Strong Turnout at ISS Long Beach
Nearly 6,000 people walked the aisles at the Long Beach Convention Center on opening day of the Jan. 19–21 run of the Imprinted Sportswear Show, held in Long Beach, Calif.
Attendees were on the hunt for new products and technologies. That was the case for Maggie and Scott Cockerell, who were at the show for Sian Press in Santa Clarita, Calif.
“We’re looking for something new, something different from the standard printing and embroidery methods,” said Maggie Cockerell.
Scott Cockerell added, “And we’re keeping up with new technologies.”
That was also the mission for Erin Rusler, with Los Angeles–based promotional-products company Caden Concepts.“We’re here to see all the new clothing and the new methods of imprintibles.”
The strong turnout came as a welcome surprise for many of the show’s exhibitors, many of whom had just returned from the PPAI Expo in Las Vegas. Many said that trade show, organized by the Promotional Products Association International, was also surprisingly busy, despite opening the day after the New Year’s holiday.
“It was so busy, it was mayhem. We saw a ton of new people,” said Gianna Giannulli, coowner of Santa Ana, Calif.–based Article 1. “We just got back from PPAI, which was phenomenal. After three years in business, the people who know us are loyal, but people are also just discovering us.”
Article 1 introduced several new products this year, including a line of pima cotton T-shirts and an expanded group of organiccotton tees, including seven stock colors in the organic line. The company also shifted from garment wash to fabric wash, which results in more-consistent colors, Giannulli said. “You don’t have the problems you have with garment wash,” she said.
Article 1 reserved a portion of its booth space for graphic T-shirts designed by some of its customers as part of its Showcase program to help and promote young designers. The program was created to “showcase what you can do with an Article 1 blank,” Giannulli explained.
The company selects designers to spotlight and then helps the designers work with printers and dyehouses. The designers’ finished product is displayed at the Article 1 booth at trade shows.
Returning companies and longtime exhibitors
T-shirt brand Cygnus returned to ISS after a four-year hiatus.
“On the first day, we really needed more people in the booth—it seems like there’s a little buzz going on,” said Matt Sciacqua, national sales manager for Cygnus, which specializes in tees made from ringspun cotton. The Buena Park, Calif.–based T-shirt maker took time off from the ISS show to concentrate on its customers, which are predominantly private-label manufacturers.
The company recently re-branded its marketing materials and introduced a new logo and catalog at the ISS show. Cygnus also recently hired former Alstyle executive Amy Donnelly as regional sales manager.
The 8-year-old T-shirt maker imports fabric from Pakistan; cuts and sews its products in Pakistan, El Salvador and Honduras; and warehouses more than a halfmillion dozen tees in Los Angeles, Sciacqua said.
Returning to ISS was California Basics, which manufactures and warehouses its T-shirt blanks out of its facility in Santa Fe Springs, Calif.
Among California Basics’ new offerings are fashion basics made with white cotton thread. “You can dye it any way you want,” said Lee Scharf, California Basics’ president. The company is also offering tees with tear-out labels for companies that want to put in their own labels.
“This show keeps getting bigger every year,” Scharf said. “The people fly in from all over—the big embroidery companies but also the mom and pops.”
ISS is part of the Nielsen Co., a Netherlands- and New York–based media, trade show and market-research company. Nielsen recently changed its name from VNU Group B.V. ISS show organizers said final attendance figures were not yet available for the Long Beach show, but they were pleased with the turnout.
“We were very pleased with the preliminary figures,” said Brian Pagel, group show director for the Imprinted Sportswear Shows. (There are seven held around the country, but the Long Beach show is the largest.) “The event was attended by well over 13,000 buyers, which was relatively flat with the recordsetting 2006 event. However, an early analysis of the event would suggest that a higher percentage of buyers came back and participated on days two and three.
T-Shirt Queries Find Answers Online
Rodney Blackwell was among the attendees walking the Imprinted Sportswear Show, held Jan. 19–21 at the Long Beach Convention Center in Long Beach, Calif.
Blackwell was on the show floor gathering information and spreading the word about his Web site, www.t-shirtforums.com. The site was founded to be a clearinghouse for information about the imprinted T-shirt business.
Since its April 2005 launch, the Sacramento, Calif.–based site quickly grew from 400 members in July 2005 to nearly 8,000 today. Members are industry experts in the T-shirt business—including company owners and executives, screen printers, wholesalers and heat-transfer experts—as well as people just entering the business.
“I wanted to create a place where people of different levels of experience (from industry experts to newbies) could share information and learn more about the many different aspects of creating T-shirts,” Blackwell said.
Members can search for specific topics on the site or browse through the recent posts to the forum. Posts range from technical questions about heat-transferring equipment to legal questions about copyright issues.
“Lots of helpful tips, experience and information has been shared over the last couple of years,” said Blackwell, who also founded the T-shirt Web sites www.t-shirtcountdown.com and www.t-shirtlinks.com.
Blackwell got his start in the T-shirt business when he began creating tees for his first Web site, www.ihateclowns.com.
