Live music juggernaut Live Nation announced it would halt collecting merchandise fees from artists at 77 of its club and theater-sized venues across the country, and artists hope the initiative from the industry’s most powerful corporation will lead to wider spread adoption across the business, and at venues of all sizes. But for established artists with a healthy merch business, that’s thousands of dollars to give up for upcoming acts, it’s the difference between affording a hotel for the night or sleeping in a van (or if their tour will even yield any profit at all).įor years, the most vocal artists have been saying the policy needs to go, and they saw a significant development last week supporting that position. The impact of a merch fee depends on how much they can sell. Some smaller venues have their own reps who work the merch tables too.īut overall, the tax is one of the most hated policies among touring musicians, who argue that many venues can hardly justify that cut other than a spot at the venue for a crew member to hawk shirts and albums. At larger scale concert venues like amphitheaters or arenas, the venue oversees several merch booths that makes the fee more justifiable. Merch fees are a standard strategy at venues of all sizes, with artists handing over between 15 and 30 percent of their merch revenue back to the venue each night. “It’s frustrating because for the longest time, the consumer thought the purest way to support their favorite artist was to go the merch booth at a show at the end of the night and spend $20 on a T-shirt, knowing good and well that $20 was gonna go in the gas tank or pay for the hotel that night or pay for the meal tomorrow,” Barham tells Rolling Stone. That item is personal for the band’s founder and lead singer BJ Barham alongside thousands of touring musicians who’ve criticized venues that take a cut of the revenue from their merchandise sales at their shows (even if they feel the venue hasn’t done much to deserve that cash). But fans of the alt-country band will also spot one random outlier: A $5 red and black beer koozie that reads “fuck your merch cuts.” American Aquarium sells mostly prosaic items at their merch table each night, including T-shirts, tour posters and records.
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