Bus Signs: Request Space

U of M students and staff on bus

Bus Sign requests are closed.

Bus Signs are distributed across up to 30 U of M busses, promoting your organization to the ever-growing number of campus commuters, including students, faculty and staff.

Advertisers may reserve advertising space on the blue campus buses on a week-by-week basis. The minimum reservation is one week; the maximum reservation is one semester. Advertisers create their designs, print and glue them to poster board, and submit them to SORC staff before the deadline, and SORC drivers place signs on up to 30 buses.

Reservation requests are taken online so that we may maintain a fair hierarchy. First-time users are strongly encouraged to read the entire contents of this page (specifically, the links in the right margin, starting with "Availability") before submitting the online request.

 

Fall, Winter, and Summer are three separate booking periods;

  • Fall reservation period, which includes mid-September through mid-January, typically opens in early July.
  • Winter reservation period, which includes mid-January through early May, typically opens in late November.
  • Summer reservation period, which includes early May through mid-September, typically opens in mid-April.  

It is not possible to start a reservation in Fall and continue into Winter, nor start in the Winter period and continue into Summer, nor start in the Summer period and continue into Fall.  

See Prices for Advertising Services

A few things you should know if this is your first time using this advertising medium:

  • It is necessary to submit a separate request for each reservation.
    • If there are multiple start dates or multiple sets of signs, each of these is considered a separate order, and you must submit this form once for each.
    • If you want us to put up 60 signs, even if they are simply duplicates of the same ad, you will need to submit this request form twice.
    • There are three separate booking periods for SORC advertising (Fall, Winter, and Spring-Summer). It is not possible for signs to carry over from one booking period to the next.
  • If there is a substantial gap between reservations, you may be able to retrieve some of the signs after we take them down.  But do not rely on this.  You must be prepared to print new signs for each reservation.  
    • They do not all come down at the same time.
      • Different buses are at the garage on the take-down date than were there on the placement date.  If a bus that has your sign is out serving its purpose while our drivers go to put up new signs, your sign won't be taken down then.
      • Buses have different amounts of available space.  If they don't need to make room to put up new signs, they might leave your sign in place.
    • The best way to get the most possible signs back is to visit SORC on the morning immediately following a new placement date.  During the school year, we place signs on Sundays; visit SORC on Mondays.  During the Spring-Summer, we only place signs once a month, so the next opportunity to retrieve them won't be until the following month.  
    • We cannot guarantee that you will get any signs back. Sometimes they fall down; sometimes they get used for backing or sold to other customers before you come to retrieve them. 
  • If a period is full, you cannot choose a date before and after that period and expect the signs to stay up for the duration. If, for example, you would like to reserve the period of 9/18 through 10/16, but the week of 10/2-10/9 is identified as "full," you would have to submit two separate reservation requests (one for 9/18-10/2 and another for 10/9-10/16) and produce two separate sets of printed bus signs.
  • Before submitting a request, it is important that you read and acknowledge the information on this page.  If you've never reserved bus signs before, please take a few minutes to read through each page on the right, starting with "Advertising Services: Billing." This might take you 10-15 minutes to read, but you are responsible for educating yourself about SORC policies.  If you prefer, visit SORC during regular business hours and our students can go over these policies with you in person.
  • There are over 40 buses in the fleet.  A "set" of bus signs is 30.  There will not be a sign on every bus in the fleet.  Additionally, if there are fewer than 30 buses at the garage when our drivers do their weekly placement route, our drivers double up to ensure that all of your signs are placed.  They put them at the front and back of the bus (not right next to each other) when this is necessary.  In these instances, some buses will have multiple copies of your sign, but this also means that fewer of the total number of buses will have your sign.
  • Submitting a request constitutes a financial obligation to SORC for the cost of the space.  Emailing a few days later to cancel will not necessarily guarantee a full refund.  Read SORC’s cancellation policy here.