Tour merch for Mexican groups at the Festival Medieval de CEE

Planning tour merch for Mexican groups travelling to the festival

Venue

CEE, A Coruña, Galicia, Spain

Currency & invoicing

MXN, CFDI 4.0 with payments complement; Carta Porte 3.0 for the Mexico–Spain freight leg

Material language

Peninsular Spanish and optional Galician, with bilingual version for international press

The Festival Medieval de CEE is one of the most coveted dates in the European historical reenactment calendar, and the Mexican groups that cross the Atlantic to perform and run workshops outside competition typically bring a tight agenda: dress rehearsal, gala performance, morning session for specialist critics, and the complementary tour through allied festivals in Galicia, Asturias and northern Portugal. Each one of those stops needs different material in format and quantity, and bundling everything into a single lot is the classic recipe for arriving at the medieval quarter on performance day with programmes printed for the wrong title.

For a typical Mexican group — say, a stable company of fifteen performers, a technical crew of four, an artisan workshop and artistic production — the merch programme splits into three clearly differentiated allocations. The house allocation is built around the medieval quarter audience: per-performance programmes with historical notes about the piece and the period reenacted, press sheets with cast biographies, plus handcrafted merchandise pieces (replica buckles, olive oil soap, beeswax candles) for the medieval market booth. This is the line that leaves production first and carries the most weight in the warehouse, since each performance loads its own print run.

The cast and guest allocation is built separately: heavyweight cotton T-shirts and hoodies with the group shield and the tour for performers who spend whole days in the medieval quarter; suspenders and accessories for the technical crew; compact gifts for guest artisans and workshop coordinators. These volumes usually travel as checked luggage with the production director, not as consolidated freight, because any delay at Barajas or Lavacolla customs means performers without their backup kit at the dress rehearsal.

The third allocation covers tour and relationships: compact boxes for allied festival programmers, event producers with whom the next season is closing, and representatives of the cultural press covering the performances. This is the line where merch becomes a working tool months after the performance: a box well assembled in the dressing room of the festival turns into a programming email the following season. We bet on FSC-certified cotton paper for programmes, high-grammage card for press kits and organic cotton textiles or lyocell blends for tour apparel, plus ceramic and soap pieces from certified Mexican suppliers for the artisan lot.

Mexican groups taking medieval theatre to the Festival de CEE usually invoice the full order from Mexico under the definitive export scheme — a pedimento code that their customs broker files before shipping — with a CFDI 4.0 Egreso issued at closing and payments complement in MXN. Carta Porte 3.0 travels with the international freight leg: if the consolidated shipment leaves from Toluca airport or AICM and is delivered to the European venue, their agent at destination needs the XML for local clearance; if the company prefers to ship programmes from CDMX via an international courier and the rest as checked luggage, we issue separate CFDI per leg so every lot closes clean.

For companies moving personnel under the artists-and-technicians-abroad scheme — the operational equivalent of IMMEX for cultural services — cast and guest merch usually gets documented as part of tour equipment, while house programmes and relationship gifts travel as promotional material with a commercial value declared at customs. The 16% IVA line applies only to the national component; the rest is invoiced without IVA charged under export. We help you separate the lots from the brief so your customs broker does not need to repack anything at the Barajas counter.

For Mexican producers coordinating the tour with a routing hub in Miami or Madrid, we can sync the delivery of the relationship promotional material in two windows: a pre-performance one for press and allied programmers, and a post-performance one for the programmer network the director visits in the following weeks. That second window is where well-assembled VIP boxes travel to festivals in Berlin, Lisbon or Tallinn with the same brand face, which is why we watch packaging and grammage from the brief.

Production and tour logistics

Before starting production, confirm print runs per performance, press kit format, paper grammage and the named recipient at the festival venue or your tour hotel. For material travelling with the cast, every piece should be packed in checked luggage with a packing list that crosses customs unopened; the rest ships consolidated with Carta Porte 3.0. The festival venue is not to be treated as an open courier address, and a named concierge at your tour hotel is usually the best option for receiving sensitive material outside venue hours.

Frequently asked questions