By Carly McHugh
After months of preparation, the time had finally come. The Toronto Argonauts and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers were set to face off on Nov. 20 at Regina’s Mosaic Stadium, and the city was ready to celebrate the 109th Grey Cup Festival.
Various organizations planned to erect signage to get fans in the spirit for the game and its preluding events. After producing two anticipatory building wraps for Regina’s Hill Towers that summer, all eyes were on Sleek Signs to deliver show-stopping pageantry for the main event.
This time, multiple projects from three clients—Captive Media Inc., the Saskatchewan Roughrider Football Club, and Cornwall Centre—were set to culminate in one major, citywide takeover. Ultimately, the project was awarded to the local sign shop based on their team’s size and ability to deliver the work within such a short time frame.
Executing all the projects simultaneously, Sleek Signs produced a wide variety of signage, including wall wraps, floor decals, perforated window film, banners, and Coroplast signs.
At the outset, each client provided the shop with the artwork for their respective projects, after which the team ensured all the measurements were accurate. The installations also required extensive pre-production tiling and proofing, to ensure the proper final look.
With the designs in hand and the canvasses prepared, Sleek Signs printed the vinyl, window film, and banners on their HP Latex 3000, as well as the additional elements on a Ronik Ray X. Next, the vinyl was laminated, and the banners were all given a heat seam hem. Grommets were then punched around each banner, at approximately every 0.6 m (2 ft). The signage was produced in a wide range of sizes, with one of the largest single elements being a 3.9- x 23.1-m (13- x 76-ft) interior wall wrap which read, “Welcome to Our House.”
Sleek Signs used a variety of tools to affix the signage, including squeegees, heat guns, premask, and zip ties. Additionally, since several of these installations took place more than 3.6 m (12 ft) in the air, they sometimes required the assistance of scissor lifts or ladders.
Once again, the weather proved to be the biggest challenge for the team throughout the installations. Since many of them were outdoors, in sometimes unpredictable winter conditions, there were certain days where completing the work became impossible. As a result, the team needed to make up the time elsewhere, which resulted in larger time crunches, as the projects had set, immovable completion dates. Additionally, the team was already working nights and weekends to accommodate restrictive installation windows and tight timelines. However, the installation and production teams were able to persevere, working well beyond their normal hours, and completing the majority of the vinyl applications in weather as cold as -10 and -15 C (14 and 5 F).
The installations began on Nov. 7 and were wrapped up by Nov. 13. Once complete, the team had produced and installed more than 46.4 m2 (500 sf) of Coroplast, 92.9 m2 (1,000 sf) of perforated window film, 185.8 m2 (2,000 sf) of banners, and 464.5 m2 (5,000 sf) of decals across all venues. The Grey Cup Festival opened on Nov. 15 and concluded with the big game on Nov. 20. Three days later, all the pageantry was removed, to make room for signage for the Canadian Western Agribition.
