On Wednesday, October 28, 2026, the Orange County Women’s Business Chamber hosts Beyond Business: The Women’s Experience Expo at the Costa Mesa Building on the OC Fairgrounds. The expo runs through the day, and the evening closes with a VIP Experience from 4:00 to 7:00 PM featuring live music from Anthem Road Band, dancing, a swag bag, and premium networking. Tickets start at $89.
What to Expect at the Expo
This is a business event built around women entrepreneurs, founders, and professionals in Orange County. You’ll find exhibitor tables from local service providers, leadership and marketing conversations, and a long stretch of intentional networking where people actually exchange contact information and follow up. The evening portion leans social: live band, dancing, and a room full of people who are there to build relationships rather than hand out flyers.
For anyone who runs a business, that mix creates a practical problem worth solving before the day arrives: what do you hand someone that survives the car ride home? Business cards get recycled. Brochures get pitched. Something with weight and a name on it tends to stay on a desk.
Custom Engraved Gifts That Fit This Crowd
Promotional keepsakes work best when they’re useful first and branded second. A few things we make that hold up at a networking event:
- Engraved stainless tumblers — a logo, a name, or a short line of text, laser-etched into stainless steel so it doesn’t peel or fade after a dozen dishwasher cycles.
- Wooden coasters and cutting boards — great for a suite or a client gift, and warm enough to read as a real present rather than a giveaway.
- Engraved pens — our entry-level item starts at $3.99, which makes them realistic for a room of 200 people without the table looking cheap.
- Bottle openers and keychains — small, sturdy, and the kind of thing people keep in a drawer for years.
- Wood plaques and recognition pieces — if you’re presenting an award, thanking a sponsor, or celebrating a team milestone at the event, a plaque does that job in a way a certificate can’t.
Why Businesses Order From 8Ball Engraving
We’re a small shop in Fullerton, and we work differently from a promotional products catalog. There are no minimums — you can order five pieces for the leadership team or fifty for an expo table, and the price per piece doesn’t collapse the moment you drop below a hundred. Turnaround is typically 3 to 5 days for standard items, which matters when an event is three weeks out and you still haven’t decided. And you can pick up locally in Fullerton instead of paying rush shipping and hoping a box arrives on time.
We engrave on 15+ materials — leather, wood, metal, stainless steel, and cylindrical items like tumblers and bottles — so a single order can mix a wood cutting board for a top client with stainless tumblers for the team.
Planning Around the October 28 Date
If you’re exhibiting at the Women’s Experience Expo or attending with clients in mind, the smart move is ordering two to three weeks ahead so there’s room for a proof, a revision, and a real production run without a rush fee. Send us names, a logo file, and a rough quantity, and we’ll come back with a quote and a mock-up before anything is cut.
Corporate Orders: What to Send Us
We keep the process short because most of our business customers are doing this between meetings. Send us four things: the item you have in mind, the quantity, the text or logo you want engraved, and the date you need it in hand. If you don’t have a logo file, a screenshot from your website is usually enough to start a proof. Fonts, layout, and placement are all part of the quote — there’s no separate artwork charge to worry about before you know what the piece will look like.
For events like the Women’s Experience Expo, the highest-ROI order is usually a mix: a dozen tumblers or cutting boards for the people you actually want to follow up with, plus a larger run of small pieces — pens, keychains, bottle openers — for the people who stop by your table. That way the budget goes to the relationships that matter and the table still looks full all evening.
Use code WOMENSEXPO10 for 10% off your order. Tell us what you’re planning and we’ll get you a free quote — request a quote here.