Our custom hat bar in Louisville is a patch bar on your floor: a wall of caps, a tray of patches made from your art, and a heat press. Each guest picks a cap (trucker or dad-hat style, depending on the blanks you order), picks a patch, and the crew presses it on while they watch. It's slower than a tee line, and at a Derby party it's still the station that makes the most sense.
Derby is the reason. A guest in a dress or seersucker won't put a tee on over it, but they'll take a cap home for Sunday. The same logic works at a distillery night, a Whiskey Row brand event or a KICC booth where you want a gift that isn't one more shirt.
What a Louisville hat bar includes
- Caps in a few styles and colors, chosen to match your brand.
- A patch menu: your logo, the party name, the year, or original art you own. Keep the Derby's own marks off it.
- A press and a crew to place and press each patch in a couple of minutes.
- A styled, photo-ready setup that looks right in a downtown ballroom or on Whiskey Row.
Custom patches need about three weeks of production, so hat bar art locks earlier than tee art. The station ships freight from Fullerton with the crew a day behind. Add live embroidery for monograms.
Questions about the Louisville hat bar
Can guests decorate a Derby hat at the bar?
No. Ours is caps and patches, pressed on the spot. We don't trim wide-brim Derby hats or fascinators, and we don't shape felt western hats. If your party wants a hat-decorating table, that's a different setup from ours.
Can the patches use the Derby name or the twin spires?
No. Churchill Downs enforces its marks, including the event names and the twin spires imagery, so those stay off the patches. Your logo, the party name, the year or original art you own all work.
Does the hat bar work in a KICC booth?
Yes. It goes into your booth plan like any other station, with power ordered through the venue and load-in on the marshalling schedule. It suits a booth that wants a gift that isn't one more shirt.