Ordering Kit for a Summer Season of Events
By The Velocity Wear Team
Treat a summer of events as a single apparel order rather than a series of small ones. Order once, keep dates and event names off the staff garments so they carry across the whole season, and separate what staff wear from what you hand out or sell. One consolidated run of 20 pieces or more also unlocks bulk pricing that six little orders never reach.
Plan the Season, Not the Next Event
Most event kit is ordered reactively. A show is three weeks away, somebody notices nobody has shirts, and an order goes in. Repeat five times across June, July and August and you have paid setup costs repeatedly, sat in the lowest quantity band every time, and ended up with five slightly different shades of the same brand colour.
Sit down in spring with the whole calendar. Even a rough list of dates and expected head counts is enough to size one order properly.
Staff Kit and Giveaway Stock Are Different Jobs
These two things get lumped together and they should not be. Staff kit exists so a visitor can find someone to ask. It needs to be visible, comfortable for a ten-hour day and consistent across the team. Giveaway or saleable stock exists to leave with someone and be worn later, so it needs to be something a person would actually choose to put on.
That difference changes the specification. Staff shirts can be a bold, unmistakable brand colour that would never sell. Giveaway tees usually want a more wearable colour and a design that works as a graphic rather than as a logo slapped on a chest.
Leave the Date Off the Staff Shirts
This is the cheapest saving in the whole plan and it is routinely ignored. The moment you print a date, a year or a specific event name on staff kit, you have made it single-use. It cannot go to the next show, it cannot be worn next season, and any surplus is waste.
Keep the dated, event-specific artwork for the items you hand out, where the date is part of the appeal. Staff garments should carry the brand only. If you genuinely need per-event identification, vinyl or HTV handles names and per-item personalisation without committing the whole run.
Fabric for Standing Outside All Day
Comfort is not a nicety when someone is on their feet in a marquee in July. A heavy cotton tee that feels premium in a photograph is uncomfortable by mid-afternoon. Polyester and performance blends handle heat and sweat far better, and they open up sublimation, which prints edge to edge on light polyester with no surface layer to feel, which is why sports kit uses it.
The trade-off is that sublimation is polyester only and light bases only. If your brand colour is dark, that route closes. DTF is the flexible middle ground: no per-colour setup, works on cotton, blends and polyester, and it suits shorter runs with detailed artwork.
“"Event kit is not merchandise. One is a tool for being found in a crowd, the other is a thing somebody has to want to wear."”
Sizing a Run You Cannot Fully Predict
Staff numbers you can count. Giveaway sizing you cannot, and casual volunteers change week to week. Some practical guidance:
- Weight giveaway sizing towards the middle. Mediums and larges move first at almost every public event.
- Order staff kit per person plus a genuine spare, not a token one. Shirts get spilled on.
- Unisex fits reduce the number of size lines you have to manage across a season.
- Keep the surplus deliberately generic so it rolls into the next event rather than into a bin bag.
- Sizes mix freely within a 20-piece order, so an uneven curve costs you nothing.
Timing Backwards From the First Date
The first event in the season sets your deadline, not the biggest one. Screen printing and embroidery typically run around 10-15 working days from artwork approval, and sublimation or more complex jobs nearer 15-20. Add tracked UK delivery of 2-5 working days after dispatch, then your own approval time on top. Production starts at artwork approval, so the proof round is the part worth chasing.
Lay the design out in the free Design Studio to check how it sits before you approve, and use the instant price calculator to compare a single season order against the sum of the small ones you would otherwise place. The gap is usually larger than people expect, since bulk discounts reach up to around 40% as quantities rise.