T-Shirts for Bands: lead time
By The Velocity Wear Team
Production runs 10 to 15 working days from the moment artwork is approved, and delivery transit sits on top of that. For a tour, count backwards from the first date: allow roughly three working weeks for production, a week for transit, and a buffer week for artwork going back and forth. That puts a comfortable order date about five to six weeks before you load in.
How long does a band t-shirt order take?
The clock starts at artwork approval, not at the enquiry. Once you have signed off the print file, the colours and the garment, production is 10 to 15 working days. Everything before that point — quoting, choosing the base tee from the 150 to 240 GSM range, settling the size split — happens at whatever speed you move at. The wholesale t-shirts page is the quickest way to get the spec in front of us and start that clock.
When should the order go in before a tour?
Five to six weeks out is the number that stops people panicking. Two of those weeks are production. One covers transit to the UK, the USA or Europe depending on where your first date is. The remaining two are the ones nobody budgets for: the guitarist who has not sent the final file, the print colour that looks wrong against a heather grey, the size split that gets rewritten after somebody counts last tour's leftovers.
If the run is going to a support slot rather than your own headline dates, work to the same calendar anyway. Support merch sells in shorter windows and running out on night two is a bigger loss than arriving with stock you carry to the next leg. The bands and music page sets out what usually ships with the tees.
What actually holds a merch order up?
Artwork, almost every time. A logo supplied as a screenshot rather than a vector file has to be rebuilt before it can be separated into screens. Colours specified as "the green from the album cover" need pinning to an actual reference. A design that runs off the hem needs repositioning. None of these take long on their own, but each one costs a day of messages before production starts.
Sampling is the other common pause. A £150 sample is credited against the bulk order and is genuinely worth it on a first run, but it adds its own production and transit window before the main order begins — our sampling guide covers how to fold it into the schedule without losing a fortnight.
Can anything be done about a tight deadline?
Yes, within limits. Simplifying decoration helps: a one-colour front print sets up faster than a five-colour front with a back hit and a sleeve. Ordering a single garment colour rather than three removes two setups. Approving artwork the day it is quoted rather than the following week is usually worth more than anything we can do at our end. What cannot be compressed is the 10 to 15 working days themselves — that is the production window, and pretending otherwise is how a tour ends up with no shirts. Planning merch for a UK tour goes through the rest of the calendar.
What can be settled before the artwork is final?
Quite a lot, and most bands leave all of it until the file lands. The garment is one: base weight from the 150 to 240 GSM range, regular or boxy fit, and the colours you want to run. That is a decision the whole band can spend a fortnight disagreeing about without blocking anything, so start it early and it never touches the critical path.
Quantity and the size spread are the other two. Both change the price rather than the schedule, so settling them in advance means the quote is ready the moment the file is. A band that turns up with garment, quantity and sizes already agreed and a clean vector logo can be into production within days of the first conversation instead of a fortnight later.
