… a blog post from Chairman’s Corner.

Hey there music lovers. This week, we’re going to focus our attention on something that truly helps to sustain the endeavor of taking your musical act out on the road: merchandise!

As most of you reading this already know, taking your band out on the road can often be a rather risky venture – financially and otherwise. Rocknroll is a dangerous game! Even if you’ve been able to get the clubs to guarantee decent money to your act in advance, other things can go wrong that might deplete your band fund. Van trouble, accidents, misplacing valuable items, gear theft, broken promises from shady promoters, show cancellations…all of these unfortunate incidents may possibly come up from time to time, even for those of us who are extra careful!

Even if everything’s going incredibly smoothly on the road (no mishaps, the clubs are giving you solid guaranteed payments, etc), it can still be quite difficult to keep from going in the red while touring. As we all know, gas usually isn’t cheap. Perhaps you’re renting a van, which isn’t usually inexpensive either. Sometimes plane tickets are involved…and most of us don’t have frequent flyer miles to burn. If you’re unable to find folks to put you up for the night, then of course hotel/motel rooms become a necessity. Sometimes you just might get lucky and score really good deals on all of the above – but of course all of these costs add up.

As mentioned above, selling merchandise seems to be a great way to combat these financial issues while out on the road (and likely the best way to do so as well)! The more merch, the merrier. As my bandmate Mandy stated in last week’s blog, “a variety of items at various price points seems to be a good approach”. I couldn’t agree more. Many concert goers may want to buy SOMETHING to remember your performance by, but they just don’t have very much money to throw around. They’ve already spent money on the show and drinks, and they have to keep an eye on their bank account. As a result, having cheap stickers or buttons (or even CDs) on hand is great for these folks. Alternatively, other folks will have money to throw around, they’ll be in a very generous mood after enjoying your band’s performance, and they’ll want to purchase one copy of every item that you have! This is an instance in which having a variety of items will obviously come in quite handy. Also, some folks just like to collect specific items. There’s a crowd out there that loves buying patches and buttons from bands, while others might prefer to collect vinyl. Having a variety of product allows you to be prepared for these various types of fans with diverse tastes. Trucker hats, winter beanies, t-shirts, sweatshirts, patches, stickers, vinyl, cassettes, CDs, koozies, buttons…a wide variety of items will definitely keep folks intrigued while they’re hanging out at your merch table – and such a diverse presentation just might be the thing that draws them to it. I’ve noticed that some items that don’t necessarily sell that well at home just might do pretty well in a random small town. Some folks may be between record players, but they’ll have a CD or cassette player in their old car, and they’re excited to rock out to your jams on their way to work in the morning. You might play a show where no one wants a patch, but then you’ll sell eight of them in the next town – these things can be tough to predict.

T-shirts are usually the best-selling merch item, and they provide fantastic promotion for your band. As a result, I would recommend having a wide variety of sizes (not to mention various shirt designs with different colors!) on hand. If you’re playing in front of enough folks, then you’ll most definitely need lots of shirts in all sizes (and you’ll likely need several copies of each shirt size as well).

On a personal note: My band recently played at a venue that was larger than our typical performance spots (the hall had a capacity of 800). We came prepared with a variety of merch (and someone to help us with it!), and we had our best merch night ever (by far)!

While creating all of this merch can be costly, you’ll be able to get rid of it – as long as you keep on playing to enough folks.

Cheers,

Jeffrey “Chairman” Couch

Music lover, creator & collector

chairman@spinneymedia.com

Chairman currently enjoys freaking out & creating panic with his spastic rock band Nasalrod, which is based in Portland, Oregon. He created this blog to share his serious love of music, the arts, and physical media.