RUNFEST came to us with a simple brief that had more going on than it first appeared: create branded drawstring bags that looked like part of the event, not a generic giveaway with a logo added at the end.
For a running event, a drawstring bag is a practical object before it is a marketing product. People use it for bottles, shoes, spare layers, race-day papers, small purchases and all the other things that appear around an event village. It is carried, pulled open, put down, picked up again and photographed in the background more often than organisers usually expect.
The public RUNFEST identity already had a clear direction. The RUNFEST website and RUNFEST Instagram page present a colourful running festival built around movement, music and a strong purple visual world. Our job was to produce custom drawstring bags that could sit naturally inside that identity while still doing the everyday job expected of sports event merchandise.
A running festival with a strong visual world
RUNFEST is not presented like a traditional road race with a route map and a start time. Its public communication leans into the idea of a running festival: music, shared energy, a village atmosphere and a full-day experience for runners, families and supporters. That makes the merchandise brief more specific than it might look from the outside.
When an event has that much public-facing personality, every physical item needs to feel connected to the wider experience. The bag should look right at registration, in participant photos, around the event village and later at home. It should not feel like a separate supplier item that was added after the rest of the branding was finished.
The RUNFEST visual identity made colour especially important. Purple is a key part of the brand world, and the bag artwork needed to follow that direction closely. For event merchandise, colour matching is often more important than people assume. A slightly wrong shade can make an item feel disconnected from banners, social graphics, website visuals and printed material.
This is where a custom bag becomes more than a container. It becomes one of the small repeated surfaces through which people recognise the event. A runner might only look at a poster once, but a bag moves through the day with them. It appears in queues, by lockers, near food areas, in group photos and on the journey home.
For RUNFEST, the drawstring bag had to support that visual continuity without becoming overdesigned. The product format is simple, so the strength comes from clear artwork, confident colour and a layout that reads quickly.
Why custom drawstring bags suited the RUNFEST brief
Custom drawstring bags work well for sports events because they are easy to distribute and easy to use. They do not need explanation. Participants know what to do with them immediately, which matters when an event team is managing arrivals, bibs, questions, queues and last-minute changes.
For RUNFEST, the use case was particularly clear. The bag was expected to carry real items, including shoes and water bottles. That shaped how we looked at the product. It was not being made as a flat souvenir to sit on a table. It needed to handle normal movement and normal event behaviour.
Across sports merchandise projects, this distinction comes up often. A product for a corporate desk, a hospitality table or a retail shelf is judged differently from a product used by runners, players or supporters on the move. Event merchandise has to be visually tidy, but it also has to survive the day without feeling fragile.
The drawstring format gave RUNFEST the right balance. It is light enough for a mass event, compact enough to store and distribute, and useful enough to remain relevant after the event. For organisers, that combination is valuable. The best promotional bags are not kept because someone feels loyal to a logo. They are kept because they are handy.
There is also a branding advantage. A drawstring bag gives enough printable surface to carry a strong event identity while staying clean and practical. With the right artwork, it can feel like part of the event kit rather than a loose promotional extra.
For clubs, agencies and event organisers comparing different custom bags, this is usually the key question: will people actually use the product? RUNFEST had a clear reason to choose a bag because its audience had a clear reason to carry one.
Matching the purple identity across event channels
The RUNFEST project was a good reminder of how much a single colour can carry. The purple tone was not just a background choice. It was part of how the event presented itself across the website, social content and wider graphic identity.
In production terms, purple can be a sensitive colour. Depending on the material, print method and lighting, it can lean too blue, too flat or too dark. That is why artwork review and colour communication are not admin details. They are part of the product result.
For this bag, the artwork needed to stay close to the RUNFEST graphic charter. The aim was not to reinterpret the brand, but to translate it onto a physical product that would still feel recognisably RUNFEST. That is a different discipline from designing for a screen. A colour that looks bright online can behave differently on fabric, especially when placed next to white areas, shadows or seams.
The strongest event merchandise usually understands this translation. It does not chase complexity. It protects the key elements that people already associate with the event: name, colour, rhythm, contrast and clarity.
That was especially relevant here because RUNFEST’s public channels are visually active. The event language is lively, social and festival-led, so the bag could not look muted or overly corporate. It needed enough punch to belong alongside the website and Instagram identity, while remaining clean enough to be produced consistently.
This is one of the practical reasons we like starting from the customer’s actual visual system. When the colour, logo and layout are treated as part of a wider event environment, the final merchandise has a better chance of feeling intentional.
Designing event merchandise for practical use
Sports event merchandise gets handled differently from normal promotional merchandise. People pull cords quickly, overfill bags, carry wet bottles, pack shoes, sit the bag on the ground and then expect it to keep doing its job. No one at an event treats a drawstring bag like a delicate product.
With RUNFEST, that practical use was part of the brief from the beginning. The bag needed to be suitable for normal event handling, not just good-looking in a product mock-up. That influenced the way we thought about the construction, the print and the overall product choice.
There is always a balance to strike. Event organisers need a product that feels right, looks on-brand and works for the audience, but the budget still needs to make sense. It is rarely useful to over-specify a simple event bag until it becomes too expensive for the campaign. The better decision is to choose a product level that fits the way the item will actually be used.
For RUNFEST, that meant keeping the focus on everyday durability and visual consistency. The bag had to be strong enough for light sports-event use and clear enough in its branding to feel connected to the event.
This is where experience with promotional sports merchandise helps. The small production choices are not glamorous, but they affect the final impression. A drawstring bag with a strong layout and a sensible material choice can be more effective than a more complicated product that misses the event context.
The same thinking applies across event merchandise. Start with how the audience will use the item, then work back to the product. For a running festival, the answer was not complicated: people needed something simple, light and useful that carried the RUNFEST identity well.
What organisers can take from the RUNFEST bag project
The RUNFEST project is useful because it shows the difference between choosing merchandise from a catalogue and developing merchandise around a real event use case.
The product itself was familiar. Many organisers have used drawstring bags before. The important part was the thinking around it: what people would carry, how the colours would sit with the public identity, how the item would appear across the event environment and whether it would still feel useful once the event was over.
For running events, charity events, club tournaments and brand activations, this is often where merchandise succeeds or fails. The product does not need to be complicated, but it does need to match the audience’s behaviour. A bag for runners has a different job from a bag for a conference. A bag for a family-friendly sports festival has a different job from a premium retail item.
RUNFEST also shows why visual discipline matters. When an event has a clear colour and a lively public personality, the merchandise should not dilute it. The bag should carry the same confidence as the website, signage and social media. Even a basic product format can feel considered when the brand translation is handled properly.
For organisers planning custom sports merchandise, the lesson is simple enough: choose the product because it has a job, not because it fills space in a merchandise list. The better the product fits the day, the more likely people are to use it afterwards.
If you are planning branded bags for a sports event, club campaign or sponsor activation, it is worth starting with the use case before choosing the material or print route. The Hercules Merchandise team can help compare practical options through our custom bags range or discuss a specific event brief through our contact page.
Custom drawstring bags with a visible event role
The RUNFEST bags worked because they fitted the event. They connected with the purple-led visual identity, made sense for a running audience and gave participants a practical item they could use during the day.
For Hercules Merchandise, this is the kind of project that shows why event merchandise should not be treated as an afterthought. A bag is a small object, but at a busy sports event it can become part of the way people experience the brand. It carries the logo, but it also carries the real things people need with them.
Custom drawstring bags are not the most complicated product in sports merchandise. In the right setting, that is exactly the point. For RUNFEST, the format gave the event something useful, visible and easy to understand.
Article written by Gilles
Founder of Hercules Merchandise, specialising in custom sports merchandise for clubs and organisations.
