For Rocken Graphics, Business Is On the Move

Print service providers often carve out unique niches, or serve highly specific vertical markets, but Gibsonton, Fla.’s Rocken Graphics may have one of the most singular client bases in all of print: traveling carnivals. If you have ever been to the funfair when it rolls in town, you know they are mobile amusement parks that include rides, food and merchandise vendors, shooting galleries and other games, as well as various human and animal acts. They set up in one particular location for a week or two, then pull up stakes and move onto the next location. Carnival folks need graphics—very bright and vibrant graphics to attract carnival attendees—and that’s where Rocken Graphics comes in. Launched 18 years ago, founder Kenny Smith started his career in those very carnivals and discovered that necessity was the mother of invention, at least in terms of his business. 

“I was in the food concession business,” said Smith. “I had six food concession trailers on the road, and my wife and I traveled. I couldn’t find anyone to make graphics and signs for us, so I bought my own plotter and software and started doing my own.” He soon learned that other carnival vendors had the same problem.  “There were several other people that couldn’t find anyone to do it for them either, so they started asking me to make them signs. Eighteen years later, the food trailers are long gone and all I do is make signs, graphics, prints, and tents.” Rocken serves traveling carnivals all over the country. 

Rocken’s equipment lineup includes four Mimaki wide-format printers and a Roland SP 540, as well as two laminators, several sewing machines, and two RF welders that weld the canvas material used to construct tents. Rocken Graphics also has the distinction of having purchased SAI’s 10,000th software subscription, specifically, of Flexi, SAi’s design tool for sign and display graphics producers.

Tents are big in the carnival world, and Smith has worked with Snyder Manufacturing to develop a canvas material used for carnival tends. “We started testing it about six years ago,” said Smith. “It’s very vibrant. They do a lot of laminated material and they do some extruded material. Snyder is a major supplier to the tent industry and the material that we use is a printable structural material.” 

In addition to printing, Rocken Graphics also designs and develops prototypes for different kinds of structures.  

“We just came out with a new frame,” said Smith. “It’s new to us, but it’s not new to the industry. It’s like the stage trussing that they put up at concerts that the lights hang from. We’re using that style of trussing as a frame for tents. It’s heavy-duty and our prototype is 19 feet tall.”

“That was printed using a Mimaki JV-33 on 16-ounce structural tent material from Snyder manufacturing,” said Smith. “That project was completed in house. From concept to completion, everything is done in-house.” 

As with many of Rocken’s projects, it started as a prototype that Smith then shows to potential customers. “This is a concept that I came up with and right now we’re shopping it around,” said Smith. It is also a “modular” enough design that it can be customized to the individual vendor. “I took that design out to a fair in Perry, Ga., and showed it to different potential customers. They said, ‘I like that, but instead of putting ‘lemonade’ on it, can we put “corn dogs” on it?’ Absolutely. And it may be instead of the front awning they want three awnings, or they don’t want any awnings, or they want to lower the bottom signs. Because I have a background in the carnival and amusement industry, it gives me the opportunity to go to this customer and say, ‘Here's the concept, but we can do this, this, or this for your application.” 

Rocken graphics also does more conventional, but no less vibrant, signage and table covers.

While Smith’s customers present him with design ideas, he does all the actual design work himself, while for much of the installation and construction of graphics, tents, and other materials, Smith works with contracted installers.  

One of Smith’s major challenges—indeed, really his only challenge—is a common one among print service providers in a labor market with 3% unemployment: finding qualified help. “That’s it; everything else is great,” said Smith. “Business is right on par, technologies are right on par. We’ve got all the equipment we need. We just can't find a qualified labor force. The labor market is very tough right now.” 

As a result, he is starting to look to automation, and on his trip to this week’s Industrial Fabrics Association International (IFAI) Expo in Dallas he’ll be looking at an automated CNC fabric cutter.  

One of the advantages of being in such a niche market is that he doesn’t really need to do a lot of outbound marketing. Word of mouth and social media, as well as some industry trade shows, comprise the majority of Rocken’s marketing strategies. And it seems to be working; Smith has little interest in expanding the markets he serves. “I don’t have time!” he said. The company produces about 500 jobs a month. And as the graphics have an average lifespan of about five years, there’s a lot of repeat business.  

So the next time you take the kids—or just go yourself—to the local funfair when  comes to town, and you’re eyeing the concession stand signage, think of the company that has likely produced it.