Donate an insane amount of product and we'll talk!

[LillFilly]

I'm in a LARP group. Not as active as I once was, but I get to go now and again. A friend (not in the group) does costuming, leather and embroidery, and asked me to bring some samples and business cards to an event. I did. There are a few people who already sell their own wares in the group, so I can see that there would be that sense of loyalty to 'buy local,' but sometimes nobody you know makes what you want. My friend was contacted by the head of props from one of the group chapters. He said he LOVED her stuff, and if she donated 100 (ONE HUNDRED!!!) embroidered tabards he'd be MORE than happy to tell everyone where they came from and try and drum up some business for her.

Nah, thanks. We'll just keep handing out business cards!

[Sunshine]

Wow...he has some big....nerve.

[Mr Hero]

That's like promising exposure if an entertainer performs for free.

[EricKei]

"Why, sure! I'll donate them for my cost plus 20% each..."

[Crossbow]

One HUNDRED??? Are they fucking kidding???? Sorry, but being married to someone that does embroidery as a sideline, that's beyond ridiculous. Hell, that's even beyond insulting.

Let me think here. Something simple, say a 3"x3" shield, solid color. Machine embroidered decently, I'd estimate at about 8,000 - 10,000 stitches, conservatively. On her machine, figure about 600 stitches per minute, say 500 for the sake of argument. So that's 20 minutes per piece.

Tack onto that setup and cleanup time for each, and you're looking at say 30 minutes for each one. They want 50 HOURS worth of work for free? And that's not counting additional time for custom digitizing if the design doesn't already exist. If there's color/thread changes and/or design changes, kick that way up. And we're not even including material costs.


For a friend's wedding, my wife embroidered 100 yards of trim, and it took her months to do. It came out beautiful, and the wedding was amazing, but that was their wedding gift from us.



I would have slapped him if he made that offer to my wife.

[dalesys]

At the next tourney I would have him dubbed "Sir Pells".

[Sandiercy]

Ya, I will donate those tabards when you donate some money to my worthy cause.

[smileyeagle1021]

That's like promising exposure if an entertainer performs for free.

That probably isn't the best example, because a lot of performers do exactly that (I had a coworker that was/is in a local indie band and they perform for free all the time just to get people exposed to them and buying their CDs).

Now, if he wanted one or two samples, that would probably be reasonable... 100, yeah, he's just trying to get free props and probably would have shafted the artist in the long run anyway.

[freespirit114]

Wow, that is not even remotely a good offer! WTF was that guy thinking? That's about a full work week worth of time, not to mention materials, for free? No way!

[XCashier]

He said he LOVED her stuff, and if she donated 100 (ONE HUNDRED!!!) embroidered tabards he'd be MORE than happy to tell everyone where they came from and try and drum up some business for her.

Nah, thanks. We'll just keep handing out business cards!

Why do they always demand an absurd amount of freebies of goods you have to make by hand?! It's not like you can just run those tabards on your printer. You would think that someone who was in a LARP group would have some inkling of the amount of work required for these things.

[AccountingDrone]

Why do they always demand an absurd amount of freebies of goods you have to make by hand?! It's not like you can just run those tabards on your printer. You would think that someone who was in a LARP group would have some inkling of the amount of work required for these things.

I once worked overnight as a security guard in a Bank Operations Center and they didn't care what I did as long as I stayed awake and walked my rounds once an hour until it was 7 am and people started coming in to work. So I used to make costuming and such like little busywork projects. I had a roomie who wanted me to make him a wizards robe based on a really lovely thick velvety bathrobe with a hood, so I grabbed my copy of the Key of Solomon and started embroidering the little demon rondels and the summoning chant along the plackard and sleeve ends that where a different color from the robe itself [they were in burgundy, and the robe body was in black.] A hundred or so hours later when it was effectively finished [and he had actually moved out on me, with absolutely no notice just before rent was due...] I called him to let him know it was almost done, just another weekend of stitching. He was going to pay me when he picked it up ... was $50US ok ... So then he offered to pay minimum wage and wanted to know how much that would be ... until he found out that would be multiple hundred $$US. Needless to say, he didn't get the robe, I found someone else to buy it. And it featured in a few dreams of me wearing it at the con, and someone starting to read the summoning and a demon popping in in response

[Gizmo]

So then he offered to pay minimum wage and wanted to know how much that would be ... until he found out that would be multiple hundred $$US.

Yeah, know what you mean. I'm doing a Celtic rope in red with Herne symbols on a hood for a very good friend. That's not even anywhere near robe length and its going to be about 30 hrs of hand sewing. I'm doing it as a gift but an offer of $50 (or the UK equivalent) would be an insult even for that.

[fireheart]

Damn....it makes my boyfriend's LARP group look like they're wearing rags by comparison.

Their tabards are just simple red/blue ones with no braiding whatsoever.

[Mystic]

Wow, I hope her reply was dripping with sarcasm.