Ordering Denim Jackets for Tour Season
By The Velocity Wear Team
Tour denim has to exist before the first date, because a jacket that arrives at show four has missed the three shows where it would have sold best. Count back from the first night: transit, then 10 to 15 working days of production from artwork approval, then the artwork stage itself. Six to eight weeks ahead is a sane starting point.
How early does tour merch have to be ordered?
Earlier than the rest of the merch, because denim is the slowest and most expensive item on the table. A t-shirt reorder can chase a tour. A jacket run cannot, and if it sells out in the first week you are unlikely to see replacements before the last date. Treat the jacket as the long-lead item and plan the rest around it.
Six to eight weeks before the first show covers the build, the transit and a round of artwork changes. If the routing crosses the UK, Europe and the USA, add time for the leg where the stock actually has to land. The wholesale denim jackets page has the from-price to work the budget against ticket revenue.
Where should the stock actually be delivered?
Not to a home address, and not to a venue. Ship to wherever the merch is consolidated before the tour loads out, and give that address at quote stage so freight is costed to the right place. We deliver to the UK, the USA and Europe and invoice in seven currencies, so a tour crossing regions can be planned as one order landing in one place rather than three fragmented ones.
How the cartons arrive matters more than it sounds. Jackets packed in mixed-size runs per carton are far easier to work from behind a table than a pallet where every box has to be opened to find a large. Ask for the packing specification in writing, which is explained in how bulk denim jackets are packed.
What sells off a merch table in denim?
Something that is obviously not a t-shirt. Denim is the item people pay a premium for, so the artwork has to justify the difference at a glance under bad lighting. A large embroidered or woven back patch does that. A small chest logo alone rarely does, because it reads as a plain jacket from three metres away.
Keep the design legible rather than detailed. The twill grain of denim does not hold fine line work the way jersey does, and a patch carries its own backing cloth so the artwork sits clean regardless. Panel-by-panel guidance is in print placement on denim jackets.
What do you do if dates get added?
Reorder immediately rather than waiting to see. A repeat run still takes 10 to 15 working days from approval plus transit, but the artwork is already signed off so that stage collapses to nothing. The fifty-piece minimum applies to the reorder as it did to the first run, which is the real reason to order deeper on night one if the routing looks likely to grow.
The tiers help here: 50 to 99, 100 to 249, 250 to 499, 500 to 999 and 1,000 or more, reaching up to 35% off the fifty-piece price. A sample at £150, credited against the bulk order, is worth taking before a large commitment, and the samples page covers how it works.
Price the jacket against the rest of the table before you order. Denim carries a premium, and it has to sit in a range where a tee and a hoodie are already priced. If the gap is too wide nobody buys it and the stock travels the whole routing; if it is too narrow the jacket undercuts everything around it. Working the retail price out first, and deciding the quantity second, is the right order to do it in.
