Stage Scrims for Bands
Stage Scrims are an absolute essential for any band looking to up their stage game. Show your fans what you’re really about and make a big impact by putting your design on these and setting them up for your next show!
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What is a stage scrim?
A stage scrim is a large, square piece of vinyl mesh banner that allows for sound and light to permeate through the holes in the vinyl mesh. A stage scrim is most often used by bands on stage for their live performances. Scrims are more often than not placed in pairs on stage in front of guitar amps as a way of marketing a band or artist to the crowd. Band scrims are an affordable alternative to large backdrop banners and offer an easy setup from venue to venue. Stage scrims will usually be hung with either grommets or pole pockets onto a proper heavy duty aluminum stand or the cheaper PVC pipe setup. Stage scrims are one of the most cost effective ways to brand your band and make your live concert setup look extremely professional.What is the history of band stage scrims?
Bands have always used different mediums to help fans identify their presence on stage. One of the early marketing methods was large fabric and vinyl backdrops. This was a great way to effectively market, but was often not very cost effective and hard to setup. Most venues could not accomodate for the large banner. The banner would also hang behind the band and more often than not would be obstructed from the view of fans rendering the setup useless.Around 2010, bands, specifically on the Warped Tour started placing solid vinyl banners on stage in front of their guitar amps in order for fans to see what band was playing. This was an extremely effective marketing tactic. With hundreds of bands playing on multiple stages on one day, it was often hard to figure out which band was playing. The band stage banner was a quick was for concert goers to indentify which band was playing at that exact moment. However, the solid banner had its flaws. Bands were placing the banners in front of their instruments therefore it would block the sound coming from them. Many early scrim adopters noticed that large festivals were placing a vinyl mesh over their large speakers that allowed them to advertise in these spots on stage, but also let sound come through. This became the iteration of the stage scrim we have today. A vinyl mesh that allows for an image to be placed on the scrim, but also allowing sound and light to freely pass through it. The scrim has now moved on from the Warped Tour and is now a mainstay at festivals, venues, and concerts alike.
Why does my band need stage scrims?
Custom stage scrims are the one of the most effective ways to promote your band. More often than not, you will not be the headliner at a show or concert. Most event goers are there to see the headliner and are often not familiar with the opening acts. Many fans will not pay attention during the opening bands so it is imperative to capture their attention. If at any moment you do capture their interest, they need to be able to identify you immediately. Stage scrims are the best way to achieve this in a split second. Scrims are the best way to market your band in public as it shows you have invested time and money into looking professional. It is a great way to show off your new logo or album artwork and can really help push sales of merch, music, and up your streams on digital platforms. Band scrims can take you from looking like a novice garage band to looking like the national touring act coming through a major city. They will give your stage presence the boost it needs to take over a large room.What material are scrims made out of?
At Merchcult, our band scrims are made out of a high quality 70/30 10 oz vinyl mesh banner. This means that 70% of the banner is a solid vinyl while the other 30% are the holes that allow the air, sound and light to flow freely through the banner. Your artwork is printed with our state of the art digital printers that allow for vibrant colors and detailed artwork. All of our scrims come with 2" pole pockets that allow you to easily setup quickly and effectively. The sides of the scrims and hemmed and reinforced to make sure that your stage scrims last for years. Scrims can very easily be rolled up and not have crease marks due to the nature of the vinyl mesh.What kind of artwork should I place on my custom stage scrims?
The type of artwork you place on your scrim will ultimately effect how well your fans will receive them on stage. Typically, you want artwork that is very bold and readable. It must have great contrast to be readable. Since you are losing 30% of the vinyl due to the nature of the holes, contrast and vibrancy is key to making your graphics stand out. A low contrast and hard to read logo, font, or artwork will make your scrims very difficult to see especially in a venue with low stage lighting. We recommend having a dark background with a very light text or logo, or a light background with very dark foreground art. This will ensure that your image stands out. The larger you can make your artwork on scrim, the better fans will be able to read it. Think of your fans that are 200 feet away. Can they read what you are placing on your scrim from that far away? Avoid small text and images in order to give your scrim the maximum effectiveness.Try to place the important elements near the top of the scrim as sometimes shorter event goers will not be able to see the bottom of your amp scrims because of their height or location at the venue. Many bands use the same artwork on both scrims, but others like to play off of each scrim by having the band name on one, and then the logo or album artwork on the other. Another great idea is having 2 different artworks that play off of each other or are one larger image split up into the two different scrims. This is a creative way to have multiple images on stage. And at Merchcult, this does not cost you any more money to have the two different images.
Your artwork must also be high resolution or in vector format. At Merchcult, we can work with pretty much any type of artwork, but to avoid issues, we recommend creating your artwork at a print ready size in order for the scrims to print perfectly. We recommend creating your artwork at size at 150DPI. So on a 5'x5' scrim, you would create your artwork at 60"x60" (9000 pixels x 9000 pixels) at 150 DPI. This will ensure the best quality when printing.