Musicians Are Angry About Venues Taking T-shirt Money (marketwatch.com) 89
The singer known as Tomberlin says their first five years in the music industry may have been a net loss, according to MarketWatch. Selling "merch[andise]" like t-shirts "is what really is covering your costs and hopefully helping you make, like, an actual profit."
And then... After being told she would have to hand over more than 40% of the money she collected from selling T-shirts and other items, Tomberlin refused to sell her merchandise at the venue and publicly spoke about a practice she calls robbery — venues taking cuts from bands' merchandise sales... Other musicians are also speaking out about the practice, and their complaints seem to be having an effect. Industry giant Live Nation Entertainment Inc. announced recently that it would stop collecting merch fees at nearly 80 of the smaller clubs it owns and operates and provide all bands that play at those venues with an additional $1,500 in gas cards and cash.
Musicians who spoke with MarketWatch remain unsatisfied, however. Because of the way the announcement is phrased, many think merch fees at Live Nation clubs are only being paused until the end of the year. The musicians said they also wonder about the roughly 250 other Live Nation concert facilities, as well as the hundreds of venues owned by other companies. A Live Nation spokesperson told MarketWatch the change is "open-ended."
[...] As Tomberlin continues on her current tour, she wonders if she will be able to make a profitable career in music. Of all her ways of earning money, streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music provide "the least amount of money," she said, and with tours not leaving her with any cash at the end, she feels that even modest ambitions are out of reach.
Musician Laura Jane Grace is even soliciting signers for an online petition demanding venues stop taking cuts of the musicians' merchandise sales...
Thanks to Slashdot reader quonset for sharing the news.
And then... After being told she would have to hand over more than 40% of the money she collected from selling T-shirts and other items, Tomberlin refused to sell her merchandise at the venue and publicly spoke about a practice she calls robbery — venues taking cuts from bands' merchandise sales... Other musicians are also speaking out about the practice, and their complaints seem to be having an effect. Industry giant Live Nation Entertainment Inc. announced recently that it would stop collecting merch fees at nearly 80 of the smaller clubs it owns and operates and provide all bands that play at those venues with an additional $1,500 in gas cards and cash.
Musicians who spoke with MarketWatch remain unsatisfied, however. Because of the way the announcement is phrased, many think merch fees at Live Nation clubs are only being paused until the end of the year. The musicians said they also wonder about the roughly 250 other Live Nation concert facilities, as well as the hundreds of venues owned by other companies. A Live Nation spokesperson told MarketWatch the change is "open-ended."
[...] As Tomberlin continues on her current tour, she wonders if she will be able to make a profitable career in music. Of all her ways of earning money, streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music provide "the least amount of money," she said, and with tours not leaving her with any cash at the end, she feels that even modest ambitions are out of reach.
Musician Laura Jane Grace is even soliciting signers for an online petition demanding venues stop taking cuts of the musicians' merchandise sales...
Thanks to Slashdot reader quonset for sharing the news.
after all ticket master fees who has funds let for (Score:1)
after all the ticket master fees who has funds let for this any ways?
Only a handful of players own most venues (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Only a handful of players own most venues (Score:5, Insightful)
That would require government intervention and the government doing anything equals communism. And we can’t have that.
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You brought it up dude...
Re: Only a handful of players own most venues (Score:1)
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However communism also lays out a means of achieving that goal, which does involve maintaining the state for a period of time. I don't know if there's anything about parties in there... you know, I've never read the communist
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Your comment is a little hard to parse.
I never said communism makes sense. To be honest it's more like a religion. Take this for example: They speak of utopia and have this idea that once capitalism ends then there will be no more crime because nobody will have a need to steal or kill, or have the hots for his neighbor's wife, nor would said neighbor ever kill a man he caught in bed with said hot wife in a fit of rage. You see, all of this is just a consequence of class struggle. No more capitalism means no more classes, no more classes means no
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Marx was explicitly not a utopian. He said that many times. Socialism was not supposed to be a utopia it was just supposed to be the next thing, the next economic system, the one which came after capitalism. He made no claims about what would come after socialism.
Marx did not claim that socialism would end all crime... I can't even imagine where that comes from. He did claim tha
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This is... such a large pile of nothing. You've just said a bunch of random things here, and not one of them makes any sense.
In order for you to understand what I wrote, you'd have to actually read it first.
Marx was explicitly not a utopian. He said that many times. Socialism was not supposed to be a utopia it was just supposed to be the next thing, the next economic system, the one which came after capitalism. He made no claims about what would come after socialism.
Marx did not claim that socialism would end all crime... I can't even imagine where that comes from.
I didn't attribute this to Marx. Hope that helps you imagine. Though I'm not sure where you get the idea that Marx was explicitly not utopian, because he certainly was, just not in the way his contemporaries viewed it. Marx and Engels criticized utopian socialists and the idea of a utopia in general, that much is true, but it was more from the perspective of seeing them as defining their own utopia from the perspective of thei
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I'm going to stop there, this is just too much. I'm not going to spend an hour sifting through your random thoughts.
Yeah, anything that you've been programmed to be opposed to will seem that way...
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Communists say government not doing anything equals communism because there is no government. Instead they have a party,
Communist parties have the hottest women and best music...
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The 80's called, they want their concern over communism back.
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Re: Only a handful of players own most venues (Score:1)
Everyone acts like they have no agency in this world, but their willingness to support shitty things is exactly why more shitty things happen.
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People could you know just refuse to play shitty venues. Consumers should refuse to go to shitty venues.
Or people could set up a new venue.
Many auditoriums can be rented, and then performers can run the show however they want, and deal with all the details themselves.
Claiming it is a monopoly is kinda silly when there are few barriers to entry.
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Lol, you're so naïve XD
From what i've read so far about the Live Nation situation: If you regularly perform in competing venues, you can forget about performing in any live nation venues (= all the biggest & most popular ones there are).
The game is played very dirty, and any competition will be killed via these kind of practices, good luck starting a new venue when good musicians don't dare to perform there since they might get blacklisted by live nation and no longer be able to perform at the best
Re: Only a handful of players own most venues (Score:1)
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The venue doesn't care if they're banned from other venues, venues cannot attend one another. An individual artist can't really set up shop in one city and play shows in one venue. People's tastes don't work that way. You have to go to big cities where people actually are and where cartels run the venues.
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That would require government intervention and the government doing anything equals communism. And we can’t have that.
CONSUMERS CAN REFUSE. The government can't regulate that.
WE MUST RESOLVE TO END DOING BUSINESS WITH SCUM.
PEARL JAM WAS CORRECT 25 YEARS AGO!!.
Re: Only a handful of players own most venues (Score:2)
Or it would require the big name artists to start performing in competing venues.
But look fact of the matter is that there will always be more people trying to make it in music than there is money to share. There will always be someone who isn't making a living out of it trying to make a living out of it. Now probably more than ever, theres also lots who are making it possible only due to direct engagement with fans on social media, patreon like systems etc, utilizing those you can do it with a smaller fanb
Re: Only a handful of players own most venues (Score:2)
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That would require government intervention and the government doing anything equals communism. And we can’t have that.
Unless, of course, someone is doing something you don't like and then the gub'ment must put a stop to it... God forbid someone has the right to do something you are told is bad.
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Yeah, stop going and stop using them for anything. They provide little to no value.
Re: Only a handful of players own most venues (Score:2)
Do venue owners 'owe' performers their performance space?
I am peripherally involved with a group trying to put on an event (non-musical, and indoor swapmeet-type event), and one hall had a requirement that we (the organizers) subsidize their food sales - seek a hot dog for $4.50, they want the center (my group) to pay them a dollar ON TOP of the $4.50 they get from the attendee! It's amazing.
Refuse to rent venues with terms you don't agree with, if enough acts follow this basic rule the venues will likely c
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Most venues aren't monopoly owned - they're owned and operated usually independently - sometimes by someone, sometimes by a business, often by a city or municipality owns it.
Those places typically offer the place for a rental fee to which the promoter gets to do what they want - some venues are free to the public - the promoter pays the owner some fee for the venue and the owner operates the concessions and claims the profits from it.
The promoter may decide to sell tickets in which case the venue typically
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The only way you change that is by changing how you vote. Americans need to stop getting caught up in moral panics and stop supporting politicians who's only promise is to hurt someone instead of helping you. And vote in yo
Re:Only a handful of players own most venues (Score:4, Insightful)
Something needs to be done about the monopolies in performance venues
Exactly. Live Nation and TicketMaster MUST BE DESTROYED. They are the MOB. They are SCALPERS. They are completely UNNECESSARY for the public to enjoy music. We must ELIMINATE these money grubbing scumbags from the equation. SUBVERT THEIR USE in any way possible. The venues that use this conglomerate must be boycotted whenever possible. They are a scourge on the music business and steal from everyone. WE DON'T NEED THEM. STOP THE FASCIST GANGSTERS!.
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Exactly. Live Nation and TicketMaster MUST BE DESTROYED.
Get a grip man. WTF? This is how business in America is conducted. Embrace it or you are unAmerican. Notice how Microsoft was able to buy Activision/Blizzard? Notice how T Mobile was allowed to buy Sprint? Notice how all of the independent grocery chains were gobbled up?
You are barking up the entirely wrong tree here. You should be supporting Live Nation and TicketMaster so you too can get in on the money flow.
Here in the USA, we prop up monopolies because it is free money (for a certain class of people).
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Exactly. Live Nation and TicketMaster MUST BE DESTROYED.
Here in the USA, we prop up monopolies because it is free money (for a certain class of people).
I can't dispute your facts.
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You work for the man. And the man is powerful.
Re: Only a handful of players own most venues (Score:2)
And that "something" can be YOU choosing to go see live performances at venues that are not affiliated with Live Nation.
I still see acts at Live Nation venues. However, more than 80% of the time I am seeing acts at independent venues. This week will be my first ticketmaster purchased show in my last 10 shows, so 90% non-LN right now.
You do not need to boycott LN/Ticketmaster, just make sure to support your local venues. From what I've heard, my favorite venue gets 15% of most merch. I'm okay with that.
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Something needs to be done about the monopolies in performance venues
Aren't most mid-to-large size venues publicly owned? Most arenas and stadiums are run by states or municipalities or colleges/universities. So then most of your smaller venues are basically clubs, and most clubs aren't part of chains. Most are individually owned.
Simple solution (Score:1, Troll)
Perform at public venues. Get a permit, organize it with your crew, setup equipment and bypass the middleman.
I guarantee you'll make more profit on the margins this way.
Re:Simple solution (Score:5, Insightful)
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The venue did 100% of the work of maintaining and operating the building.
Can you imagine the size of the power bill for some of those big places? Wowza...
Re:Simple solution (Score:5, Interesting)
The venue did 100% of the work of maintaining and operating the building.
And the musician is reimbursing the venue for that. It's called a rental fee.
Can you imagine the size of the power bill for some of those big places?
By your logic, your landlord should be able to take a cut of any money you make. You got a raise recently? Hand it over to your landlord.
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Not saying it *should* be, but that's how it actually is for a large percentage of people. Rent goes up each year by a percentage roughly similar to what a cost of living raise would be. The main difference is the landlord mostly just assumes you got such a raise, the rent is going up regardless if you did or not.
Rent goes up regardless if someone gets a raise. But that was not my point. My point is that even though you pay rent, the landlord wants a cut of your raise ON TOP of rent that you paid.
It sounds like the part of the building used to sell merch and collect payment for it isn't included. If it was included they would have to pay for it no matter if the band chose to sell merch or not, which isn't the case here.
Wow. The point you missed it that the venue is being reimbursed for the use of the venue. They get rental fees. They get a portion of the ticket sales and concessions. They were already reimbursed for the use of the space. This is the venue adding fees ON TOP.
Yes 40% is an insanely high amount to charge. Yet I can easily see how there IS an extra cost to the venue for this. Only the amount is unreasonable here, not that they are wanting to charge for it.
What part of the venue was already being reimbursed is not clear?
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You got a raise recently? Hand it over to your landlord.
Not saying it *should* be, but that's how it actually is for a large percentage of people.
An example in business world: 1) You rent a space and operate a tea saloon / coffee shop. Your landlord does not get a percentage on your sales. 2) You now want to expand your activities into selling mugs and tea leaves and ask your landlord to use an additional room. You pay a bit more rent, but your landlord still does not get a percentage on your new sales.
I agree that if you request the landlord to place staff to help with the general business, you might end up negotiating other payments. Maybe you'd ha
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In many shopping malls it's common for the stores to pay some amount per square foot of store area plus an amount for common area charges plus a percentage of their sales.
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Thanks for the information. I think it's the same phenomenon as reported in TFS. Shopping malls are like a music venue, you don't have many choices of alternative shopping venues in a given city so you have to agree on unfavourable terms.
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and that is coved with the venue fee added to the (Score:2)
and that is coves with the venue fee added to the ticket cost
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Re:Simple solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Traditionally for small venues with low profile bands, the venue gets most of the money from the ticket sales and the bar. The band usually only made money from selling merchandise. The band might get some ticket/bar money if the show did really well, but they go into it assuming they won't.
Now the venues are trying to take a large cut from the one place the band was making money. If the venue wants bands to play there, there has to be some way for the band to make money.
If you're talking big venues, the economics are way different. But that's not what this story is about.
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Re: Simple solution (Score:5, Interesting)
We just performed at a sold out 1300 seat theater. They "only" took 20% of our merch. Had we not spent 150hrs making it ourselves we'd have had to sell shirts for $40 vs $20 just to break even. As is, it still wasn't entirely worth it to make ~1k profit.
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As is, it still wasn't entirely worth it to make ~1k profit.
So you received ~$1 per person. Ouch.
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The issue is the amount. 40% pretty much means the musician will get no profit or take a loss.
This is exactly the outcome that was expected. You have three entities Two of them are much larger than the third. How do you think negotiations are going to play out in such a situation? The smaller of three starves.
This is the outcome when you practice naked Capitalism. Capitalism is an economic "method". It is great to have efficient economies; however, the most efficient economy possible is one that is absolutely and completely controlled by one entity. The efficiencies that can be gained are tremendous
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Were you proposing something like an outdoor park? I was not
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Are you stupid or just random?
Some of the most-sold out concerts (i.e DMB's The Gorge) take place at public venues.
This Just In (Score:5, Insightful)
Ticket sellers and large venue owners use greedy underhanded tactics! Who knew? Stop giving companies like Live Nation and Ticketmaster your money. Stop putting shit in their venues.
Turnabout is fair play (Score:4, Insightful)
As someone who plays in bands at small venues (for very little money), I wouldn't have a problem sharing T-Shirt sales as long as the band also gets a cut of drink sales. What say you, club-owners?
*crickets*
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you boys drink $300 in beer and your pay is $200 so we need you give us the $100 that you own
Why sharpies were invented. Use them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Venue contract ALWAYS have a cut for merch, Always have. But I have never had a venue complain when it got crossed out, either. Just that most small musicians won't dare, so they leave it in there. Contracts are not take-it-or-leave-it. Every hall tries to get away with something. Get used to crossing stupid shit out or they will know you can be taken for a ride other ways as well.
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I’m guessing after you do that once the company owning all the venues declines any further business.
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This by the way applies for almost all contracts.
I always cross out shit i dont agree with when doing contract work. And usually they conceed and the contract proceeds.
And those that don't, can go find some other fool.
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Venue contract ALWAYS have a cut for merch, Always have. But I have never had a venue complain when it got crossed out, either. Just that most small musicians won't dare, so they leave it in there. Contracts are not take-it-or-leave-it. Every hall tries to get away with something. Get used to crossing stupid shit out or they will know you can be taken for a ride other ways as well.
If you're on tour I assume you're big enough to have an agent or manager.
Wouldn't they know to fight the merch clause in the contract?
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Agents will of course deal with stuff like that, but a lot of bands are small and have to represent themselves. Most don't know how to negotiate, or they feel they don't have leverage to. Fact is, merch cuts hurt small bands the most, but the venues cut isn't usually even a couple hundred bucks. Venues make massive money on the alcohol. Not the door, and certainly not the merch. No one halfway savvy is going to blow up a deal over merch.
Protip: Last time I had a venue owner ask for a 25% cut of our merch sa
One of the Worst-Kept Secrets (Score:4, Informative)
rent seeking is not capitalism (Score:3)
Capitalism is NOT rent seeking but that is what we're told it is by the lazy rent seekers; their paid stooges, and the rubes. Capitalism is NOT monopolies or colluding cartels.
There is no practical reason to allow large companies to extort money simply for managing something so easy as ticket sales or renting out a a venue or streaming data, or radio etc. It's so automated that much of it could be done by the state on some open source management bot.
Renting a stadium can be done better by my local park and
I agree with the complaint; however (Score:2)
What the heck is this story doing on Slashdot?
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What the heck is this story doing on Slashdot?
Because every time people on here brag abou stealing music the inevitable response is musicians don't make money selling records, they make money doing gigs. Well here's a story showing that isn't the case. In addition to everything else they have to pay for, musicians also have to hand over a cut of money they make selling their own merchandise, merchandise they initially had to come up with the money to have made.
So not ony are they being gouged by the venues because there are virtual monopolies on who
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First example, see Apple App Store
Simple work around (Score:2)
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Buy from the artist directly or make your own. Not a lot of sympathy for folks charging $30-$40 for a tshirt to Beyonce asking $600 for a hoodie.
Tell us you didn't read the article without telling us you didn't read the article.
The artists are selling their merchandise at the concerts and being told they need to give up 40% of whatever they make to the venue. Short of buying from the web site, this is as directly purchasing as you can get. Also, something else included in the article you didn't read, was that artists have to raise their prices so they can still earn a profit from selling their merch because of the near extortion they're under. They
Re: Simple work around (Score:2)
I've been buying artist merch (Score:3)
Because I thought I was supporting the artists... Not ticketmaster/livenation.
Time to simply stop feeding the beast.
Obligatory Courtney Love (Score:3)
https://www.salon.com/2000/06/... [salon.com]
Same as it ever was
Having talent isn't enough (Score:2)
Re: Having talent isn't enough (Score:2)
Theres also more people trying it than theres money for.
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fourty percent lmao (Score:1)
Vote with your wallet (Score:2)
There are a handful of local venues that sell through AXS and they don't rape you with surcharges. I guess that means no arena shows for me,
but as a music fan, they are the worst venues unless you fork out hundreds for good seats. Still not sure how any musician can defend that as a viable experience for their fans.
Unbelieveable - wait, I believe it but still awful (Score:1)