The first backstage pass was very simple, quite often a pass was issued by the venue or promoter with the band name and date stamped onto this generic looking item. As printing technology advanced, backstage passes became more detailed with various colors and graphics to prevent any unauthorized individuals from duplicating these items to gain access.

The backstage passes of today basically come in two styles, cloth or satin passes and laminates. The cloth pass is the more common style that is issued to individuals and generally has very limited backstage access to the different areas. Tour personnel, usually a tour manager will issue these passes prior to a given show with each pass having a designated access associated with it. Some different levels of access are as follows:

•Working Personnel (generally people employed by the venue such as loaders, riggers, and caterers ECT.
•Guest (radio contest winners, record label and band guests)
•Media (members of the press and photographers)
•After Show (usually a meet & greet the band situation)

Laminate backstage passes are given out very selectively and are extremely hard to obtain. This style of pass has a higher level of access to the backstage area and tends to have better security features on the pass to prevent any unauthorized duplication. Today’s styles of laminated passes even have holographic designs that make forgery quite difficult if not impossible which makes this style of pass quite collectible.