Ordering Tracksuits for Summer Events
By The Velocity Wear Team
For a May or June event, place the tracksuit order in March. Production is 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval, transit follows it, and spring is when everybody else is ordering for the same season. The harder question is which weight belongs at a summer event, because a 450 GSM set will sit unworn in a field.
What date should the order actually go in?
Take the event date, subtract transit, subtract fifteen working days, then subtract the fortnight artwork and sizes genuinely take. For a first weekend in June that lands in the middle of March. Ordering there means a problem found in April is an inconvenience rather than a crisis.
Events with a build day are stricter than they appear. Kit has to reach the people wearing it before they travel, which is often several days ahead of the event itself, and for a touring crew that can mean a completely different address.
Spring is also when everybody else in your position is ordering, so the calendar is fuller than it looks from January. That does not change the build window, but it does mean less room to move a slot if your artwork lands late. An order placed in March keeps its place comfortably; one placed in May is competing with every other event in the country.
Does anybody want fleece in June?
They want the lighter version of it. Midweight fleece around 280 to 320 GSM works for an early setup and a cool evening, and lightweight poly is the right answer for anything active in daylight. A heavyweight set is a winter product, and no amount of branding changes that.
The co-ord format still earns its place outdoors, because a matching top and jogger reads as a uniform from across a field in a way that separates never manage. Fits and cuts for wholesale tracksuits covers how the cut changes what a crowd of them looks like.
How do you handle a run of events rather than one?
Order once, for the whole season. Fifty sets per design is the minimum, and a crew working six weekends needs replacements rather than a second order in July. Quantity works in your favour here: the volume bands take up to 35% off as the order grows, so one larger order beats two small ones on price and on schedule.
Keep the artwork undated for the same reason. A set naming one event is scrap the following weekend, while a crew set carrying only your own mark works across the whole summer and the summer after that.
Count the crew properly before ordering, too. Event teams grow between the plan and the weekend, and turning up four sets short is a far worse outcome than carrying six spare ones home. Evenings are the other argument for the set: an event starting in daylight finishes in the cold, and crew with nothing warm end up wearing whatever the merch tent has left.
What happens if the event date moves?
Undated artwork survives it and dated artwork does not, which is the strongest argument for keeping the year off the garment. Otherwise a set ordered in March against a postponed date is simply early, and early stock is a storage question rather than a real problem.
If the date moves closer instead, simplify: one colour, one placement, stock fabric. Pricing on our tracksuit page opens at $53 for a top and jogger against a minimum of fifty, and a £150 sample placed at the same time as the bulk run is credited against that order, so it gives you a physical check without adding to the schedule.
