GeckoWraps began fabricating wraps in 2006. Previously, the company had produced holiday lighting and décor. Shane Lloyd, the company’s founder and CEO, said, “We installed several seasonal banners in shopping centers throughout the city, which had been printed by a different provider. That season, we nearly doubled our revenues because of the growing demand for wrap installation. They generated an unbelievable amount of buzz. As soon as we could, we purchased all the equipment we needed to start fabricating wraps in-house.”
Today, the shop operates five Mutoh ValueJet 1624 eco-solvent-ink printers, two Royal Sovereign pressure laminators, two Graphtec FC-8000 cutting plotters and an Anajet direct-to-garment printer, among other equipment.
Lloyd said, “Kiosks, ATMs, interior walls, trash cans, you name it. There’s a lot of unusual advertising in this city, and we’ll take on any reasonable order. Our motto is, ‘We’ll wrap anything.’”
For ConExpo, a construction-industry tradeshow that occurs every three years at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Kobelco, a manufacturer of 50-250-ton-capacity cranes, excavators and other heavy-duty equipment, wanted to impress attendees. So, company executives hired GeckoWraps to envelop one of its new, 360-ton excavators with a wrap. According to Lloyd, the machine wasn’t going to be onsite until three days before the show began. So, to design, produce and install a wrap on such an unusual item, Kobelco sent a hard drive with CAD drawings of the digger, which allowed them to design a mock-up.
After having prepped the surface with xylene and isopropyl alcohol, GeckoWraps produced the wrap on its ValueJets with Avery’s MPI 1005 Supercast air-release media that’s protected with Avery’s DOL 1360 gloss-finish topcoat that’s applied with a Royal Sovereign RSH-1651, 65-in.-wide, dual-function laminator. Installers completed the wrap in the convention center’s parking lot – “with plenty of time to spare,” Lloyd said.
The shop also helped Las Vegas’ Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville restaurant and casino commemorate its Guinness world record for the world’s largest margarita by wrapping the 8,500-gallon-capacity glass. As with the excavator wrap, the client provided a blueprint for the wrap, which comprised an aluminum cylinder (and a 6-ft.-wide lime wedge). GeckoWraps had two days to design and install the project before the mixing began for the record-setting libation. The wrap was completed with 3M’s IJ35C, a short-term film, with luster-finish overlaminate.