Gig poster templates for bands, clubs and venues
A gig poster is read at fifteen feet by somebody walking past, and the only question they are answering is "is this on a night I am free?". Not the artwork. Not the venue's logo. The date. Everything else on the sheet exists to be found in the three seconds after the date has done its job, and these layouts are built in that order.
13 poster layouts for the wall and the window
Club, DJ, theatre and arts wording. The dark palettes are the ones that survive a lamppost at night; the type-only layouts are the ones that still work photocopied.
Full plateBold · Gaming / esports palette
Hard splitVintage · Music & nightlife palette
Nine-square gridBold · Gaming / esports palette
Centred lockupVintage · Luxury retail palette
Inset frameTechnical · Gaming / esports palette
OrbitClassic · Music & nightlife palette
ChevronBold · Gaming / esports palette
Leading edgeElegant · Theatre & cinema palette
Corner wedgeVintage · Gaming / esports palette
Ticket stubClassic · Music & nightlife palette
Inset frameEditorial · Music & nightlife palette
Full plateElegant · Music & nightlife palette
Index columnVintage · Music & nightlife paletteDate, headliner, everything else
The hierarchy that works has three levels and no more. The date is the largest element or the boldest one — not both, or the sheet turns into noise. The headliner is next, at a size that survives being seen from the far pavement. Then, in one block, the support acts, the doors time, the age policy, the venue address and where to buy a ticket.
That last block is where posters go wrong: a bill with six equal-weight names tells a stranger nothing and insults five of the acts anyway. Rank the bill honestly and set the ranking in type sizes. An arts venue has the same problem with a season poster — one production carries the sheet, and the rest belong on the back of a rack card.
Where the poster ends up decides what you print it on
Three surfaces, three products. A poster in the venue's own window is handled, wiped and sits in the sun, so laminate it and expect it to last the run. A poster on a wall or a lamppost is consumable — print it on the wheatpaste stock, put out a hundred, and accept that half will be gone by Friday. A poster on foam board goes on an easel at the door and gets carried in and out every night for a month.
All of them print at 150 dots per inch in the finished size, which is the honest resolution for something read from a few feet away. What actually decides whether the sheet looks cheap is the size of the headline and whether the artwork was built at poster scale — a 1080-pixel square exported for a social post is about four inches wide at print resolution, and blowing it up to 24 × 36 shows every pixel of that decision.
What has to be on a gig poster
Seven items. Miss any of the first four and somebody misses the show.
- Date, with the day of the week spelled out.
- Headliner, then support, ranked by type size rather than by politics.
- Venue name and street address — strangers do not know where your room is.
- Doors time, and the age policy if there is one.
- Ticket link or a QR code that survives being read from four feet away.
- Presenter or promoter credit, small, at the foot.
- Nothing inside an eighth of an inch of the trim, which the guillotine will take.
What a run of posters costs
Street runs are counted in hundreds and window prints in ones. The ladder below is the wheatpaste stock, which is what a flyposting run is printed on.
| Product | Starts at | Per piece | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wheat Paste Poster | $28.48 | — | |
| Single Premium Posters | $31.77 | — | |
| Laminated Poster | $44.35 | — | |
| Foam Board | $28.30 | — |
Live catalogue prices — the same number the configurator shows when you open the product, and the same one the checkout charges. Every row opens a configurator where stock, size, finish and quantity move the price.
Price by quantity — Wheat Paste Poster
| Quantity | Total | Per piece |
|---|---|---|
| 25 | $235.75 | $9.43 |
| 50 | $409 | $8.18 |
| 100 | $771.25 | $7.71 |
| 150 | $1,139.80 | $7.60 |
| 200 | $1,489.45 | $7.45 |
Computed at build time by the same pricing engine that charges the card at checkout, on the product's default options. Change the stock or finish and the number moves — the configurator shows it live.
Questions we get asked
- What size for a venue window versus a street run?
- 18 × 24 inches for windows and noticeboards — it reads from the pavement without dominating the glass. 24 × 36 for a wall or a hoarding, where you are competing with everything else pasted up that week.
- How many should we print?
- For a single show in one neighbourhood, a hundred on wheatpaste stock and five laminated for the venue, the rehearsal room and the record shop. Flyposting attrition is brutal and the cheap stock exists precisely because of it.
- Why is 150 dpi enough?
- Viewing distance. Nobody reads a poster from six inches. At a few feet the eye cannot resolve more than roughly 150 dots per inch at size, so doubling the file buys a slower upload and nothing else.
- Our artwork is a square social graphic. Will it work?
- Not as it stands. A square export is about four inches wide at print resolution and a poster is two to three feet tall. Rebuild the layout at poster proportions — the studio opens at the real trim size so you can see it fail before the press does.
Sizes, bleed, safety margin and the finishes this format supports are on the Posters page, with the full set of Posters questions.
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