By Lauren Cochrane, The Guardian | Travis Scott’s two shows at London’s O2 in August were a huge success, selling out in less than two hours – with tickets for the 20,000-capacity venue going for as much as £180. But when it came to profit margins, that was only part of the story. Scott also sold $1m (£900,000) of merchandise at these concerts – surpassing a record previously set by BTS in 2019.
Scott’s windfall from this merch was partly due to the prices (£45 for a cap, £125 for a hoodie) but is also part of a wider trend. With revenue from streaming negligible and the cost-of-living crisis meaning that ticket sales may be less reliable, merch provides a financial win for artists – and especially those not at Scott’s megastar level.
Singer-songwriter Liz Lawrence has been producing merch for the last five years. For her most recent album, The Avalanche, she has tote bags and T-shirts, and she says merch is now a key part of how she makes her living. “When we look at a touring budget, we’ll say, ‘This should do the job if we make so and so in merch,’” she explains. “I’m pretty sure the only reason we don’t lose [money] is merch. The fees [for playing] haven’t gone up but everything else has. You need something to fill the gap.”
Music merch is an industry in its own right – one with global retail sales valued at $3.5bn in 2018. The LA-based company Bravado produces merch for Scott as well as Billie Eilish, the Rolling Stones and the Weeknd. Ceremony of Roses, founded in 2016 and the subject of investment from Sony this year, produces merch for Adele, Olivia Rodrigo and A$AP Rocky. Sandbag, founded in the UK in 2002 with Radiohead their first client, have worked with BTS, Abba and Justice.
Jordan Gaster, head of A&R at Sandbag, says merch has become much more of a priority in the last decade. “Unless you’re a mainstream pop artist, [artists are] making more money on their merchandise than they are from a record.” This was exacerbated during the pandemic when the income stream from live gigs disappeared. Everpress, a marketplace where creatives sell limited runs of merch and only print what is ordered, reported sales doubling in the pandemic and estimate that about 25% of the T-shirts it sells are from musicians or record labels.
Merch has also become fashionable. Over the last 10 years, brands including Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton and Acne have included very expensive versions of band T-shirts in their catwalk collections. Meanwhile, much to traditionalists’ chagrin, Primark and Urban Outfitters sell T-shirts of Fleetwood Mac and the Doors to young people who might like the logo more than the back catalogue. Metallica collaborated with Netflix on a T-shirt combining their logo with that of the Hellfire Club from Stranger Things.
Daniel-Yaw Miller, editorial associate at The Business of Fashion, says merch is not just about music but also sport and even automobiles – “like car companies launching a $450 sneaker”. But merch is also “a legitimate part of mainstream fashion now”, he says – in fact, it has had an impact on fashion itself. “Fashion companies are selling merch products for fans to wear and it’s no longer cringe,” he says. “It’s kind of cool now to have that logo on your chest or your shoe.”
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Read the whole story here:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/oct/21/im-with-the-brand-how-merch-saved-the-music-industry
[Thanks to Alex Teitz for contributing this article! http://www.femmusic.com]
I’m With the Brand! How Merch Saved the Music Industry
