I'm curious about band merchandise. Does anyone know where to get cheap / good quality T-shirts, stickers, banners, etc?

I know Levi puts together some pretty dope buttons for cheap.

Any other ideas for merchandise items, or quality manufacturers/distributors?

for stickers...
stickerguy.com

for shirts and all design work talk to Levi.

did anyone ever find out about where and how much to press 7" vinyl?

Yeah, I'm doing shirts now. I've done my band, a couple of non-bands, and am currently working on shirts for Tanuki, Unit 7 Drain, and the Unemploid.

I'm pretty busy now, but when I'm through my current workload I'm going to put up a sales pitch for the whole thing. Basically, I'm aiming for the short-run market for broke people. 100$=20 shirts.

Buttons are still 20$=100, or 90$=500.

Stickers has got to be stickerguy.com. The only cheaper places are, frankly, cheaper stickers. I don't know how to match the prices and quality.
If anyone has any tips for me....

I know people who've done matchbooks, temporary tattoos, beer cozies. I saw a place online where you can get legal postage stamps with custom designs. I'll be checking all that shit out (for my band at least) sometime in the next year.

Leonard is doing this: http://lightersticker.com

Hey Guys,
I've done a few 7"'s in my lifetime. The cheapest you're looking at these days is minimum $500-$600 just to press the vinyl. The cheapest place to do this in the US is United Record Pressing (http://www.urpressing.com). They use recycled vinyl though so it's fairly flimsy.

I haven't tried this place yet but it's a place in Europe and is rumored to be the best. Heavy thick 180 gram vinyl. You have to work through their US office. The website is at http://www.recordpressing.com. Prices are competitive with United Record Pressing *AND* they do picture disks if you have the money to blow.

For cheap mastering (not studio mastering...this is the process of getting your stuff plated to metal) you should use http://www.aardvarkmastering.com.

If you want fancy full color jackets you're looking at another $500 for 500. The place i used is at http://www.iloveimprint.com/
They did 7" glue pockets which most places don't do. If you want an idea of what you'll get look at the foxx 7".

I'd be happy to help out anyone serious about doing a 7" with all the steps. It's a bit confusing the first time but after that it's cake.

If you want something nice you're looking at $1000 for 500 at least. If you wanna do xerox copy covers you can significantly cut costs. that's how most people in albuquerque used to do 'em!
-Zac

The cheapest way to do short run T's is to do it yourself.

I can do 2 color prints on shirts and sell them for $5 and still make a profit.

quote:

Originally posted by Dandee:
The cheapest way to do short run T's is to do it yourself.

I can do 2 color prints on shirts and sell them for $5 and still make a profit.

Where would I get the supplies to make t-shirts? What would I need? Thanks man.

We opened for the Dusty 45's about 3 months ago at Burt's and they had all sorts of sweet merchandise. The most impressive were women's underware with the band logo imprinted. They must have sold about 15 pairs at $10 a pop. Anyone have any promising leads on where a band can get panties...or other off-beat merchandise made?

Panties same as shirts. I'm going to try this. Just buy some plain ones at Wal-Mart?

oh yeah...those panties are not for us...we want to sell them to the ladies. So, for the record, our band does not wear women's underwear...at least 3 outta 4 of us anyway.

Yeah, we sold panties. We couldn't keep them in stock.