acmeprinting

Ok my shirt friends. Not sure whether I should do this. The price of the booth and the products are going to leave me destitute...lol.

I have an opportunity to have a booth and sell my "brand" t-shirts at a concert. (I use brand loosely..lol as I only have a few) Estimated attendance is around 18,000 people. By no means am I expecting to have every single person come by my booth but as I read on this site that I should expect at least 10% to come by. Also, I realize that I will be fighting up against the bands merchandise as well as what ever vendors are there. My products are all novelty.

My questions are to those who have done huge events such as this one.

1) How much product did you take?
2) Did you have giveaways?
3) Did you see any results such as visits and sales on your site afterwards?
4) Did you at least make all that you spent back?
5) Were your prices more, less or the same as what you sell them on your site? (events such as this tend to charge outrageous for everything. Even water is expensive...lol.)

Making a killing would be awesome but I'm being realistic. My expectations are to get exposure and make back what I spend of course to make money as well but again realistic with an unknown "brand".

Thank you to who ever can help contribute to my not so savvy business sense.

 

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tiger24

hi sandy,

i must warn you before you read my post. i have not done a huge event such as yours so my experience is small time compared to you BUT...

may i ask how much a booth costs?

you say 18000 in attendance and 10% come by, so 1800 people will come by to your booth.

now of the 1800 do you know the average "buy" percentage? i had this question in my own mind and i remember a post saying it is a super small number like 1-2%?

anyways, what i am saying is if the booth is over your marketing/advertising budget don't do it b/c i don't think you will sell enough to even pay the cost of the booth so this expense will mainly be "like you said" to get your name out.

2) Did you have giveaways?
i see no problem with giveaways.

3) Did you see any results such as visits and sales on your site afterwards?
i did not see a big jump. will you have cards or flyers to hand out? that may help your "afterewards" hope.

5) Were your prices more, less or the same as what you sell them on your site? (events such as this tend to charge outrageous for everything. Even water is expensive...lol.)
i would keep them the same. you don't want someone liking you, your brand and then buying your shirt only to go the website to find out they got hosed. you might be getting some nasty emails.
chances are if they bought your shirt, they will go to your site b/c they actually thought it is cool...don't shaft them at the concert.

these were my thoughts to you, sandy, in a jumbled kinda way!
good luck

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acmeprinting

Thanks for the response, Andy. This would be my first huge event. The booth for this is going to cost $1500. Yes, I know! I've done little festivals and handed out free t-shirts and coupon flyers and it's gotten me a few sales but not a steady stream. I figure doing this event would give me a tremendous amount of exposure. As far as my budget, unfortunatley I am carrying a bulk of my expenses with personal money. I have a few huge orders coming in from a school and I'm also doing a festival at the end of the month which will in turn give me the money that is needed for marketing. Since my partner quit the business, I have been moving very slowly. Trying to juggle my full time job and do orders here and there to bring in the money to help with some expenses, maintaining website, and everything else that goes along with it is very trying. Marketing is just another task added to the list. I did have an idea of going to colleges in the state and advertising and giving out free t-shirts which I would still spend the same amount of money as the booth cost. So this event is maybe what I need to get the boost.

I maybe wrong in the percentage that will pass by my booth but i was almost sure that's what I read.

Giveaways, YES I definitely am going to look into some cool givaways with my brand and site on them.

Right now I have not very many people going to my site for 1) I believe it was because of the type of festivals I did. 2) There were not a tremendous amount of people at these festivals. (especially if it IS 1% then yeah I can see why my site has not had very much traffic...LOL)

And I think you ARE right, I do not want my customers to feel hosed by boosting prices when they find them cheaper on the site.

Trust me, I realize that $1500 is alot of money. The expenses I'm carrying on my own is rent for my shop, website and product. All my equipment is paid for. So at this point I need exposure.

What kind of events have you done? I really need to know what I'm up against. With the amount of money into play, yeah ...I'm freakin' out...LOL. It almost seems like I'm running an empty business.

 

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tiger24

Quote: Originally Posted by acmeprinting Thanks for the response, Andy. This would be my first huge event. The booth for this is going to cost $1500. Yes, I know! I've done little festivals and handed out free t-shirts and coupon flyers and it's gotten me a few sales but not a steady stream. I figure doing this event would give me a tremendous amount of exposure. As far as my budget, unfortunatley I am carrying a bulk of my expenses with personal money. I have a few huge orders coming in from a school and I'm also doing a festival at the end of the month which will in turn give me the money that is needed for marketing. Since my partner quit the business, I have been moving very slowly. Trying to juggle my full time job and do orders here and there to bring in the money to help with some expenses, maintaining website, and everything else that goes along with it is very trying.

you sound like a mirror image of me! i do the same, all of the above...LOL!

Quote: Originally Posted by acmeprinting Marketing is just another task added to the list. I did have an idea of going to colleges in the state and advertising and giving out free t-shirts which I would still spend the same amount of money as the booth cost. So this event is maybe what I need to get the boost. I maybe wrong in the percentage that will pass by my booth but i was almost sure that's what I read. Giveaways, YES I definitely am going to look into some cool givaways with my brand and site on them. Right now I have not very many people going to my site for 1) I believe it was because of the type of festivals I did. 2) There were not a tremendous amount of people at these festivals. (especially if it IS 1% then yeah I can see why my site has not had very much traffic...LOL) And I think you ARE right, I do not want my customers to feel hosed by boosting prices when they find them cheaper on the site. Trust me, I realize that $1500 is alot of money. The expenses I'm carrying on my own is rent for my shop, website and product. All my equipment is paid for. So at this point I need exposure. What kind of events have you done? I really need to know what I'm up against. With the amount of money into play, yeah ...I'm freakin' out...LOL. It almost seems like I'm running an empty business.

hi sandy,

I KNOW THE FEELING

i have done only small boxing shows and selling out of my trunk type stuff.

one facet of my brand is hockey t-shirts so i will be hitting many arenas and proshops to try to get out there this fall/winter.

i have sponsored some UFC figthers in the past to try and get my name out there. it did not go so well. my fighters lost and the traffic afterwards spiked for about 2 days and died back to normal leading to little sales but every fighter and their mothers asking for my money to sponsor them!!!
BUY OR SELL A FEW OF MY SHIRTS FIRST AND THEN WE'LL TALK! LOL!

hey sandy, an idea for you.
you should use that $1500 for a local PR person and they will bomb out your name for you in their own professional manner.

they will probs suggest to get behind a cause or charity and you could supply all the runners for example, if it is a run for cancer say, t-shirts.

so now for $1500 bucks you have a PR person for a few months and approx. 200 walking billboards out there wearing the shirt you supplied with your logo, the cause and a cool design on it!
you know these people will wear this shirt after the run or event.

just another way of spending your money!!!!!!
think about that.

$1500 for a booth that people will walk by and say "that's cool" at that moment and then go home and never think of your brand again...

it has happened to me so i am just passing on my short lived t-shirt advertising experiences.

take care and good luck sandy

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"...an expression of athletic aggression."

 

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