Merchandise
Anything you have to sell.
Most BJCs have produced T-shirts printed with the convention logo to sell. These are a great souvenir and can generate some income for the BJC.
Recent years have expanded into hoodies, towels, hats, strappy tops, tote bags and much more.
BJC 2010 sold kid sized clothing which sold well. However the margins are smaller, as it wholesales for the same price as adult clothing or more.
Having several colours of t-shirts "hedges your bets" if you can't decide on colours, but you will get better bulk discounts with only one colour. The more colours and sizes you decide to stock the more likely you are to have left-over stock.
CREW like to have special crew shirts. Being recognisable from a distance is both an advantage and a disadvantage! Even the laziest of lazy people usually change their shirt more than once a week; crew members who may spend hours shifting fencing will be more smelly and therefore even more in need of a change of shirt. So buy them more than one shirt.
Videos of the convention used to be sold, which you could pre-order at the convention, but with the advent of youtube and other internet movies they are no longer so popular.
How much to buy
Buying figures are available from BJCs 2007, 2008 and 2010 (at least) if you ask them nicely.
Be careful to not buy more merchandise than you can sell, any item left afterwards can cancel out any income from an item sold.
BJC 2008 sold out and started taking written orders on some forms that were printed out.
This caused plenty of problems caused by people who were unable to correctly spell their own address, or to give any other contact details.
BJC 2010 sold "pre-orders" of merchandise on the website and could easily have sold more merchandise afterwards in the same way. Selling through a website means that the address is validated (e.g. must have a postcode) and the user is forced to enter some further contact details. Plus the data is safely in a database rather than floating about in a pile of forms.
BJCs 2007, 2008 and 2010 used Revolution Shirts in Leicester as their clothing provider.
