Six to ten weeks is the window we plan around for Indianapolis. The city is 1,794 miles from our shop, so the presses ride freight and the crew flies in the day before load-in. The press itself is rarely the bottleneck. The shipping calendar is.
A working timeline
- 10 weeks or more: where you want to be for Indy 500 race week in May or a Gen Con booth in August. Hotels and freight tighten downtown during both, and eight weeks is the floor.
- 6 to 10 weeks: the normal range for a convention, a corporate summit or a wedding. Send the date, venue and headcount and we lock the plan.
- 3 weeks before: the cutoff for custom hat patches, which take about three weeks to make.
- 1 week before: art is final and the blank order locks. After this, the crates are packed.
What speeds up the booking
Have the logo or artwork ready, a rough headcount, the venue and the date, and a sense of which stations you want. The more of that we get in the first email, the sooner we can proof the art and confirm freight.
Under six weeks? Ask anyway. We'll check freight and crew for your date and give you a straight yes or no within 24 hours.
Date changes are easiest with at least two weeks' notice, since the freight is booked against the original day. Check booking lead time and pricing, then request your Indianapolis quote.
Indianapolis planning
Why the Indy calendar runs long
Two weeks a year set the pace downtown: race week in May and Gen Con in August. During both, the hotels on the skywalk fill, drayage and labor tighten, and a booth that books easily in February needs far more notice. We ship everything from Fullerton, so our freight has to find a slot too.
Outside those weeks, six weeks is usually comfortable for a single 10×10 station with two 120V circuits.