Printing Posters?

Samp943

Hi everyone, not sure if this is in the right place so Mods, feel free to move it if not. I'm a 3rd year PhD student in Microbiology and myself and another student from my lab have been chosen to present posters at this year's American Society for Microbiology conference in Boston in May. Unfortunately, the flights are ridiculously expensive (think €550-660 round trip). We both need A0 posters and it looks like the poster tube will need to be checked as a second bag which means another €150 on top of the price. I've heard people talk about getting posters printed on fabric which can be rolled into your suitcase/handluggage. My PI is very interested in this possibility as it would bring our costs down. I can't find anything on the Reads website about printing a poster on fabric so I'm wondering if they would actually do that sort of thing? Does anyone know where you could get a poster printed on fabric? I'd like to get my PI some quotes in the next day or so as I don't want the flights to go up any more than they already have and I can't book without knowing whether I'll need that second bag!

Thank everyone!

kisaragi

Hey I flew to San Diego in November (Aer Lingus & American Airlines) for a big conference and I took my poster tube as carry on. I've also brought it to Spain (Aer Lingus) and know loads of people in my department have taken them carry on on both long and short flights. My flight to san diego was a flight from Dublin to Chicago, Chicago to San Diego, the San Fran to Chicago and Chicago back to Dublin again and I had no problem having both a poster tube and a smallish carry on together.

I know you can get posters printed on fabric though as I've seen a good few of them, but usually not by Irish students!

edit: to add, on my connecting flight there was about 100 people with poster tubes as hand luggage all going to the conference, some bigger than mine! So I wasn't the only one haha.

Samp943

That's brilliant! Thanks so much. I know the other girl going said they weren't particularly keen to let her bring it to Brighton, but I was hoping they'd be more lenient if you're flying international!

kisaragi

I guess it might depend on the staff? But on the American flights people bring huge carry ons I've brought one over and back to the UK as well with no problem so it might have just been a bad day for that flight staff :S

djpbarry

I've never had any problems bringing a poster tube into the cabin on a flight.

El Siglo

I brought a poster tube from: Dublin -> Paris -> Madrid -> Malta -> Liverpool -> Dublin, and not one airline made any bones about it. If you wanted to be belt and braces about it though, this crowd in the uk do fabric printing of posters for £50, so might be worth a look: http://www.scienceposters.co.uk

tenandtracer

A friend of mine was arrested in Boston coming off a flight with a poster tube. However, she was carrying it like a rocket launcher on her shoulder. Also, she was wearing an Irish Army combat jacket, Keffiyeh and a star of david tee shirt (yeah I know, mixed messages) so maybe that complicated matters. Her supervisor had to bail her out, but he left her stewing for a while.

Nevertheless, I have seen lots of folk with poster tubes on transatlantic fights. So my advice would be that it should be ok, as long as you do not carry it like a bazooka on disembarkation and dress appropriately.