A Brief History of Convention Ribbons

If you’ve gone to conventions like CONvergence, you may have seen the ribbons imprinted with catchphrases and clip art people stick to the bottom of the their badges—in some cases, collecting large trails of them. CONvergence does a great job of explaining how you can get your own ribbons on its site, including a variety of different vendors that print them.

But what is the real purpose of badge ribbons, and how did the tradition get started?

Ribbons at CONvergence 2019. Madeleine Vasaly

Kevin Standlee, in his article in Argentus Presents The Art of the Con (PDF link), discusses four purposes of membership badges. Badge ribbons share these features since they’re obviously so closely tied to badges.

1. Identity: Badges and ribbons are sometimes used to identify that a person is a program participant, volunteer, or staff member.
2. Ticket: Occasionally, volunteer ribbons may be used to identify that someone gets access to a volunteer den or other restricted spaces.
3. Memorabilia: In the case of some ribbons, people like to collect them because they’re a snapshot of a particular event. Collecting ribbons at a particular con can be like getting your senior yearbook signed.
4. Utility: Ribbons definitely serve as a bit of social lubricant—for proof, look no further than the young convention attendee eagerly asking for ribbons, building a great collection. Fan-run conventions, especially, are community-building activities, and ribbons help with this.

As it is with badges, there are tradeoffs that among the four features. It’s much more difficult to use a ribbon as a ticket or to provide critical information if it’s buried in sea of others. This may be a worthwhile tradeoff—but one convention runners should acknowledge. As part of the history, you see where some of the functions (such as convention committee identification, or pronoun identification, or social interaction cues) sometimes go to other pieces of technology, like stickers, buttons, and wristbands.

Originally, ribbons were primarily tied to identity and ticket requirements. This goes back well into the 20th century, when ribbons frequently used a tall vertical format, as you can see in photos from the 1980 Worldcon. Staff and convention committee members generally used them for identification purposes, and “official purposes only.” There’s a report about the 1990 Worldcon in File 770 #89, and amidst the casual sexism on display in the article, you see that vertical ribbons would be used to identify committee members, Hugo finalists, and program participants.

One of the main places that the shift from vertical to horizontal ribbons happened was at Worldcon 2000 in Chicago. The ribbons at this con were still primarily used for the same purposes as they has been before, but since the horizontal format made them stackable, and it’s cheaper to get ribbons in bulk, you started to see ribbons used for less utilitarian reasons.

When I brought up the topic on the Journeypeople of Fandom Facebook group, Michigan convention runner Tammy Coxen commented she was inspired by the Chicago Worldcon use of horizontal ribbons and brought it back to Michigan’s ConFusion. The convention started to allow other individuals to participate in bulk purchases, so more and more ribbons representing individual whims would get made.

Some people take their ribbon collecting very seriously. Madeleine Vasaly

During the bidding for the Los Angeles Worldcon in 2003, one of the bid organizers, Chaz Boston Baden, went to ConFusion. He recounted that, noting the success of ribbons there, he brought the idea back to California and raised the profile in a wide variety of fan-run conventions, from Worldcon and other general science-fiction conventions to anime conventions and the LA-based Doctor Who convention Gallifrey One. He started to collect bulk orders from numerous individuals and organizations, gaining a reputation as go-to person for ribbons.

Throughout the mid-2000s, the internet made it even easier for individuals to order their own ribbons, and they became affordable enough that people were willing order them for fun.

It was observing them at Gallifrey One that I and several other CONvergence convention committee members, including Christopher Jones and Twin Cities Geek editor-in-chief Hal Bichel, felt ribbons had potential as a tradition at CONvergence. The convention started to promote them on its website, and enough attendees participated that first year to capture wide interest. It exploded in popularity at CONvergence and has since appeared at other conventions in the Twin Cities.

Ribbons are primarily used for the social and memorabilia purposes these days, and they’re hugely popular. We see some of the earliest activity each year around CONvergence happen around organizing ribbon-trading events. It’s a chance for fans to spread their latest favorite catchphrases, show their love for their fandoms, and more. The practice has gone on long enough now that it’s more than just a fad—it’s a true convention tradition on its own.