T-shirts=failure?

[fbhjr]

Yesterday on the 12th anniversary of Phoenix Swords one of our friends posted on our facebook (If you haven’t joined the Phoenix Swords facebook, you should…) page that after a dozen years he still doesn’t have a T-shirt from Phoenix, but still has one from the old group that preceded it.
My wife pointed out that having troupe T-shirts makes the troupe fail.

12 years ago with the old troupe, we ordered T-Shirts for all of the members and they were great. So, we ordered some more to sell. The troupe member who was making them made them the wrong color, and printed 5 times more than we asked for, but still expected us to pay for it.
That isn’t why the troupe collapsed a month later, but it is indicative of the sort of thing that went on there.

One of the first faires we performed at gave us T-Shirts when we did the show. It’s been 11 years since they last did a show.
One of the best paying shows we ever did gave us T-Shirts. Then, they stopped having the faire as well.
There was a sword group in the mid-west that we collaborated together with on a few shows. My wife and I got T-Shirts from that group and after more than a decade together, the group broke up.
My wife has the T-shirt of another group here in New England that was rumored to be getting back together for a show this year. But, turns out to just be a rumor.

My wife used to be an artist for a local comic. (Not the one she and I did together, but a different one.)
The T-Shirt I bought for that no longer fits me, but no issues of that comic have come out in more than 25 years…

I’m trying to think of any T-Shirt I have for a group, company or similar thing that is still going. I’m not able to come up with very many.
I’ve got a NASA one from when we visited the Kennedy launch center. You know, just before they stopped doing manned flights.
OK, maybe not a good example.

To be faire, Phoenix Swords did have some T-Shirts. One of our early members hand painted some for our members. I tried to do iron on ones for everyone back in the early days. That was a total fiasco.
So maybe ones that involve a lot of effort, and may not come out well, don’t ruin the organization involved.
But, I don’t think I’m going to have any printed any time soon…