Ordering Caps for Trade Show Season
By The Velocity Wear Team
Aim for trade show caps to arrive a full week before the stand goes up. Production is 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval and transit sits behind it, so the order wants placing roughly six weeks out. The extra week at the end is not padding: it is when you find out the thread colour is wrong and still have room to react.
When should trade show caps be ordered?
Count back from the day the crates are collected, which is usually several days before the show itself. That collection date is the real deadline, and it is the one people forget. Behind it: your own checking week, transit, the 10 to 15 working day build, and artwork approval in front of all of it.
Exhibitors also tend to be approving several things at once, so the cap artwork competes with the stand graphics and the print collateral for the same signature. Give the cap its own approval deadline rather than letting it ride along with the stand. Style and finish are specified on the wholesale caps page.
Do staff caps and giveaway caps count as one order?
Not if the artwork differs. The 50-piece minimum is per design, so a staff cap with a role or team mark and a visitor giveaway cap with just the company logo are two separate runs of fifty. That is worth knowing before you build the budget, because it is the most common surprise on a stand kit quote.
There are two sensible ways round it. Run one design for everyone and distinguish staff by something else on the stand, such as a lanyard or a polo. Or accept two designs and use the second run as stock for the next three shows, since a plain company cap does not expire. Either way, get the split confirmed in writing on the quote.
How many giveaway caps should you take?
Enough that you are not rationing them on the second morning, and few enough that you are not freighting them home. Caps are heavier and bulkier per unit than most stand giveaways, so the cost of carrying surplus is real. Plan the number against your own expected footfall rather than a figure somebody else quotes you.
The depth is also a pricing decision. Caps start from $12 a piece at the 50-piece minimum, with bands at 50 to 99, 100 to 249, 250 to 499, 500 to 999 and 1,000-plus, and up to 35% off the 50-piece price at the top. If you exhibit at several shows a year, ordering once for the season beats four separate runs of fifty on both price and admin.
What should be checked before the crates leave?
Open every carton, not the top one. Count against the packing list, check the logo position on caps from more than one box, and confirm the crown colour against whatever else is going on the stand. Anything you find a week out is fixable in some form; anything you find at the venue is not.
If the caps carry a private label or a custom sweatband detail, check that too, since it is the element most likely to be overlooked in a first run; the options are set out in neck labels on wholesale caps. To make a first quote accurate rather than indicative, send the supplier the full picture up front, as described in briefing a supplier for caps, and if you want the build in your hands beforehand a sample is £150 credited against the bulk order via the samples page.
