Casino, Australia
Many of us dream of leaving it all one day, trading in our hectic city life for a motor home or caravan and hitting the highway to discover the great outdoors.

And according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics this trend is gathering appeal. In fact, more and more Australians are buying caravans or motor homes every year.

Consider, for example, the lives of Ty and Trish Heaven, a couple that recently escaped the urban trappings of Canberra and their respective careers for a quieter life on the northern Australian coast of New South Wales.

The Heavens made this dream their reality two years ago by teaming up with 350 other enthusiastic motor home shareholders to collectively purchase a new rural residence - an abandoned airport located in a town called Casino. This quiet, remote site has since been transformed into the Casino Motorhome Village, a unique community that is now home to big rigs, smaller motor homes and caravans alike.

According to Ty, this new, more relaxed lifestyle started out as a welcome change from the couple’s demanding careers; Trish had worked for years in public service and Ty had managed his own sign business, producing signage for Pizza Hut and other large corporations.

But as fate would have it, the simple life soon took on a life of its own.

“We hadn’t been there long before I ‘put my foot in it’ so to speak, telling one of the directors about my past career as a signwriter,” he said. “Well, the next thing I know I’m doing one sign for the Village, and then another for someone else, and before long, I was in business all over again.”

The new company, Wintersun Marketing, opened its doors with a Roland CX-24 vinyl cutter. Demand continued to increase along with the complexity of the jobs, prompting the Heavens to add a VersaCAMM SP-300 printer/cutter.

“Casino is about two and half hours south of Brisbane, so we had to go all over the place to find a dealer equipped to support us there,” Ty said. Then they came across Hayden at Sign Essentials in Brisbane who offered a full warranty service in remote Casino for six months, with continued support after that as well.

“These high levels of support made all the difference to us,” Ty said. “Though we both have reasonable computing skills, we went into this venture with no digital printing experience. And to Hayden’s credit, he held up his end of the bargain. All we had to do when we had a question was call him and he’d guide us through it.”

The Heavens have since mastered their VersaCAMM and, according to Sign Essentials, are using the printer/cutter for some very unique applications.

“It’s a little beauty,” Ty said. “We are now consistently producing murals for motor homes. This is a pretty specialized field, particularly because on a 38’ motor home you can get up to 6” of flex – which is enough to scare most signwriters off. Apparently we are the only ones doing them.”

“The SP-300 is incredible,” he continued. “We’ve experimented with all types of media and can now produce full size murals on conformable-type vinyl. We coat this vinyl with a soft 2-pack clear film that’s extremely flexible, doesn’t crack or craze, and doesn’t require lamination.”

The Heavens have since completed over 500 murals and demand continues to increase. And as if the new business was not enough to keep them busy, they came up with a second business concept. Their new “Work About Australia Program” enables fellow motor homers to earn extra income while traveling.

“We developed a series of about 300 stickers and decals with different messages and themes that we promote on five pull-up banners.”

The Heavens sell the banners along with stocks of the stickers and decals to motor homers who in turn sell them at local shows and other weekend events they encounter through their travels.

“The response has been unbelievable,” Ty said. “We’ve got 16 agents operating around the country who re-order weekly, which is not really conducive to a retired lifestyle, but some of them are making over $50,000.00 AUD a year – so we’re happy.”

“It’s proven so popular that we’ve got people on a waiting list wanting to be involved, all of which is a great testament to the Roland printer and the quality it delivers,” he continued.

“Recently, we introduced new ECO-SOL MAX inks and the results are better than ever with tremendous feedback coming in from the field,” he said. “No doubt this success means more work for us. So much for moving to Casino to ‘semi retire.’ It looks like we’ve created a monster.”

For the future, Ty’s got his eye on Roland‘s new 54” SOLJET SC-545EXW, the industry’s first eco-solvent white ink printer/cutter, which according to Ty will give Wintersun Marketing a bit more flexibility and production capacity.

Asked if he was trading in the SP-300, he responded with a resounding no. “It’s a wonderful little toy, and it’s paid for itself over and over,” he said. “I’ll never get rid of it.”