Trade show giveaways: what custom merch should you give visitors?

At a trade show, the merch people keep is the merch they use on the spot: the tote bag, where visitors store their brochures while carrying your logo down the aisles. At tknp.io, Westford Mill's Bag For Life, screen printed in one colour, costs €2.09 excluding VAT per bag for 250 units, for guidance only. Keep a stronger gift, an embroidered cap or hoodie, for your meetings.

A trade show visitor goes home in the evening with a full bag. The question isn't what you slip into it, but what comes out of it the following Monday, on their desk or on their back.

The amounts in this article reflect our prices as the product pages showed them on 19 October 2026: unit prices excluding VAT and shipping, in the most affordable colour, with one decoration position (8 x 10 cm embroidery, one-colour screen print), standard lead time. Expect a small surcharge for larger sizes and certain colours. These amounts are published for guidance only and may shift before you order.

What merch should you give trade show visitors?

Start with a tote bag: it's the gift visitors use during the show itself, to carry the catalogues and samples they pick up from stand to stand. Westford Mill's Bag For Life, screen printed in one colour, costs €2.09 excluding VAT per bag at 250 units, decoration included. To choose its size, see our tote bag size guide.

Your logo then travels the aisles all day, carried on the shoulder of visitors who haven't reached your stand yet. At a trade show, it's advertising that walks over to the neighbouring stands on its own.

The t-shirt comes next. B&C's #E150, screen printed in one colour, costs €3.14 excluding VAT per unit at 250 units. It gets worn after the show, but it means handling sizes behind the counter: keep it for visitors who take the time to talk.

If your audience prefers an object, the tknp.io catalogue also offers personalised products, from water bottles to badge lanyards. Our guide explains what sets merch apart from other trade show gifts, and when to choose each.

The walk-by gift and the meeting gift

A trade show mixes two audiences, and they don't deserve the same gift. The walk-by visitor gets the tote bag, handed out widely; the qualified contact, the one who booked a meeting or left their details, leaves with a garment they will wear.

For that second gift, the embroidered cap can be handed over right at the stand, without asking the visitor anything; our client gift guide covers gifts to clients more broadly. Beechfield's Ultimate 5 Panel Cap, embroidered, comes to €6.40 excluding VAT a cap for 100 caps and €5.67 for 250. For your very best clients, an embroidered College Hoodie, at €18.54 excluding VAT per unit for 25 units, turns the meeting into a keepsake.

One rule avoids waste: the good garment never sits on the counter for people to help themselves, it is handed over in person, at the end of the conversation.

A seminar follows a different logic, since every attendee receives the same kit: our seminar merch guide covers it.

How many units should you plan for a trade show?

Start from the number of visitors expected at your stand, not the attendance announced by the organiser: the figure from your last edition, badges scanned or contacts collected, is the one to trust. The tote bag is sized on that figure, the meeting gift on your meeting schedule, with a small reserve for each.

The price tier helps you decide. On the screen-printed Bag For Life, going from 100 to 250 units brings the bag down from €2.42 to €2.09 excluding VAT. And if the design carries no date, the leftover bags are ready for the next show.

Each product can be ordered from 10 units, with any technique, mixing sizes and colours freely.

What should the stand team wear?

Dress the whole stand team in the same colour, logo embroidered on the chest: a visitor should know in one second who to talk to. B&C's embroidered Polo Id.001 comes to €9.24 excluding VAT each when you order 25, and Stanley/Stella's organic cotton Crafter t-shirt, embroidered, €9.73 for the same quantity.

Plan two outfits per person if the show lasts several days: a polo shirt worn three days in a row under the spotlights ends up showing it. At the welcome desk, the same polo in the stand's colour keeps the team easy to spot from one end of the aisle to the other, and the welcome hostesses' outfit has its own guide.

Our events page brings together the garments that equip a stand's staff.

And the stand around the team?

Garments dress the team; the stand itself is spotted from afar thanks to a roll-up banner or a vinyl banner, and flyers wait for visitors on the counter. Nantes Gravure, a Nantes print shop in business since 1973, prints large-format signage, flyers and brochures.

Outdoor shows: dressing the team for rain and cold

At an open-air event, a fair, a boat show or an agricultural show, the team's outfit works in layers: the polo shirt stays underneath, and the outer layer carries the logo as soon as it rains or turns cold. Embroidered on the chest for a team of 25, B&C's water-repellent #RESET Windbreaker costs €13.62 excluding VAT per unit, and JHK's Polar Fleece, a 300 g/m2 fleece, €19.56.

For long, damp days, B&C's Reset 3Lr Softshell adds a waterproof, windproof membrane lined with microfleece, at €34.11 excluding VAT embroidered, again for 25 units. The Reset Bodywarmer, a padded water-repellent gilet, leaves the arms free for setting up, at €23.59 excluding VAT embroidered for 25. In real cold, our custom puffer jackets take over, and an embroidered Fisherman Beanie, at €13.19 excluding VAT per unit for 25 units, covers the early setup mornings.

Embroider the logo in the same place on every layer, on the chest: when the jacket closes over the polo shirt, the team stays recognisable from a distance.

Screen printing for volume, embroidery for the team

For a trade show, the split fits in one line: screen printing for the volumes handed out to visitors, embroidery for the team and the meeting gifts. On the #E150 t-shirt, one screen-printed colour costs €7.39 excluding VAT per unit at 25 units, €4.55 at 50 and €2.93 at 500.

Our unit prices, excluding VAT, on 19 October 2026: one screen-printed colour in a single position, base colour.

Our textile printing guide compares every technique in detail. In both cases, a simple one-colour logo costs less and often looks better than a busy one.

The show date won't move: order six weeks ahead

For a trade show, confirm the merch order six weeks before opening: the date is fixed, and that head start lets you pick the 4-week production, which takes 5% off the base price on tknp.io product pages (the standard 2-week lead time). The remaining two weeks cover delivery and checking the boxes.

One-week production exists for latecomers, at 10% more. Have it delivered to your office rather than to the venue: you can open the boxes calmly before the stand goes up.

Next year's show, already set up in your account

If you exhibit at the same show every year, this year's work serves the next one. On tknp.io, the stand's tote bag and polo shirt stay in your account's wardrobe, design included: next year, you reorder the same items in a few clicks, without redoing the file or going through a quote again.