Six semaines est le délai idéal pour une commande de t-shirts de course caritative. Voici ce qu'il faut faire chaque semaine pour que la distribution le jour J ne s'effondre pas à la table des bénévoles.
The shirts are usually the only physical thing 95% of your runners take home from the event. They’re the thing your sponsors paid to be on. They’re also the thing most likely to derail your event week if you compress the timeline too far.
This guide is the timeline we recommend to charity organizers planning a 100–1,000 person run, fundraiser walk, or community ride. The math also works for community events — school spirit days, corporate volunteer events, fundraisers tied to a brand launch. The longer you give yourself, the less risk and the better the final result.
"Ideal" means everyone has time to do their job carefully. You can compress it to 3 weeks if necessary — we’ll explain what gets sacrificed in the rush section below.
Your sponsor list is the most variable input to the shirt design, and sponsors are slow to send assets. Start this conversation 6 weeks before the run so you have all logos in hand by week 4.
What you need from each sponsor: vector logo (SVG, AI, EPS, or high-res PDF), one-line acknowledgement of placement tier (title / presenting / supporting). PNG logos with white backgrounds are usable but lower quality — ask for vector first.
Also: confirm the run date is locked. A date change after sample approval blows up the production schedule.
With sponsor logos in hand, draft the layout. The pattern we recommend: event logo front center, sponsor wall on the back. Sponsor wall uses a tiered layout — title sponsor large, presenting medium, supporting small. This treats every sponsor fairly without making the shirt look chaotic.
Send the draft to each sponsor for a quick sign-off ("here’s how your logo appears on the shirt"). Most sponsors approve within a day. The ones who don’t are the ones who would have complained at the event — better to flush that out now.
Push the cutoff for registration so you have a hard size count one week before sample approval. Collect sizes at registration, not at the event — this is the #1 thing that prevents distribution chaos.
What to ask at registration: name, t-shirt size (XS through 3XL, or your range). Make t-shirt size required. If someone registers and refuses to commit to a size, default them to large — better an extra large in the leftover pile than a missing medium.
Physical sample of the final design, with one approved sponsor logo arrangement. Reviewed in person or by photo. Always order a sample before production — never approve to production from a digital mockup alone. Color shifts, scale issues, and decoration misalignment are only catchable on a physical sample.
50% deposit triggers production at this point. The remaining 50% is invoiced Net 30 from delivery date.
Your supplier prints. You should not need to do anything during this week except keep the sponsor list ready for race-day signage and confirm volunteer distribution logistics with your event team.
Common production hiccups: sponsor sends an updated logo mid-production (it’s too late — the print runs are already underway), or registration count balloons past the order quantity (we can rush an additional 50–100 units if you tell us by day 2 of production week).
The shirts arrive at our facility, get sorted by size, and bagged in counts you specify (e.g. 25 mediums per box, labeled). For events with on-site bib pickup the day before, we can deliver to your venue 1–3 days ahead so volunteers can pre-organize the distribution table.
Tip from our event clients: label boxes with size and bag count ("Medium — box 3 of 5") so volunteers know when to crack open the next box without crowding the table.
Two-volunteer table works for events up to ~500 runners. Three-table layout (S/M, L/XL, 2XL+) for larger events. Have someone on swap duty for last-minute size swaps — we recommend reserving 5% of the order as a swap buffer in case sizing was off on registration.
Leftover shirts: keep them. Future-year fundraising sales, volunteer thank-you gifts, or charity-store inventory. We’ll quote you a top-up order for next year using the same design with sponsor list updated.
If you came to this page with 2 weeks until your event and you haven’t started the shirt order, here’s what to expect:
We’ll still make it work — we’ve shipped emergency-rush event orders in 5 business days. But the cost and risk are real. The 6-week timeline gives you margin; the 2-week timeline removes it.
Send us your expected runner count, event date, and sponsor list. We’ll come back with quoted pricing, a custom timeline, and a recommended layout — usually within the hour during business hours.
Demander une soumission d'événement →