A rally towel is a simple product with one unusual requirement: it has to work at distance, in motion, on a surface that is folding and flapping.

Four decisions, in this order.

Cotton or microfibre

Screen-printed cotton is the default. It has the weight and hand people expect from a towel, it takes bold ink well, and at volume it is the cheapest option per piece.

Sublimated microfibre is lighter and thinner, dries faster, and is the only way to print photographic artwork, gradients or a design that bleeds off every edge. If the towel is meant to feel like a keepsake, choose cotton; if the artwork demands full colour, choose microfibre.

Fewer ink colours than you think

On a screen-printed towel, the first ink colour does almost all the work. At thirty metres, waving, a second colour adds a little and a third and fourth add essentially nothing except cost.

The strongest towels are usually one dark ink on a white base or one light ink on a saturated base. If there is detail that genuinely matters — a sponsor’s full lockup, a QR code, a fixture list — put it on the insert card, not on the towel.

Print both faces if a sponsor is paying

A waving towel shows both sides to the crowd, so a single-sided towel is invisible half the time. That is the argument that funds most giveaways: the second face is the sponsor’s, and it is seen as often as the first.

The thing to watch is show-through, where two heavy prints on a thin towel ghost into each other. It is solved with a heavier base and adjusted ink density — ask whether your supplier is doing either.

Plan the distribution before you plan the print

Decide early whether this is a seat drop or a hand-out at the gates, because it changes the order. A seat drop wants individual bagging, counting per block and labelled cartons; a gate hand-out is fine loose and cheaper.

Bagging also keeps the towel clean on a damp seat and makes the giveaway feel deliberate rather than like litter, which is worth more than it sounds for a sponsor’s impression.

What to send when you ask for a quote

Artwork, quantity, the fixture date, the size of the venue, and whether a sponsor is on the second face. That is enough for a real quote and a redrawn mockup the same day.

If your season might end in a playoff run, say so now rather than later — standby artwork costs almost nothing and is the difference between having towels and not.