The 10-point checklist for vetting an onsite printing vendor.

Filed July 2026 · For procurement & ops leads

Onsite printing has a low barrier to entry — a heat press costs less than a conference booth — so the market mixes professional crews with hobbyists holding a free weekend. The checklist below is how you tell them apart in one email.

1. Certificate of insurance, before you ask twice. Ask for a COI at your venue's limits with your entity named. A pro sends it within a day. A shrug here predicts every later shrug.
2. Real photos of real deployments. Ask for photos from three past events in venues like yours. Renders and catalog shots are a tell.
3. A throughput number in writing. "How many finished pieces per hour, at my art size?" If the answer is vague, your line length will not be.
4. Backup equipment on the truck. Presses fail. The question is whether a spare rides along or whether your event waits on a round trip.
5. A written load-in plan. Arrival time, vehicle, dock needs, crew names. Vendors who improvise load-ins improvise everything.
6. Power specs stated, not discovered. The vendor should tell you the circuit requirement unprompted. You should never learn it from a tripped breaker.
7. Teardown on the clock, in the quote. Confirm who breaks down, how long it takes, and that it is priced. "We'll figure it out" means your staff will.
8. Named product brands. Bella+Canvas, Gildan, Richardson, Flexfit — specific blanks in the quote. "Premium tee" unspecified usually is not.
9. A single point of contact on the day. One lead operator with a cell number, not an office line that closes at five.
10. References from ops people, not marketers. Ask to talk to someone who managed the building, not someone who enjoyed the party. Facilities managers give honest reviews.

Three of the ten are non-negotiable

If procurement pressure forces trade-offs, protect items one, four, and six — insurance, backup equipment, and power specs. Those three are the ones that stop an event outright: an uninsured vendor gets turned away at the dock, a failed press with no spare turns your activation into an apology, and an undocumented power draw takes down more than the printing table when the circuit trips. The other seven degrade quality; these three end the day. Notice they are also the three cheapest for a real operation to satisfy, which is exactly why failing them is disqualifying — a vendor who cannot produce a COI is not budget-friendly, they are pre-failed. Our own specs are published on the vendor-requirements page precisely so nobody has to extract them by email.

Turn the passing answers into contract language

The checklist's real value is what happens after the vendor passes: every specific answer converts directly into a work-order term. The throughput number becomes a staffing commitment. The load-in plan becomes an arrival window with names on it. The teardown answer becomes a line item with a clock. The named blanks become the substitution clause — no silent downgrades from the quoted garment to whatever was in stock. Ops teams already run vendors this way for catering and AV; printing deserves the same paper. A crew that answered in writing will sign what they wrote, and the ten minutes of drafting buys you an event day where every dispute is already settled.

Run all ten in a single email

You do not need ten phone calls. Paste the list into the RFQ with one sentence on top: “Please respond to each numbered item in writing along with your quote.” The response itself becomes the first test — pros return a complete document inside a business day because they answer these questions weekly, while hobbyists return a price and a promise to “sort out details later.” You have now learned everything the reference calls would have told you, before spending a minute on the phone. File the winning vendor's responses with the contract; they are your event-day escalation sheet, complete with the lead operator's cell number from item nine.

Recurring programs: re-run items three and nine annually

If the vendor becomes a standing supplier — monthly campus dates, quarterly office events — most of the checklist holds from the first pass, but two items drift. Throughput commitments age as your headcounts grow, so re-paper item three against current numbers once a year. And single points of contact change jobs; confirm item nine before every season rather than discovering the new lead mid-event. Standing vendors earn lighter vetting, not zero vetting — the same discipline that picked them keeps them sharp, and a supplier who welcomes the annual re-check is a supplier planning to keep the account. What a recurring engagement includes is scoped on the services answer.

Two failed items is a negotiation. Four is a different vendor. And if you want to see how we answer all ten, send the checklist with your quote request — we will return it filled out, in writing, with the quote attached.