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The red lanyards are simply a way for people to indicate that they’re participating in your infusion (either as a local or a visitor).
Attendees are responsible for finding and bringing their own. You do not have to supply them.
Bulk plain lanyards are available almost anywhere — dollar stores, party supply stores, Canadian Tire.
Attendees don’t need to print anything on them or have an ID card or anything. It’s not an admission pass.
Attendees bring their own of any kind — they don’t have to be branded like this!
The lanyard is a visual signal that says this is a person who who flew in to spend money in your community. Or perhaps is a local who is excited for the weekend.
A barista who sees a red lanyard knows to ask where the visitor is from. A local on the seawall who sees a red lanyard knows to wave. The lanyard turns generic small-town friendliness into specific welcome.
Many businesses in Nanaimo offered small discounts or upgrades to anyone wearing a red lanyard during the weekend. A free coffee with a paid sandwich. Ten percent off a book. A second scoop of ice cream. None of these are big gestures on their own. Together, they make a visitor feel like they wandered into a town that was waiting for them.
Red is loud. Red is Canadian. Red is impossible to miss in a crowd of three hundred people standing in a park.
(That’s what worked for us, but do your own thing! If red genuinely does not fit, pick another bright, unambiguous colour. But the principle holds: it should be a colour that nobody would wear by accident.)
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In the months before the 2026 Nanaimo Infusion, somebody in our Discord found a small business in New Brunswick that made lanyards out of hockey laces. They also made small metal charms that could hang from the lanyard, custom-engraved with whatever you wanted. The Nanaimo Infusion charm started circulating in the Discord. People began ordering them.
The store owner emailed Tod a few weeks later. The message, paraphrased: who are you, what is this event, and why are we suddenly flooded with orders for red hockey-lace lanyards? 😂
By the time of the event, the store had taken more than 100 orders.
(This is not a "find a hockey-lace company" lesson. The lesson is: once you give people a symbol, they will make it bigger than you imagined. Your job is to provide a basic version, available to anyone, and then to step out of the way of whatever the community builds on top of it.)
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If you have the budget, you may want to consider getting a hundred spare lanyards to have at the welcome table on the morning of the gathering.
If you do opt for this, order more than you think you need. Some visitors will want to take an extra one home as a souvenir. Locals will sometimes wear them too in solidarity.
Send a short message to local businesses two weeks before the weekend. Tell them: visitors will be wearing red lanyards. They are coming from across the country (or the continent). If you would like to offer them a small welcome — a discount, a free upgrade, a friendly hello — that would mean a great deal.