Although I went to a Printwear tradeshow last year,
this was my first ISS Tradeshow. It was much larger than the show I attended last year. Larger booths, more vendors, more classes, newer technology!
My first advice to anyone that wants to learn more about the t-shirt industry (from wholesale blank t-shirt suppliers to printing equipment vendors to sample printing techniques),
go to an ISS tradeshow when it gets near your town.
I'll be posting the dates for all types of u
pcoming tradeshows in the T-Shirt Calendar area of the website, and Josh posted some free passes to the upcoming
ISS Atlantic City show here. It's well worth the drive/flight/walking to be able to see and touch things first hand
You'll find vendors for just about everything!
On to the show...
This was my first time taking pictures at a show. Even though I had a press pass, I spent a lot of time looking and researching, so I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to take more photos.
I needed like 2 days to walk through the whole show, and another day for just photography. Since I was at the show for just 2 days, I had to mix photography and researching on the second day
Next time I'll be more prepared.
Day 1:
There were 400 vendors exhibiting at this tradeshow and over 14,000 attendees walking around. First lesson learned was "wear comfortable shoes".
I think my first stop was the Imprintables Warehouse booth to bug Josh.
The goal was to print some T-ShirtForums.com t-shirts during the show to hand out to forum members that stopped by his booth, but the show was so busy, we didn't get a chance to do it. Josh is still planning to print some t-shirtforums.com shirts up with the great vintage
fashion t-shirts we got from Article1, so keep on the lookout for a post with instructions on how to get one.
I got to the show right around 12PM on Friday, and right away I ran Lou (badalou) just outside the Imprintables booth.
After our initial "how do you dos", we talked about transfers and business. Then Jim (shirt-maker) joined us, and it was officially a party
We talked for awhile, but we were all on missions to see as much of the show as possible, so we went our separate ways.
I think
my next stop was to visit Keith at the Coastal Business Supplies booth to see what was new with them.
We talked briefly about the new
CIS Bulk Ink system that Lou did a video about and he also hooked us up with a
special 5% off discount code for all T-Shirt Forums members.
Next, I headed over to the Article1 booth to check out all the cool new fashion blank t-shirts they have.
I also wanted to thank Gianna from
Article1 for spreading the good word about the forums to her customers (she even gave out
T-ShirtForums.com postcards at the show) AND for giving us some great blank t-shirts to use for the t-shirtforums shirts that Josh planned to print at the show.
The next booth I visited was a company called RO Generation. 
They are a high volume screen printer that does all different types of apparel decorating (foil, rhinestones, flock, high density, transfers, traditional printing,etc). I was initially attracted to the booth because they had a sign that said they did water based ink screen printing with a sample t-shirt printed.
I got some of their brochures, and it looks like they have pretty high minimums for most of their printing services. But if you're into those numbers (500+ per design for most services), they may be worth looking at. They also do relabeling and other finishing services.
Next, I went over to the DTG America booth to check out the prints from the
DTG Kiosk.
The prints looked about the same as the last time I saw the machine perform. The printing on dark garments has definitely improved, but I don't know if I would make the leap and buy the machine yet (if I was in the market). One thing I did like about the
DTG Kiosk was the size. It could almost sit on top of a large desk.
I also went by the U.S. Screen Print and Inkjet Technology booth (but neglected to take a photo).
What I found most interesting there was the fact that they addressed the problems with getting a consistent quality print on a black t-shirt. Mostly it was due to getting the pretreatment right every time, which is hard to do by hand. So they created a machine that actually does the pretreatment for you by spraying a measured amount of the pretreatment liquid over the garment. It looked a bit like a mini drive through carwash for t-shirts. It was pretty neat.
My next stop was at the Airwaves, Inc custom transfers booth.
There were several vendors of custom screen printed (plastisol) transfers at the show. I stopped by the
Dowling Graphics booth, a company called Pro Print (no website??), a company called
QuickTrans (got some free sample plastisol transfers there), and a couple more that I didn't grab info from.
I really liked the setup of the Airwaves booth (although the employees were not as customer servicy as I would have liked). They had a really nice display wall showing dozens of different types of heat applied, custom screen printed transfers. It was nice to see the prints "in action" and feel the quality of the printing.
All the images on that wall are examples of custom plastisol transfers. I should have taken more closeup shots, but the quality was definitely top notch.
They had photographs (4 color process transfers), glitter designs, matte finish, glossy finish, puff transfers for a 3D look, hot peel, cold peel. What was neat was that each design was specifically labeled so you could see exactly which printing process was used to create each effect.
The hand on many of the designs was very soft. The simulated process print on the balls below I think was the softest:
They can also do screen printed labels that you can apply with a heat press.
DAY 2: Getting organized...
I realized about the end of day 1 that I was sort of wandering from booth to booth, and missing lots of great exhibits and vendors in between. So at the end of day 1, I started going down each isle, from one booth to the next, so I could make sure I caught most of the show.
The first booth I visited on Day 2 was the American Apparel booth.
As I mentioned before, one of the great things about a tradeshow is the ability to see and sample products first hand. AmericanApparel had many of their latest blank t-shirt styles out for display, so it was nice to be able to "browse" the whole catalog in person without having to buy a sample of each style.
Around noon I met up with risingblue7 and Anthony from the forums. Anthony and his wife were doing lots of research, and risingblue7 was waiting at the Imprintables booth to meet badalou for the first time. After the introductions, Lou, risingblue7, Jamie (from PrintMojo) and I went out to Jakes wings for lunch.
My next booth was the ShirtSoftware.com booth where they were selling one of those online t-shirt designer type softwares.
I think this was more a solution that was aimed at screen printers. It handles the whole order flow from design to payment.
I think these type softwares might be used more and more for screen printers with a strong online presence. The only thing that I see as a downside to many of these type softwares that are coming out is that they have to be hosted on a third party server, which means you are transferring customer information/sales volume and other details about your company to a third party. I don't think they are necessarily monitoring each order, but I would prefer a solution that could be completely installed on the screen printers website so no data is passed to the software vendor.
The booth with the longest line was probably the Hanes Beefy Tee booth. 
They were giving away these cute stuffed animals to anybody that visited their booth and listened to their quick pitch about how great the Beefy Tee was. I think they also introduced a few new colors into their lineup as well.
They were also taking pictures of people standing in front of their big beefy tee bull standee. I think risingblue7 and I took a picture in front of it, but they haven't emailed the picture yet.
Other notable booths where the "booth with the big bowling shirt":
The
Bella.com booth was nice. I found out that they have dealers in Europe and Australia as well as a nice Mens and infant/toddler line. Their new performance/wicking apparel line also officially launched at the show:
ALO:
Another booth that I learned a lot at was the Alstyle booth.
It was interesting to hear the different
major skatewear/urban brands that use relabeled alstyle blanks (usually
style 1701 with the tear-away label). I don't want to quote incorrectly, but the brands were along the lines of O'Neil, Hurley, etc. Astyle also has a fitted/premium shirt along the lines of American Apparel, etc that has a pretty competitive wholesale pricetag.
Style 5301 Gaziani is their slimmer fit line (the website doesn't do the shirt justice).
I also stopped by the Vapor Apparel booth where I met Chris (cbernat). It took me a while to connect him with being one of the actual guys behind Vapor Apparel. He had some really great sample shirts there that showed some of the creative things you can do with dye sublimation (all over prints, 100% cotton "feeling" shirts, etc). Unfortunately, that was another time that I forgot to pull out the camera.
I ended off day two with one of the highlights of the whole trip. Hanging out with a few of the members from the forum at the Dubliners pub across the street from the conference:
I got a chance to meet and hang out with Lou (badalou), risingblue7, Jose (moo spot prints) and his girlfriend, Jim (shirt-maker), and a few of the gang from PrintMojo.
I wish I would have gotten a chance to meet more forum members that made it to the show.
Anyway, that's my long-winded wrap up. I have tons of brochures and vendor business cards to go through, so I'll probably be posting more information in relevant threads as they come up.
my impressions of the ISS Long Beach tradeshow 
Re: my impressions of the ISS Long Beach tradeshow 
Your article offers a great insight on this trade-show or any trade-show for that matter for anyone who has never been or is going to one in the future. Thanks for all the good info. The links were very helpful also. This weekend is 
