From Pre-Printed to On-Site: How MSBA Streamlined Event Check-In with Expo Pass

“Our biggest thing is time. This is days of work being completely managed by Expo Pass. It saves me so much time.“

The Missouri School Boards’ Association (MSBA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to its mission of helping school boards ensure all students succeed. Since 1936, MSBA has been the go-to resource for school board members across the state, offering advocacy, leadership development, and a packed calendar of conferences and events that bring Missouri’s education community together.

To keep their event check-ins fast, easy, and flexible, MSBA uses Expo Pass’s on-site event badge printing and conference check-in software across all of its events. That includes their flagship Annual Conference, Missouri’s largest gathering of educational leaders, hosted in partnership with the Missouri Association of School Administrators (MASA) and the Missouri Association of School Business Officials (MoASBO), which draws nearly 1,500 attendees, as well as numerous smaller trainings and events throughout the year that welcome a few hundred participants each.

We recently caught up with Amelia Stevens, Event Specialist at MSBA, to talk about how Expo Pass has helped them level up their events, from smoother operations and shorter lines, to beautiful badges, to a more polished, professional first impression.

The Drawbacks of Pre-printed Plastic

Before switching to Expo Pass’ iPad check-in kiosks and on-demand badges, MSBA relied on pre-printed plastic badges. This process was slow, rigid, and came with a lot of extra work.

When asked about their old plastic system, Stevens says, “It felt wasteful.” But it wasn’t just about the material. “We’d have to organize them ourselves,” she went on, “alphabetize them, and then put tabs on them. We’d have different lines, and you had to have someone man each line. It was just a lot more manual… Our registration lines were so long. It took forever.”

After switching to Expo Pass, Stevens notes “Now, I can’t imagine we have over a 5-minute wait for registration at our Annual Conference, where we have over a thousand attendees.”

But it’s not just about the shorter lines, she says. “It completely changed our process. It allowed us to put attention and time on other issues. It’s just set up, done, loaded. They print themselves.” And for the Event Staff at the Check-in tables: “They could actually have a conversation, since they weren’t bogged down doing it all manually.”

What do their attendees think of the change?

According to Stevens, “We had so many compliments on how advanced we were, how good the technology was. This is so much better than what was before.”

In fact, she said, “We conduct a survey after each event, and our registration satisfaction rates have consistently been between 99% and 100% ever since.”

How is the setup process for the iPad check-in kiosks and on-site badge printers?

MSBA uses Expo Pass’ badge printing equipment for multiple events a year of varying sizes. Asked about the setup process, Stevens says: “Very, very easy.”

“My coworker calls them Dick and Jane books because they’ve got the pictures and very simple instructions. We love the booklets… Most of the time we have the setup call, which is very helpful, but it’s set up before we’re on the call.”

Stevens also noted about using Expo Pass’s Online Badge Designer Tool ahead of the events, “I work with our graphic designer, and she sends me the PDF.  I plug it in.  It’s unbelievably easy.”