Live Oak: Live Music Fans Share the Love

The Live Oak Music Festival is a three day concert and camping event held every year on Father’s Day weekend in the hills above Santa Barbara, California. It started way back in 1988 by a group of staff and on-air hosts from California's Central Coast public radio station, KCBX, as a fundraiser. Since then, it has grown into an annual tradition with a dedicated following.

Live Oak, as it is affectionately known, this year hosted live music ranging from traditional, folk, bluegrass and gospel, to blues, jazz, classical and world music. Headliners included Toots and the Maytals, The Wailin' Jennys, and Grammy winner Mavis Staples, among other luminaries. It was attended by nearly 3,000 people.

All those fans, of course, need a way to express their love for the festival--they'd been asking for stickers for years, but Kelli Reynolds and other festival organizers had a hard time finding a printer that could handle the colorful graphics of the festival's artwork at a price that wouldn't break the public radio bank. (This is a fundraiser, after all.)

Fortunately, Custom Sticker Makers fit the bill, giving the fest a way to show off its artwork in full color, and with unique die-cut shapes. The stickers were sold this year at the festival, and since then, Kelli has seen them on cars all over the area. 

"When I found CSM," Kelli told us, "I decided to give them a try because the ordering process was simple and the prices were very reasonable. You can submit the order online which makes it easy, but also if there is any problem with anything, you can call them up and you’ll always get a live (and very nice!) person." She goes on to note that all the custom die-cut option really makes their stickers pop.

The Live Oak Music Festival can be found at www.liveoakfest.org and KCBX Public Radio can be found (and streamed live!) at www.kcbx.org.

If you live along California's Central Coast, you can pick up KCBX on your radio dial at 90.1 FM in San Luis Obispo; 89.5 in Santa Barbara; 91.7 from Paso Robles to Salinas; 90.9 in Santa Ynez, Avila Beach, and Cambria; 91.1 in Cayucos; and 95.1 in Lompoc.

Campus Scooter: Green Wheels

Around 2005, friends Colin Shellhorn and Tim Soule of E. Lansing, MI, had a great idea: why not get out of the job rut and start a business selling scooters to college kids? As it turned out, their timing was perfect: in 2005, gas was averaging $1.90 a gallon nationally—during the course of 2006, prices would spike up all the way past $3.20 in some areas of the country. In cash-strapped Michigan, that meant the gospel of cheap gas was suddenly appealing to more than just college students, and Campus Scooter took off.

But Colin and Tim’s vision is as much about going green as it is about the bottom line. With an average 80-100 miles per gallon, their wheels make the Prius look like a Hummer—and for every scooter or moped they sell, Campus Scooter plants five trees through the nonprofit American Forests, underscoring their commitment to the environment.

Their best advertising? The scooters themselves. That’s why every scooter they sell comes with one of their high-quality outdoor green bumperstickers, printed through Custom Sticker Makers. With a classic die cut of a scooter, collegiate text and a Michigan State Spartan color theme, everyone on campus knows where the scooters are coming from - Campus Scooter!

“We chose Custom Sticker Makers because of the quality, price and the customer service,” said Colin. He notes that native Michigander and Infamous Network Co-Founder ( CSM’s sister company), Jon Vander Pol, is also a longtime friend. Colin carries Infamous Network's line of Root Concepts stickers at Campus Scooter, "I remember when they were starting out with this sticker business, Jon would come over with new stickers all the time, so when we started Campus Scooter, I looked him up and he told me about Root Concepts. We found that the Root Concepts stickers were a perfect fit for Moped Bumper Stickers and that Custom Sticker Makers was a perfect fit for creating stickers of our logo. We couldn't be any more satisfied with the stickers and the customer service."