Can we run a new store for each year's show?

You can run a new design each year without a new store. There is no setup cost either way, but keeping one store means last year's alumni still know where to find it, and old show designs keep selling long after the season they were made for.

Does the school own the show design or do we?

It depends who made it and what your agreement with the designer says. School names and logos are the district's to license, but a show's original artwork usually belongs to whoever created it, which is worth settling in writing before it goes on a shirt.

Our program covers band, color guard and winter drumline. One store or three?

One, with the designs for each inside it. The families overlap almost completely, and a single store means someone who came for a guard shirt sees the drumline design as well.

Program

Spirit wear fundraising for band programs

Team stores for marching band and music booster programs. Show shirts, travel gear and garment bags, built and shipped by us, with 20% back to the club.

Band is frequently the largest program on campus and almost never treated that way. A marching band with a hundred and twenty students has a bigger roster than football, a longer season, and a travel bill that no other program comes close to. It also has the most engaged parent body on campus, because band parents are already volunteering as chaperones, pit crew and equipment haulers.

The thing band has that no sport does is an annual show. Every year the program builds a new production with its own title and its own visual identity, and that show is a design nobody else on campus has. A show shirt is the closest thing in school fundraising to a limited edition, and it sells to students, families and alumni for reasons a generic school-logo tee never will.

The other structural difference is that band merchandise has to work as equipment. Garment bags, gloves and travel gear are not spirit wear in the ordinary sense — they are things the program needs anyway, and putting them in the store means families buy them once, correctly, instead of the director chasing forty people who bought the wrong thing.

When the demand actually arrives

Demand is heaviest in late summer when the show is announced and the season kit goes out, with a second peak around championships. The show shirt sells hardest in the first two weeks it exists and then steadily to alumni for years.

Timing is the part clubs get wrong most often, and it costs more than the range does. The full argument is in when to launch a spirit wear store.

What sells for a band program

Not a general list of spirit wear. These are the items that move for this program specifically, and the reason each one does.

Annual show shirts. The highest-converting single item in band, because the design is unique to one season and is genuinely collectible. Programs that run one a year find alumni still ordering old designs.
Garment bags. A uniform requirement rather than an optional purchase, and the item most often bought wrong when families are left to source it themselves.
Travel hoodies and joggers. Band travels more than any other program and spends long days waiting in stadiums. Comfort items sell to the whole roster rather than to a subset.
Parent and booster shirts. Band parents work the season in an identifiable role. A pit crew or chaperone shirt is functional and sells at a rate ordinary parent merchandise does not.

What the money usually goes toward

Worth naming explicitly when you launch. Families give more readily to a specific cost than to program funds in the abstract.

Instrument repair and replacement, which is continuous rather than occasional
Drill and show design fees, paid before the season starts
Buses and equipment trucks for competitions, usually the largest line in the budget
Summer camp and staff for sectionals

What we handle, and what you do

1. You send colors, marks and rosters
Along with written confirmation from the district that the club may use the school name and logo. That is the entire job on your side.
2. We build and you approve
We design the range and the storefront around what sells for a band program, and the range you approve is the range that sells for the rest of the season.
3. We print, ship and support
Each order is produced after it is bought and shipped direct to that buyer. No sorting, no distribution day, no leftover sizes.
4. We promote it
Text and email campaigns to your opted-in families, timed to the points in this program’s season when people actually buy.
5. You get paid
20% of total order value, remitted on a set schedule. A share of what the store sells, not a share of margin after costs.

Questions from band clubs

Can we run a new store for each year's show?: You can run a new design each year without a new store. There is no setup cost either way, but keeping one store means last year's alumni still know where to find it, and old show designs keep selling long after the season they were made for.
Does the school own the show design or do we?: It depends who made it and what your agreement with the designer says. School names and logos are the district's to license, but a show's original artwork usually belongs to whoever created it, which is worth settling in writing before it goes on a shirt.
Our program covers band, color guard and winter drumline. One store or three?: One, with the designs for each inside it. The families overlap almost completely, and a single store means someone who came for a guard shirt sees the drumline design as well.

Other programs at the same school

Most clubs we work with run more than one. Each of these has its own season and its own range.

When the demand actually arrives

What sells for a band program

What the money usually goes toward

What we handle, and what you do

1. You send colors, marks and rosters

2. We build and you approve

3. We print, ship and support

4. We promote it

5. You get paid

Questions from band clubs

Other programs at the same school

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