When Mark Seymour, chief sales officer at Next Level Apparel (asi/73867), asked me to come to South by Southwest (SXSW), the answer was easy: “Hell, yes!” Next Level is the official T-shirt of SXSW, and Seymour wanted to know if Equipment Zone could print live and on-demand at their booth.

I’d never been to the renowned music, arts and tech festival, and one of my main concerns was that the show is open to the public, so 80% of the questions we were likely to get about our direct-to-garment printer were going to sound like this: “Can you print anything on a T-shirt? Can you print a picture of my [fill in the blank]?” Car, cat, pet iguana, grandkids, girlfriend and on and on.

Of course, it’s possible to print almost anything in full color with DTG technology. The apparel decoration star of the show would be the Epson F2100 DTG printer, part of the lineup of digital printing gear Equipment Zone sells to decorators. Since we’re not in the business of selling custom-printed T-shirts, I quickly realized we should have a client of ours exhibit with us. That way, when people wanted custom-printed cars, cats or tacos, we would have a positive answer and a natural contact. We needed a company experienced with DTG printing and comfortable printing live. We also needed somebody near Austin who would be willing to leave their shop for four days and transport their printer. I knew a guy! 

Brett Bowden, owner of Printed Threads in Keller, TX, likes to call live, onsite printing “print activation,” and it’s one of the things that makes them a big deal in the greater Fort Worth area. Bowden has deep convictions about the feelings people have when they experience live printing. When I asked him about it, he said, “Live printing brings excitement to an event. People love crafts and to see how things are made. Our company is driven by the craft of making and printing. We love making memories for people. At South by Southwest this year, we were able to bring excitement to multiple brands and their fans went home with a product that we printed right in front of them.” 

In 2019, SXSW was expecting 70,000 attendees over four days, similar to any other trade show, but the diversity of exhibitors and attendees was something I’ve never seen before. We were exhibiting in the same convention center as technology companies, social media companies, businesses who specializing in online marketing and digital trends. There were even several robot manufacturing companies. That’s right, I said robots! There were audio engineering companies, a guitar company, a vintage bicycle business, a few universities and lots of small startups looking for funding partners and pitching new products and services. There were a few giant aerospace companies and even countries like Brazil, Germany and Mexico exhibiting. Being surrounded by cause-driven artists, entrepreneurs, musicians, innovators, thought leaders, speakers, entertainers and creative problem solvers creates energy and produces the buzz of SXSW.

Working with Seymour and his team from Next Level and Bowden and the Printed Threads crew at SXSW was an experience I won’t soon forget. Seymour said: “We love being at SXSW. When we were invited to be the official T-shirt supplier four years ago, I knew it would be a great opportunity to meet  our fans and influence new ones, but I had no idea how much bigger than that it would become.”

One thing I noticed at SXSW was the abundance of decorated apparel. I’m not exaggerating when I say that 80% of the attendees and 50% of the exhibitors were wearing embellished T-shirts and hoodies. We were in T-shirt nirvana. Everywhere you looked at the event or out in the streets of Austin, there was branded merch and sweet swag.

Attendees were very attracted to our DTG printer and the chance to see it in action. Lots of people took photos and videos of the printing process – something that doesn’t happen much anymore at the typical apparel decoration trade show. Watching those reactions was fun. “It was so cool,” said Terry Combs, a decorating-industry veteran and Equipment Zone employee. “It was like introducing digital printing technology for the first time again.”

[This column was adapted from a blog post that appeared on the Equipment Zone website. Read the original version here.]

***

Jay Busselle is the marketing direct for Equipment Zone. He’s been in the decorated-apparel industry for over 25 years.