Featured Artists Coalition launch petition to ban merchandise fees at venues
The Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), an industry body representing musicians, has asked venues to stop taking a percentage of revenues from merchandise sales at concerts.
In some cases, venues are taking 25% of revenue on merchandise which likely means an artist won’t make a profit on each sale. As touring has become more expensive for musicians, they have become more reliant on merchandise sales, which is why the FAC are asking venues to stop this practice. In an open letter, they also note the cost of living crisis as another reason why it needs to end.
They write: “This would be bad enough in the best of times, but after the financial pressures of lockdown, and now a full-blown cost of living crisis, it is simply unsustainable. Artists including Tim Burgess, Peter Hook, The Big Moon, The Lovely Eggs, Yard Act, New Pagans and Easy Life have all publicly aired their views on the situation.”
It continues: “To date we have amassed hundreds of venues who reach the 0% ‘gold standard’, from the grassroots through to 1,000+ capacity rooms including KOKO, EARTH, Village Underground, the Electric Ballroom, Troxy and the Barbican in London, The Sage in Gateshead, Cardiff’s Tramshed, SWX in Bristol and Liverpool’s Olympia. All of which begs the question: if these venues can feasibly operate with artist-friendly merch policies, then why can’t others of a comparable size?”
The letter has been signed by over 60 bodies in the industry, including the Musicians’ Union, Music Venues Trust, Independent Venue Week, PRS for Music, the Ivors Academy, Hipgnosis Song Management, Help Musicians, Red Light Management, and ATC Live.
David Martin, CEO, Featured Artists Coalition, said in a statement: “Since launching our campaign, awareness amongst fans and across the wider industry has increased about the devastating impact that onerous commission fees can have on the livelihoods of artists.”
“Fans in particular have become aware that money they thought was being used to support their favourite artist is in some cases spent on punitive commission fees. In many cases, the money made from merchandise sales is crucial to keeping shows on the road,” Martin continued.
Musician Steve Mason also said: “The current cost of touring is higher than ever before. Everyone is struggling with rising costs, and especially solo musicians who must pay a band. “The one income that all artists rely on to make a worthwhile profit is the sale of merchandise in the venue before and after a show. Certain venues appear to now be refusing to allow us to sell merchandise without handing over up to 50% of the profit. This is completely unworkable and will cause the majority of artists to think long and hard about the costs of touring.”
Last year, Tim Burgess from The Charlatans told Far Out: “We have a merch person, who we pay to come with us, and then venues were paying people to drive down from Cambridge to Birmingham just to sell at our shows, and then charge the band a huge amount of commission. I like to say what I see really, and for younger bands, selling merch is a major part of their income”.
“We didn’t have any records out when we first started, and we only had T-shirts. On our first release, we possibly made more on T-shirts than we did records,” the singer recalled, highlighting the importance of merchandise sales to emerging acts.
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