4,000 Posters in a Day for Star Wars Celebration
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Disney’s events team called on the Saturday of Star Wars Celebration 2023 at ExCeL London: 4,000 posters at 18 × 20 inches and 4,000 QR giveaway cards, needed the same day. Everything was printed by 15:55. The delivery address then changed twice in twenty-two minutes — and it did not matter, because the print was already done. The boxes reached the team’s hotel at Canary Wharf that night.
Written by Maciej Antosz, Production Manager at Silver Image London ·
This is an account of one job, not a turnaround promise. Send us yours and we will come back with a firm figure.
A Saturday morning call to boxes at the hotel by night
The times below are as they sit in the email thread. The delivery plan changed twice after the print was finished, which on an event weekend is normal — and is exactly why the press ran the moment the artwork was in, not when the logistics were settled.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| Saturday, after a morning call | The brief by email: 4,000 posters at 18 × 20 inches and 4,000 QR giveaway cards at 3 × 5 inches, artwork in two shared folders, “would this be possible to turn around by today” — with one caution attached: if the posters are converted to CMYK, make sure the colours still look right. |
| 15:55 | Our status back: everything printed, finishing and packing under way, delivery ETA 11pm. |
| 19:01 | Plan A from the client: deliver next morning at 8am to the venue loading bays at ExCeL, with a named on-site contact for the courier. |
| 19:17 | “Please disregard” — deliver tonight instead, to the team’s hotel at Canary Wharf. A phone call followed a moment later. |
| 19:23 | Hotel address over by email, “let me know when you are on the way”. |
| That night | Boxes handed in at the hotel in E14, ready for the morning at ExCeL. |
| After the event | A copy of the invoice requested for company records — the quiet ending every event job should have. |
Written up from the email thread. Nobody on the thread is named and no figures from the invoice are published. The client, the event and the printed items are, because they are the work.
The address is allowed to change when the print is finished early
Look at the gap in that table. The print was done by 15:55. The client’s delivery plan changed at 19:01, and again at 19:17. Neither change cost a minute, because the only thing still in motion was a van.
That is the real shape of event printing. On the weekend of a show, the people ordering print are also running a hall — their plans should change as the day develops. The way to make that safe is not to ask the client to stop changing their mind. It is to get the artwork on press immediately, so that by the time the plans start moving, the job is a stack of boxes and not a queue position.
The colour caution was the most professional line in the thread
The brief carried one warning: if you change the poster to CMYK, please ensure the colours look correct. Whoever wrote that has been burned before, and they were right to say it. The poster art — the Gaya design in the photograph — is saturated neons and magentas, exactly the palette that shifts hardest when an RGB file is converted for press.
The honest answer is the same one we gave an AWS team about a tablecloth: we do not silently adjust anyone’s colours. We convert, we proof, and if something drifts visibly, the question goes back before the run starts — not after four thousand sheets.
8,000 pieces on a Saturday is a capacity question, not a heroics question
Two formats, two file sources, one working day. What makes that routine rather than remarkable is boring: presses that are actually staffed at the weekend, artwork checked the moment it lands, and finishing that starts while the tail of the run is still printing. The interesting part of a same-day job is almost never the press.
If you are ordering event print at short notice
- Send print-ready files, or say the colour matters. One line — check the colours after conversion — bought this client a proofing step instead of a surprise.
- Put everything in one folder. This job arrived across two cloud services. It worked, but every extra link is a place for a version mix-up on the busiest day you have.
- Give the courier a named contact. The 19:01 email did exactly that, and it is the difference between a delivery and a van waiting at a locked bay.
- Consider the hotel, not the venue. The smartest move in this thread was the client’s: venue loading bays keep hours, hotels have a front desk all night. Night-before to the hotel beat morning-of to the bays.
- Order early in the day, even if the plan is not final. The address can change at 19:17 for free — if the artwork was on press by noon.
Sizes, stocks and turnarounds are on the same day poster printing page. For giveaway cards, see same day card printing, and for jobs that have to finish inside the working day, same day printers.
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