What’s with the “At” sign?
Did you ever wonder where the “@” sign comes from? It seems that from 1985 until 2007, every committee was identified with a symbol (I have been reminded that most of the committees were identified with a letter, but i considered that as a sort of symbol). Production Committee and it’s former name, Programming and Production Committee, had the “at” sign. The last badge I have with an “@” on it was the 45th Annual PFF in 2006. Beginning in 2007, the 46th Annual PFF, there is no symbol on the badge. This system is no longer used, but now you know where the symbol came from and when it was used. (read below, there’s more on this story!)
More on this story from Dave Axler:
“It seems that from 1985 until 2007, every committee was identified with a symbol.”
No, most committees were identified with a single letter of the alphabet. Performers Tent, where I worked back then, was “P”, and the crew at the hotel was “H”. And Grounds was “Z”, which is why they still like to spell it “GroundZ”.
When the number of committees grew to more than 26, then the Volunteers committee added symbols to the system.
The @ symbols were originally placed on badges using a rubber stamp.
I strongly suspect that 2007, when the symbol stopped being used, was also the first year that badges were fully computer-generated and laminated. One of the long-time members of the Volunteers committee can probably confirm this.
commenting on the badge page @