Open days are one of the few days in the year when a school, college or university has a captive audience of people actively deciding whether to choose you. Everything on the table gets judged — and mostly it gets judged by a parent working out whether it is worth carrying round for the next two hours.
Get the merchandise right and your name goes home, sits on a desk through the whole decision period, and turns up again on results day. Get it wrong and you have spent your marketing budget on something that reaches the car park bin. Here is how UK institutions get more out of open day merchandise, based on what actually gets used.
Start with the job, not the product
The most common mistake is starting from a catalogue. Before anyone picks items, answer three questions.
Who are you actually persuading? For a primary or secondary school open evening, the decision-maker is a parent. For a sixth form or college open day, it is a shared decision between student and parent. For a university open day, the student leads and the parent is footing part of the bill. Merchandise that delights a fifteen-year-old will not necessarily reassure the person filling in the application.
What do you want them to do next? Most open days have one real call to action — apply, book a taster day, join the mailing list, come back for a second visit. The giveaway should carry that message and, ideally, a way to act on it. A QR code printed on a bag or bottle costs nothing extra and turns a giveaway into a route back to your admissions page.
How long is the decision window? Secondary school applications, sixth form offers and UCAS deadlines all sit weeks or months after the open day. That is the whole point of physical merchandise over a leaflet — a bottle on a kitchen worktop keeps your name in the house right through that window. Choose things with a lifespan longer than the decision.
What works at open days
A bag people fill on the day
This is the single highest-value item on the table, because it solves a problem that exists within thirty seconds of arrival: visitors are handed a prospectus, a course leaflet, a campus map and a sample timetable, and they have nowhere to put any of it.
A printed drawstring bag or a cotton tote handed out at the entrance does three things at once. It stops your literature being abandoned on a chair. It carries your branding round the entire site all day, in front of every other visitor. And it goes home and keeps being used — a drawstring bag becomes a PE bag, a tote becomes a shopping bag.
Drawstring bags tend to suit school and sixth-form audiences and anything sporty, because they are worn on the back and leave hands free. Totes suit university open days and adult learners. If your budget only stretches to one item, make it this one.
Something that lives on a desk or worktop
Water bottles, mugs and travel cups have the longest visible life of anything you can hand out, which is why they dominate university open day budgets. A branded bottle sits on a revision desk for a full academic year. The trade-off is unit cost, so many institutions use a two-tier approach: a low-cost item for every visitor, and a bottle or similar reserved for those who book a taster session, register interest or attend a subject talk. That turns the better item into an incentive rather than a handout.
Pens, notebooks and lanyards — the ones that earn their place
Pens are cheap, but a bad pen is worse than no pen. A pen that writes properly gets kept for months; a pen that skips is binned the same day. Notebooks work well for sixth form and university audiences because they map straight onto what the visitor is about to be doing. Lanyards are worth ordering if visitors wear a badge on the day anyway — you are branding something they are already required to hold.
Something for the student who is already sold
Every open day has a handful of visitors who have decided. A branded hoodie, T-shirt or cap sold at cost through a stall or a pre-order form converts that enthusiasm into visible advocacy, and it turns merchandise from a cost line into a break-even one. This works particularly well for universities, sixth forms and sports academies.
What tends to get binned
- Anything with only a logo on it. No message, no reason to keep it, no next step. Add a strapline, a QR code or a website.
- Bulky items with no use. Foam hands, oversized novelty items and anything the visitor has to carry but cannot use. If it is awkward at 11am it will be in a bin by noon.
- Sweets as the main giveaway. Fine as a table filler; useless as a brand asset. They are gone before the visitor leaves the room, and many schools have allergen and healthy-eating policies that make them awkward anyway.
- Undated, over-specific print. Printing "Open Day 2026" on 2,000 items means you cannot use the surplus next year. Keep the print evergreen and use signage for the date.
Budgeting: think per visitor, not per unit
Work out expected attendance, then set a realistic spend per visitor and split it into tiers. A workable structure for many UK institutions looks like this:
- Tier one, every visitor: a printed bag at entry, plus a good pen or a leaflet insert. Low unit cost, maximum reach.
- Tier two, engaged visitors: a bottle, notebook or better-quality item for anyone who books a taster day, joins the mailing list or sits in on a talk.
- Tier three, committed students: garments sold at or near cost, or issued on enrolment.
Order the tier-one item in one run for the whole year's events rather than event by event. The per-unit price at 1,000 is materially better than at 200, and artwork that is not tied to a date means the surplus carries forward.
When to order
Autumn open days in the UK cluster from mid-September through October, with sixth form and secondary evenings often running into November. Artwork approval, proofing and production all take time, and September is a busy period across the industry because schools, clubs and universities are all ordering at once.
As a rough planning rule, start the conversation eight to ten weeks before your first event date. That gives comfortable room for artwork setup, a proof, production and delivery — with slack if a design needs a second look from your marketing team or governors. If you are inside that window, tell us the date up front and we will tell you honestly what is achievable.
Getting the artwork right
School crests and university marks are usually the fussiest artwork we handle, because they carry fine detail that behaves differently at different sizes and in different decoration methods. A crest that looks perfect on a letterhead can lose its detail when reduced onto a pen or reproduced in stitches.
Send us the best-quality version of your logo you have — a vector file if your design agency supplied one — and tell us the brand colours you are required to match. We will set it up, tell you where detail needs simplifying, and send a proof before anything is produced. If your institution has strict brand guidelines, send those too; it is far quicker than three rounds of amends.
Frequently asked questions
How many items should we order for an open day?
Take your expected attendance, then add a margin — visitors often arrive as families and take more than one of the entry-level item. For tier-one giveaways, ordering for the full year's events at once usually costs little more than a single event's run.
Can we put a QR code on merchandise?
Yes, and for open days it is one of the highest-value things you can print. Link it to your admissions or open day booking page rather than your homepage, and check it scans at the printed size before signing off the proof.
What is the best single item if we can only choose one?
A bag handed out at the entrance. It solves an immediate problem for the visitor, carries your branding round the site all day, and keeps working after the event.
Can you personalise items for individual students?
For garments and larger items, yes — names, initials or course titles can be added individually. For high-volume giveaways it is usually not worth the cost, and a strong shared design does more for you anyway.
Plan your open day merchandise with CentralCustom
CentralCustom supplies branded merchandise, bags, drinkware and custom clothing to schools, colleges, universities and businesses across the UK, with artwork setup and a proof included as standard.
Tell us your event dates, your expected attendance and your budget, and we will put together a tiered recommendation with honest pricing. Start with our custom printed drawstring bags for entry-level giveaways, our promotional water bottles and branded drinkware for the tier-two item, or get in touch for a full quote.
