Above: Long time Expo supporters Bill and Vera Felts of the Southern Illinois Stamp Club working the Registration desk.

Attendance Buttons provided a solution at Expo in 1997. The Henry VIII hotel needed a method to identify paid attendees. This identification let the parking attendant release vehicles without payment. The aim was to streamline exit processes for exhibitors and visitors.

Today, they are no longer required to exit the parking area at the Renaissance. Nevertheless, Attendance Buttons remain used to verify that attendees have paid when entering. The system now serves as a record of admission rather than a payment gate. This continuity helps organizers audit crowds and improve on-site flow.

The USPS logo appeared on all buttons, funded by their advertising budget, but this ended in 2019. Similarly, Attendance Buttons were designed by a mail carrier named Scottie, from a north St. Louis post office. Scottie was a key contributor who deserves note in Expo’s history. Scottie was a mail carrier from a north St. Louis post office. They gave him an unofficial job designing postal cancels for events like Expo. He would take Tom Minor’s cachet design, develop the USPS cancel and show buttons, then have them created. That tool, as any Word user would know, was not easy for this work. Scottie created all the cancels for the show until 2010, when he retired from the USPS. Thanks for your contributions to the show, Scottie!

Penney Kols and Tom Minor have created them since 2010.