2025 - Bad luck badges

Overview

DL;TR: No badges, we are issuing full badge refunds to all standard and corporate tickets.

When shit hits the fan, it can hit hard: So, very bad news on badges. Some time ago, our PCB supplier started running into cascading problems. Each time after a problem was solved, another one popped up. We looked for possible solutions, but in the end, a final unexpected problem at the supplier broke the camel’s back: while there was relief last week that all would be good, a last-minute email from the supplier crashed everything down. There was no way to fix things anymore, and all the quite generous time that had been used to ensure problems could be dealt with had gone.

We are angry and we are sorry. We feel extra sorry for those who have been waiting for badge challenges, and we are even more sorry for the awesome badge team: the badge was ambitious and unique, and we are extremely disappointed and angry of the situation. (Please note that the ambition level had nothing to do with the supplier’s problems: the problems were of mundane and banal kind.)

End result: We are reimbursing the badge price for each standard ticket that had bought the badge and all corporate tickets. This will take a bit of time as we need to go through all purchases, but we aim to hurry. The reimbursement will be made to the original paying method (e.g. credit or debit card) in the upcoming weeks.

Timeline

Here’s a timeline of how things went from our perspective.

2024/Q2-3 – As spring blooms,the badge team was formed. A unique idea started to take shape, and the design team began working on realizing it. Summer was spent on realizing the idea and bringing it into full form, with both hardware and software design worked on and completed. This would be an awesome badge.

2024/09-10 – We had initial contacts and discussions for sponsorship for PCBs and assembly. Talks happening related to the cool and unique features we had in mind for the badge

2024/11 – We shared the design of badge, numbers, BOM (Bill Of Materials) and our schedule with the hard deadline on when we would need the production to be completed. Discussions continued with the manufacturing details of the PCB. First indications of challenges appeared on the availability of some components.

2024/12 – In early December, we requested the manufacturer to check our graphical design details to make sure everything is okay with it. DIscussions continued related to components, their availability and possibility to replace them with alternative components. Everything seemed positive – until around mid-December, suddenly it wasn’t: we suddenly got lead times for the components which were at the longest 18 days. Way more than it should have been. All good still, there was plenty of time calculated in for this kind of problems.

Now, with these lead times, we made the decision not to get prototypes ordered from this supplier, but that was a manageable hurdle – we could get them elsewhere and easily do the full testing. Around mid december, the PCB supplier shared their holiday schedule for Chinese New Year (starting at 2025-01-24) and mentioned that they can start production between Christmas and (western) New Year.

After Christmas, it was time to confirm the parts and to start the production. All good? No. At this point, we requested final confirmation for the production (for the whole set: PCB manufacturing + assembly). On December 30th, when production should have been in full steam, we got revised estimations for the production dates: 43-46 days for the whole set with standard production time and 29-33 days for the quicker (and more expensive) route. Estimated production time for PCBs was 15-23 days - the rest was assembly.

This of cause was not possible at all and this part of the plan came crashing down. Slight worries – not bad still: we had experienced people driving the project, and supplier problems happen, so there was of course a backup plan.

2025/01 – In the meantime, our friends at Sulaon (who have been real angels and helped us immensely – no part of the problems here relate to them in any way) came to rescue us regarding the prototypes and were able to provide us with some for testing right at the beginning of January.

At the same time, we also made a decision to produce the PCBs with the supplier and do the assembly in Finland. This also meant that we needed to source some of the components ourselves. Most of them were sourced by a Finnish supplier. As it turned out, we were able to find all needed components with short enough lead time in the end and didn’t face the same challenges as the PCB supplier had informed us of in December. All was good again, panic averted! Preparedness prevailed – or so we thought. At this point it looked certain we’re able to get badges ready for the event. We were given a date when the PCBs would be shipped: 2025-01-24. There was a collective sigh of relief.

…until about a week before the promised shipping date, we were informed about issues with the graphical design – the same design that had been there throughout the process, and which we had requested the PCB supplier to check in early December. Okay, just a graphical problem – did not take more than a few days to solve (as we’re in Finland, PCB supplier is in China and our graphical designer is US, time zones caused some delays with the communications). At this point the original schedule should still have held, so everything is good, right?

Well, yes but unfortunately no. As we asked for updates and the tracking code on the shipping date (Jan 24th), we got a cold shower: The printing of the design on PCBs had ran into yet another problem. We were told that the PCB manufacturing would be completed by the evening of 24th or in the morning of 25th. Well, okay, can’t do much about these kinds of issues, but the panic starts to build. Still doable, though far from ideal as by now all the reserve time had been used…

…and on the 25th we get the information that due to yet another problem, only 100 were ready (and those were shipped on 26th). Just as the Chinese New Year was to start.

We were thoroughly and royally fucked.

Epilogue

The factory will be back from holidays on Jan 31st, and rest of the PCBs are expected to be shipped on 2025-02-05. Shipping takes 3-5 days. So in the worst scenario we have PCBs in Finland on 10th of February. This would leave us 3 full days to the assembly. And as the original estimation was 2-3 weeks with normal schedule, maybe could be pushed to 1-2 on this tight schedule we have, there are just no days left in the calendar to finish the badges in time for the event.

At some point the decision needs to be made. Instead of taking the chance (and mind you, it would be the best case scenario) to provide a hastily assembled and thus sub-par and unpolished product, we pulled the plug. We are angry and we are sorry and we apologize – but we deeply feel this was the correct thing to do at this stage.

What now?

We will reimburse all badge costs (30€) for all standard and corporate tickets. We will do this as fast as we can, but it will take a bit of time. If you have not received the reimbursement by the time of the event, please contact us at contact@disobey.fi.

Please note that the reimbursement is made to the original method of payment; i.e., if you bought the badge (or a corporate ticket that includes the badge) with a specific credit card, the reimbursement will be made to that card.

And what will happen to the Bad Luck Badges when they arrive? We will finish the assembly when we get the badges, but the plan remains open on what we will do with them. And the team will review and use the bitter learnings from this case to learn for the future.

Our apologies to everyone who wanted to work on the badge challenges or were looking to delve into the deep secrets of the badge’s secrets.

Questions?

If you have any questions, please contact contact@disobey.fi

Sincerely,

Disobey 2025 Core Crew