The on-site merch printing planning guide.

Start with power.

Every press pulls real current. Plan on one to two standard 20-amp circuits per station, and never assume a venue's outlets are all on separate breakers — two presses on one circuit is how you trip a breaker mid-line. In convention centers you're often on a shared drop, so we spec the circuits in advance. Off-grid festival sites need a self-powered setup entirely.

Then the footprint.

A single station wants roughly a 10x10 to fit the press, a staging table, and a guest queue without crowding the aisle. A two-station line or a hat-and-patch bar pushes closer to 20x20. Map it against the venue floor plan early so the station isn't fighting for space with catering or the DJ.

Size the throughput.

One staffed DTF press runs about 40 to 70 pieces an hour. Do the math against your crowd: 300 guests over a three-hour window is 100 an hour, which means at least two presses plus pre-staged transfers to keep the line moving. The throughput target, not the guest count alone, sets the station count.

Nail the load-in path.

• Is it a straight roll, a dock, an elevator, or stairs?
• How far from the truck to the station spot?
• Is there a load-in window the venue enforces?
• Union or venue rules on who can move gear?

Stairs and long carries add crew time and change the schedule, so we'd rather know on paper than discover it on show day.

Build the timeline backwards.

Work back from doors: teardown after the last guest, live window during the event, setup before doors, and load-in before that. Add buffer for the unexpected. When the timeline is honest, the crew arrives, builds, runs, and clears out on schedule — which is the whole point of doing it on-site.