Manitoba firm fills merch tables

Fans of California-based rock band Mammoth who purchase one of the group’s T-shirts tonight at Canada Life Centre will be purchasing clothing that was screenprinted in Manitoba.

HD Graphics Inc., headquartered 30 minutes southeast of Winnipeg in Île-des-Chênes, prints merchandise for the music group’s Canadian tour dates.

Formed and fronted by Wolfgang Van Halen, son of legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen, the American band is currently opening for 1990s post-grunge survivors Creed on their “Summer of ‘99” tour.

Mammoth isn’t the only internationally touring rock act on HD’s client roster. The company also screenprints merchandise for Alter Bridge, Tremonti, Myles Kennedy and Sevendust — acts associated with Creed guitarist Mark Tremonti and his manager, Tim Tournier, who HD founder Derek Eastveld counts as friends.

“Most of the bands that I do stuff for are bands that I’ve been a fan of,” said Eastveld, adding he’s gotten to know many of the musicians the company works with. “They’re all kind of connected through that Alter Bridge family, so when you get together with them, it is just like a big family.”

HD once produced merchandise for the bands’ U.S. tours, too, which meant filling a large order in time for the first few concert dates and then filling supplemental orders as the tours rolled on.

Tight turnaround times and occasional difficulty with exporting products south of the border ultimately made that arrangement unfeasible for the local company, which counts 12 staff members.

That’s how HD Graphics landed in the position it’s in now. It’s easier for the company to focus on merchandise for Canadian dates, and it’s advantageous for the bands, who don’t have to bring items from the U.S. when they cross into Canada. The arrangement saves the musicians an 18 per cent to 20 per cent duty they would otherwise fork over for each garment, Eastveld said.

An initial order for the start of a tour by a band such as Mammoth is between 2,000 and 3,000 items, Eastveld added, which the company can print in three to five days. “It’s not a crazy amount of work but it’s a nice-size order, for sure.”

The 46-year-old’s company has also produced merchandise for artists on local music label Birthday Cake Records, including blues rockers the Bros. Landreth. But most of HD’s business comes from developing and printing a wide range of products, from logos and labels for agricultural manufacturers such as Meridian and Brandt, to signs for real estate companies.

Eastveld entered the printing business in his early 20s, working at a small Winnipeg company in between tours with Threadline, the Christian rock band he played guitar for at the time.

He started HD in the summer of 2006, thinking he would run the company for a few years and then move on to other pursuits.

When he met his five-year revenue target just eight months after opening HD’s doors, Eastveld realized he had a knack for business.

“It snowballed,” he said. “It grew so much faster than I thought it was going to.”

Eastveld formed a relationship with Tremonti after HD began printing merchandise for Fret12, a Chicago-based guitar supply company where the Creed member is a shareholder.

Merchandise is a core revenue stream for touring musicians, according to AtVenu, a U.S. company that offers a live event commerce platform. Data collected by AtVenu shows that in 2025, musicians using the platform made US$10.24 in merch sales per person in attendance at their concerts. That was a three per cent increase over the previous year.

In addition to HD, Eastveld is the co-founder of Revv Amplification, a 12-year-old business near Winnipeg that manufactures guitar amplifiers and effects pedals.

Revv has been riding a major wave of sales since March, when California-based session guitarist Tim Pierce published a 12-minute video on his YouTube channel praising the company’s Dynamis D40 amplifier.

“By the time the video was a week old, we had sold (more than) half-a-million dollars worth of amps. That has never happened with any product of ours from a single video from any influencer, ever,” Eastveld said, adding Revv did not ask — nor did they pay — Pierce to make the video.

HD Graphics will mark 20 years in business this summer — something Eastveld never anticipated.

“It’s kind of surreal,” he said. “I definitely did not think of myself as entrepreneurial (when I started).”

aaron.epp@freepress.mb.ca