edit on any template. The canvas is measured in millimetres; dragging an element snaps it to the nearest whole mm on release.
The Add field panel on the left contains standard fields — Full name, First name, Last name, Company, Title, Pronouns, Ticket type, Registration path, Price tier, and Ticket code — followed by a Custom group that lists any custom registration questions for the event. Click a field to place it on the canvas.
To add a scannable QR code, use Add ticket-code QR. QR elements support a foreground color, a transparent-background toggle, and a background color when transparency is off.
Badge background: choose a flat color or upload an image. The image is scaled to fill the canvas.
Click Save and download sample PNG to save the template and download a rendered preview of the badge at current field values.
Print queue in Cockpit
On the day of your event, badge printing runs through the Badges module in Cockpit (?module=badge_queue). Three tabs manage the workflow:
- Find and hand over — search for an attendee and mark their badge as collected once you hand it to them.
- Print — select one or more attendees and click Print or Print selected. Mercleo fetches the rendered badge PDF and triggers a download. You then open the file and print from your OS.
- Printed / ready — badges that have been printed and are waiting at the table for pickup.
Auto-print is not implemented
Auto-print on check-in is not implemented. The print queue exists and is real-time, but clicking Print or Print selected downloads a PDF — your team must open the file and send it to the printer manually. The browser print dialog does not launch automatically when an attendee checks in.
For events with high arrival rates, run the print queue on a dedicated screen with one staff member handling download-and-print while another manages check-in.
Some printer drivers fail to render the PDF path correctly and produce blank pages. If you see blank output, open the downloaded file in Preview on macOS and print from there.