Lucca Comics & Games 2026: B2B merch for publishers, authors and gaming teams in the streets of Lucca

Merchandising for publishers and authors at Lucca Comics & Games

Dates

28 October–1 November 2026 (five Festival days, with two build-up days opening on Monday)

Venue

Historic centre of Lucca — Piazza Napoleone, Piazza San Michele, Real Collegio, Palazzo dei Congressi, Teatro del Giglio, gaming area at Baluardo San Donato and other venues on the city circuit (Tuscany)

Organiser

Lucca Comics & Games Srl, a company controlled by the Comune di Lucca

Lucca Comics & Games — which officially added the “&” to its name from 2024 — is Italy’s largest event dedicated to comics, animation, board games, video games and pop culture, and every autumn it draws over 270,000 visitors over five days from late October to early November into the historic centre of Lucca, enclosed by its sixteenth-century city walls. For publishers, animation studios and game-design teams taking part, the five days compress dozens of presentations, signings, panels, previews, tournaments, education areas and institutional moments, and B2B merchandising has to respect the tight calendar of rehearsals, author events and press conferences leading up to the opening day.

For a merch programme around Lucca Comics & Games, Corp-Merch.IT runs the full supply chain from the Lombard capital: intake of the publisher or studio’s master graphic files (AI, EPS, PDF/X-4 with CMYK images at 300 dpi), art adaptation for the different decoration methods (digital print on GOTS-certified organic cotton, water-based screen-printing on T-shirts and sweatshirts, embroidery on polos and hoodies, laser engraving on Maniago metal accessories, hot stamping on Scandicci small leather goods, letterpress print on FSC-certified paper for art books, consumable print on posters and fair materials), physical pre-production sample with Pantone colour map and technical sheet, production on Italian districts (Como textiles, Scandicci leather, Murano glass for numbered limited editions, Faenza ceramics for miniatures, Maniago blades and small accessories, Capannori paper, editorial print on Tuscan district) and delivery to the Lucca hotel or to the Real Collegio stand on slots the publisher lead has agreed. For programmes serving several publishers or several studios we split into lots labelled per recipient, with distinct delivery addresses if the artistic direction wants a share of the kit routed to the press room of the Palazzo dei Congressi.

The Festival audience is multi-layered: the historical collector who has followed a publisher’s numbered limited editions for years, the student who visits the event with their school, the board-game fan who wants coordinated gadgets from their favourite brand, the sector professional (editor, agent, bookseller) who follows the presentations at the Teatro del Giglio, the accredited press that follows every press conference at the Real Collegio, the remote rotations of broadcasters and of the content creators who animate Lucca’s calendar. Each tier wants something different: the collector wants the numbered limited edition of the artist they follow; the student wants a branded object they carry through the day; the board-game fan wants coordinated gadgets for the tournament; the professional wants a distinctive, well-finished object that lasts; the press wants a small, well-finished object that fits in luggage. A merch programme that respects those four tiers almost always converts better than one that tries to address all of them with the same item.

A recurring case for our clients is merchandising for the video rotations and video-game previews at the gaming pavilion of the Baluardo San Donato, where the development studio receives in a few days hundreds of visitors between specialised press, content creators and day-one fans. In these jobs we propose a neutral graphic base — coordinated marks on branded T-shirts, branded hoodie, organic cotton tote, art book with FSC-certified print — and add the rotation or the game’s details in a second wave at short run, so that each visitor finds a coordinated keepsake of the rotation. Printing quality on FSC-certified paper and organic cotton is a frequent request from publishers attentive to the environmental claim, and we handle it with screen-printing and editorial-printing partners registered with FSC and GOTS certification circuits. For studios bringing alcoholic merchandise to the gaming pavilion (end-of-rotation toasts, press gift bags with a bottle of liqueur or spirit), we coordinate temperature-controlled inserts so that the bottle and the merchandise travel together in the same lot without risk of condensation damaging paper or leather parts.

Why the Milan hub matters for Lucca

Most publishers, managers and artistic directors running a merch programme for Lucca Comics & Games coordinate their Italian operations from Milan. The Milan hub lets us consolidate graphic files and Pantone references with the publisher’s team, run the pre-production sample on Italian districts (Como textiles, Scandicci leather, Murano glass, Faenza ceramics, Maniago blades, Capannori paper, Tuscan editorial print) and dispatch the lot to the Lucca hotel or to the Real Collegio stand on a 24-to-48-hour courier slot from the Lombardy–Tuscany corridor. For programmes pairing an Italian publisher with an international distribution partner we handle bilingual materials (Italian and English at minimum) and, on request, full multilingual release with text translations aligned with ISO 17100. For programmes pairing Lucca Comics & Games with Lucca Crea (the autumn fair dedicated to collecting and historical modelling, also held in autumn in the centre of Lucca) we replicate the logistics across both dates with a single operations contact.

Merchandising timeline across the five days

The Festival window is short but the merch programme has to be planned against a calendar that includes the two build-up days opening on Monday, the five hours of public opening, the calendar of presentations and author events at the Teatro del Giglio, the tournament calendar at the gaming pavilion of the Baluardo San Donato and the exclusive artist signing rotations on Saturday and Sunday. For publishers and studios the gap between the rotation or preview confirmation and the Festival’s opening day is usually under eight weeks, and any object that has to be on the Real Collegio stand, in the press room of the Palazzo dei Congressi or in the gaming area of the Baluardo San Donato for the opening day must be locked and shipped at least one week before the debut. We work backwards from that hour: production must close two to three weeks before the debut; the courier slot must be booked for the Tuesday or Wednesday of Festival week; the addressee list must be finalised at the same time as the rotation confirmations; the editorial or video-game product’s details (title, cover, communications claim) only add a small reprint to an already produced neutral base.

For teams following the Festival from Milan or Rome we also handle the kit in two waves: a pre–Festival shipment that arrives on Tuesday or Wednesday of Festival week in Lucca, and a post–Festival shipment that returns any unused items to the publisher’s office for storage until the next edition. This split is a frequent ask because the audience of fans and accredited guests who actually take a Festival souvenir home is far smaller than the Real Collegio stand or gaming pavilion audience, and most publishers do not want surplus kit left in Lucca after the closing day.

Production and logistics toward Lucca

Before production kicks off we lock master graphic files, per-publisher and per-recipient quantities, packaging and the named pickup point. The final delivery address is confirmed against the publisher’s artistic direction calendar and the studio’s logistics lead: the delegation’s reference hotel in Lucca, the Real Collegio stand for material destined to the publisher, or the publisher office in Milan for programmes that stay in Lombardy. The ZTL of Lucca’s historic centre and the access constraints at the Festival pavilions condition the loading slots, which is why most teams opt for early-morning or post–20:00 deliveries, when heavy goods vehicles are again admitted in the central zones of the walled city.

For an Italian programme routed via Milan, deliveries are consolidated at the hub and shipped to Lucca with 24–48-hour windows via BRT, SDA, GLS or DHL Express Italia, by appointment for venues that require phone pre-notice. For programmes above 1,000 pieces we offer appointment delivery with phone pre-notice and, on request, on-site set-up by our staff at the Real Collegio stand or at the gaming pavilion of the Baluardo San Donato. For materials that require controlled-environment conditions (FSC-certified paper, art books, small leather goods, Murano glass for numbered limited editions, Faenza ceramics for miniatures, limited-edition liqueur or spirit) we coordinate climate-controlled transport with specialised partners. For kits destined to international delegations we manage multilingual labelling (Italian, English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic) and tamper-evident pouches with a bilingual packing list addressed to the recipient. For clients subject to CSRD reporting (D.Lgs. 125/2024, transposing Directive (EU) 2022/2464) we attach a sustainability data sheet per order with a Scope 3 CO₂e estimate following the GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain on the Milan–Tuscany route and from the production districts involved, with material and leg-level disaggregation useful for the client’s sustainability statement.

All Italian B2B orders are invoiced in EUR at the standard 22% VAT rate (with reduced 4%, 5% and 10% rates applied where the product category allows: publishing, art objects, GI-labelled food) and routed through the Agenzia delle Entrate’s Sistema di Interscambio (SdI) to the buyer’s codice destinatario or PEC address. Corp-Merch.IT is a registered Italian VAT operator, listed on VIES for intra-EU operations, and handles reverse charge, split payment and pubblica-amministrazione self-invoicing under current Italian rules.

Frequently asked questions