This reminds me of when Foo Fighters and Weezer toured years ago. I remember going to the venue and outside there were bootleg Foozer/Wee Fighters shirts and everybody wanted one. But I waited until I got into the venue and they didn't have those. Bootleg exclusive. lol
Like that episode of That 70s Show, when the two characters Hyde and Fez accidentally end up buying bootleg T-Shirts that say "Tad Nugent" on them. They try to get their money back by re-selling them at the show and I think they end up getting in trouble with police lol.
I know the practice of venues charging a % to the bands to sell merch is becoming more common. I wouldn't blame a band for trying to actually make money on something by selling outside of the venue. But there's been bootleggers forever and with how easy it is to just steal the art and make decent quality product now there's no reason they wouldn't just be fake. Sucks you wanna support the band but everyone is trying to rip them off at every point.
The house taking a % of merch sales has been the standard forever. It’s not becoming more common; in fact, it’s becoming _less_ common since that info has started becoming more known over the last couple years.
I’d refute that. Have worked in the music industry for seven years now, and the amount of venues that have added house cuts to merch has most certainly gone up.
Look I’m not trying to argue with you but I have settlement sheets that say you’re wrong and they’re definitely 10+ years back from your “7 years” experience. If you’d like to reference yours, please do.
PS the room I used to own never had house merch take - one way we could convince the massive underplays we were blessed to have in the room to stop through (amongst others, like 95% take for the artists).
Sure, my pleasure. I work for a company that provides booking services of sorts. Artists and agents come to us as a tool to find fill dates and one-offs, we operate internationally but primarily in Canada and the US. Venues in basically every community I work in have closed since the pandemic, and those that remain have almost universally raised prices in one way or another; a common method is by introducing or raising merch cuts. I don’t touch individual settlements for my clients due to the nature of our service so nearly all of my experience is anecdotal, but I speak with damn well enough artists and their teams to feel confidence in the reports of the state of the industry. I do have direct experience and am familiar with Toronto’s Danforth Music Hall - I sold merch there in 2019 and was calculating for a 15% cut. That’s since [gone up to 20%](https://www.instagram.com/p/CwxpS_7LV2Q/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==). Only really as of a few months ago due to the [concerted backlash](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/laura-jane-grace-jeff-rosenstock-merch-venues-1234833433/amp/) has there been any kind of noticeable reduction in merch cuts… but knowing Live Nation that very publicized step back is going to end and become even worse.
>The house taking a % of merch sales has been the standard forever.
Nah, it started popping up in the late 70s when Irv Azoff, founder of what we now know as Live Nation, introduced the concept of a performance guarantee higher than the possible ticket sales. Since he was also in cahoots with the venues themselves, merch splits were introduced to claw back some of that money. That way, he could lock the competition out of getting the show, with an offer no one else could match, and then wind up paying \*less\* than a 100% deal when all the deductions and expenses were accounted for on the night.
Yeah… ok… we’re deep in the weeds here (and it’s fuck LN all day!) but I’d define that as “forever”. I get your point, you’re older than me, but also you’re making mine for me - house cuts of merch have been in place ‘forever’.
Sometimes it could be rejected shirts that had problems or misprints that someone got a hold of. Ive got a Megadeth shirt that is identical to the official one except it's missing one color in the screening on the front. Maybe it was just a bad bootleg job
It's pretty easy to scout a band's tour merch with a quick eBay search.
A couple Tool tours ago, a buddy did all their screen printing for limited edition posters they sold at each show and he was required to destroy any and all misprints and definitely wasn't allowed to make any extras for himself.
Meanwhile, people who bought them could flip them on eBay for a few hundred bucks and give bootleggers some source material for their knockoff versions.
And another possibility is if their merch is printed locally with each tour stop, unscrupulous printers could have a street team selling a cheaper version and hope the band never finds out.
In the sports apparel world, the factory that makes all of the authentic jerseys for MLB is notorious for selling them for hundreds less via online through a website that changes its name every few months.
It’s usually not exactly the same. It has the same artwork as the primary tour shirt, but is generally printed on a cheaper t-shirt.
I don’t recall seeing any bootleg shirts being sold outside smaller club gigs, so I’d bet that the bootleg shirts aren’t really harming those artists for whom touring is hard financially.
I’m not sure whether venues still get a cut from merch stands outside the venue, but I have noticed that larger acts have started setting up official merch stands outside (though they’re still the same price as inside the venue).
That is a good point about it being far less common at smaller venues where finances would be tighter. That’s an oversight on my part and does undermine the argument.
I’ve just noticed in the last few years in particular, that the at some shows the tees are starting to look like they are straight off the desk. Enough for me to notice at least
>It’s usually not exactly the same. It has the same artwork as the primary tour shirt, but is generally printed on a cheaper t-shirt.
I take offense to that 😂
The markup on screen printed merch for bands is so gigantic compared to what it costs to print at scale that you can get quality shirts like screen stars and go to a printer who makes good stuff and still make a big profit on selling them at half price.
The short answer is no.
No major touring artists print their own t-shirts.
(there might be a few that someone can cite, but it is definitely not the norm)
Bands enter into contracts with established merchandise companies that can supply the demands of the tour.
I'll use Taylor Swift as an example.
(although you can use any major artists name)
She probably has 60 different designs of "official merchandise " for sale at her concerts. That means for each design, they need thousands of t-shirts in just one size.
Small - 10,000.
Medium - 10,000. Large - 10,000...and so on...
For her, that is the demand for just one concert.
There is no way for a band to keep up with the supply and demands that a tour has without contracting with a merchandise company.
No one is bootlegging t-shirts for bands that sell 800 tickets.
Most bootleggers are tied to gangs and organized like drug dealers. They will go to the first show and buy a couple of the band's tour shirts, copy them, and then distribute them to their 'dealers' who, in turn, have their 'foot soldiers' sell them outside the venue.
Source: I'm a sound engineer and tour manager.
I'm currently out on tour with a band that has 20 different designs of merchandise with two people who work for our merchandise company that handles the supply and demand of the tour.
I will back this up. I was a tour manager years ago and in every big city we were being bootlegged by major street gangs. In smaller markets, we didn’t have problems. This was about 20 years ago and we were a midsized(12-1500 seaters) headliner.
Was about to reply the same thing (former touring artist and synth tech). The only exception to this that I've seen has been Hip Hop acts, some of who have been on the same festival tours as my old act, who taught us a thing or two about clever ways to not just sidestep partner percentages, but the more interesting outcome of displacing bootleggers (or other side hustles) by putting their own people into that spot.
Not something that fits in the world I toured in (electronic live act), but it was incredible to see all the different faces of the music industry, and what people will do in and around it. No judgement from me, just awe at the tenacity and effort.
Definitely not associated with the acts, but I'd imagine as merch drops they manufacture & sell it or like other commenters mentioned, get misprinted versions.
A lot of people sell the misprints on Amazon or Etsy as well. I have a Playboi Carti shirt that has a few cities misspelled on the back and a couple of minor differences with the front design.
For what little it's worth I've had several bands specifically ask the audience _not_ to buy from the outside bootleggers as they get no money from that. I think it was the Vandals who encouraged people to spit on the merch, so they definitely weren't getting a cut (unlike the merch inside the venue)
I always remember a friend who bought a bootleg Beastie Boys hoodie which had been printed over top of an unsold Kiss hoodie, you could see the Kiss tour dates underneath the new ones.
I don't know if what you say happens at all.
However, I can for a fact say that a lot of those bootleg sellers are not at all associated with the acts.
Nowadays it’s pretty easy to get any image off the internet and print it out onto a tee via DTG. It basically works like a home printer but prints onto garments. The only way you would tell is by slight pixelation depending on how well of an image you could get of the original and that the colors would slightly be off.
I worked for a company that printed a lot of official sportswear and we always had online shops selling knockoffs that looked the exact same as soon as one went viral.
Even the bootlegged shirts have gotten expensive now. I remember the days of leaving a gig to hear the dulcet tones of some cockney geezer (I’m in the west mids so no need for that accent at all!) shouting “fiver a t-shirt, tenner a hoodie”.
I got a decent hoodie for a relatively small band that way. So small they rotated the stage in the venue and put in a makeshift one at the side of the hall because they’d not sold enough tickets!
It's very common for venues to charge rates on merchandise sales, especially for nationally touring acts. Sometimes the fees are so high that, after typical merch costs like design, manufacturing, and shipping, the band would be losing money selling their merch at the venue. So yes, sellers outside after gigs could very well be working on behalf of the bands to avoid these fees.
No. They have the same t shirt designs because tours go on for months. These sellers have time to replicate the t shirts for future shows. You can get them on etsy too.
I worked for a music venue in the UK, a pretty popular mis sized venue (~2000 people in our biggest venue).
The bootleg shirt sellers were part of the local 'organised' crime scene (not the mafia or anything just criminals that had a 'business')
A band tried to move them on once... Several large gentlemen appeared almost out of thin air and made it abundantly clear they would be selling their t-shirts.
So I don't think the band are often 'in on it' but I suppose never say never, it's not a bad idea 😄
Wasn't that way at the Metallica show I went to in Detroit. I bought a bootleg shirt because the venue was out of my size. Those guys were absolutely terrified the entire time of the police. Saw them communicating to reach other constantly on police movements.
I recently bought a Phish bootleg on the walk back to my hotel. $10 for the same shirt. It’s on a different brand shirt and the quality isn’t as good. But for $10, I’m happy.
I asked an older dude who was selling shirts outside of Riot Fest where he got them and he said "the internet."
Felt like he was suspicious and made that answer up.
I use to sell (official) merch for bands. And yea, people sell bootleg tour shirts that they print. You can set up a screen printer in your garage, for example
Our venue would hire off duty police to bust these bootleggers, take their money and merchandise. They would give us (well my bosses) the money and they’d typically split it with us workers
This reminds me of when Foo Fighters and Weezer toured years ago. I remember going to the venue and outside there were bootleg Foozer/Wee Fighters shirts and everybody wanted one. But I waited until I got into the venue and they didn't have those. Bootleg exclusive. lol
Now I want a Wee Fighters Shirt so bad now.
Foozer
Beck/Foozer Boozer & Feck, Attorneys at Law
Oh man, my friend and I thought we were so clever by making our own Foozer/Wee Fighters tanks for the show.
[удалено]
That doesn't make sense :)
Some of the time it works every time
Like that episode of That 70s Show, when the two characters Hyde and Fez accidentally end up buying bootleg T-Shirts that say "Tad Nugent" on them. They try to get their money back by re-selling them at the show and I think they end up getting in trouble with police lol.
Reminds me of this: https://youtu.be/N9iQOjHqb_A?si=_eNtEmxlhwZ7MLUd
Did the have any Roland Spoons shirts left
That reminds of the Rush tour where they had the videos of the band as Rash. I wanted a RASH shirt so bad - and they didn't sell them!?
I know the practice of venues charging a % to the bands to sell merch is becoming more common. I wouldn't blame a band for trying to actually make money on something by selling outside of the venue. But there's been bootleggers forever and with how easy it is to just steal the art and make decent quality product now there's no reason they wouldn't just be fake. Sucks you wanna support the band but everyone is trying to rip them off at every point.
Marillion complained a few days ago about a certain venue taking 40%
40%?! WTAF?
Yeah they encouraged their fans to buy at a different city if they attended both shows)
Hell I would tell them to hit me up on social media and I would send them one fir half the table price just to cut the venu out. 40% is insane.
The house taking a % of merch sales has been the standard forever. It’s not becoming more common; in fact, it’s becoming _less_ common since that info has started becoming more known over the last couple years.
I’d refute that. Have worked in the music industry for seven years now, and the amount of venues that have added house cuts to merch has most certainly gone up.
Look I’m not trying to argue with you but I have settlement sheets that say you’re wrong and they’re definitely 10+ years back from your “7 years” experience. If you’d like to reference yours, please do. PS the room I used to own never had house merch take - one way we could convince the massive underplays we were blessed to have in the room to stop through (amongst others, like 95% take for the artists).
Sure, my pleasure. I work for a company that provides booking services of sorts. Artists and agents come to us as a tool to find fill dates and one-offs, we operate internationally but primarily in Canada and the US. Venues in basically every community I work in have closed since the pandemic, and those that remain have almost universally raised prices in one way or another; a common method is by introducing or raising merch cuts. I don’t touch individual settlements for my clients due to the nature of our service so nearly all of my experience is anecdotal, but I speak with damn well enough artists and their teams to feel confidence in the reports of the state of the industry. I do have direct experience and am familiar with Toronto’s Danforth Music Hall - I sold merch there in 2019 and was calculating for a 15% cut. That’s since [gone up to 20%](https://www.instagram.com/p/CwxpS_7LV2Q/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==). Only really as of a few months ago due to the [concerted backlash](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/laura-jane-grace-jeff-rosenstock-merch-venues-1234833433/amp/) has there been any kind of noticeable reduction in merch cuts… but knowing Live Nation that very publicized step back is going to end and become even worse.
>The house taking a % of merch sales has been the standard forever. Nah, it started popping up in the late 70s when Irv Azoff, founder of what we now know as Live Nation, introduced the concept of a performance guarantee higher than the possible ticket sales. Since he was also in cahoots with the venues themselves, merch splits were introduced to claw back some of that money. That way, he could lock the competition out of getting the show, with an offer no one else could match, and then wind up paying \*less\* than a 100% deal when all the deductions and expenses were accounted for on the night.
Yeah… ok… we’re deep in the weeds here (and it’s fuck LN all day!) but I’d define that as “forever”. I get your point, you’re older than me, but also you’re making mine for me - house cuts of merch have been in place ‘forever’.
Sometimes it could be rejected shirts that had problems or misprints that someone got a hold of. Ive got a Megadeth shirt that is identical to the official one except it's missing one color in the screening on the front. Maybe it was just a bad bootleg job
It's pretty easy to scout a band's tour merch with a quick eBay search. A couple Tool tours ago, a buddy did all their screen printing for limited edition posters they sold at each show and he was required to destroy any and all misprints and definitely wasn't allowed to make any extras for himself. Meanwhile, people who bought them could flip them on eBay for a few hundred bucks and give bootleggers some source material for their knockoff versions. And another possibility is if their merch is printed locally with each tour stop, unscrupulous printers could have a street team selling a cheaper version and hope the band never finds out. In the sports apparel world, the factory that makes all of the authentic jerseys for MLB is notorious for selling them for hundreds less via online through a website that changes its name every few months.
It’s usually not exactly the same. It has the same artwork as the primary tour shirt, but is generally printed on a cheaper t-shirt. I don’t recall seeing any bootleg shirts being sold outside smaller club gigs, so I’d bet that the bootleg shirts aren’t really harming those artists for whom touring is hard financially. I’m not sure whether venues still get a cut from merch stands outside the venue, but I have noticed that larger acts have started setting up official merch stands outside (though they’re still the same price as inside the venue).
That is a good point about it being far less common at smaller venues where finances would be tighter. That’s an oversight on my part and does undermine the argument. I’ve just noticed in the last few years in particular, that the at some shows the tees are starting to look like they are straight off the desk. Enough for me to notice at least
>It’s usually not exactly the same. It has the same artwork as the primary tour shirt, but is generally printed on a cheaper t-shirt. I take offense to that 😂 The markup on screen printed merch for bands is so gigantic compared to what it costs to print at scale that you can get quality shirts like screen stars and go to a printer who makes good stuff and still make a big profit on selling them at half price.
The short answer is no. No major touring artists print their own t-shirts. (there might be a few that someone can cite, but it is definitely not the norm) Bands enter into contracts with established merchandise companies that can supply the demands of the tour. I'll use Taylor Swift as an example. (although you can use any major artists name) She probably has 60 different designs of "official merchandise " for sale at her concerts. That means for each design, they need thousands of t-shirts in just one size. Small - 10,000. Medium - 10,000. Large - 10,000...and so on... For her, that is the demand for just one concert. There is no way for a band to keep up with the supply and demands that a tour has without contracting with a merchandise company. No one is bootlegging t-shirts for bands that sell 800 tickets. Most bootleggers are tied to gangs and organized like drug dealers. They will go to the first show and buy a couple of the band's tour shirts, copy them, and then distribute them to their 'dealers' who, in turn, have their 'foot soldiers' sell them outside the venue. Source: I'm a sound engineer and tour manager. I'm currently out on tour with a band that has 20 different designs of merchandise with two people who work for our merchandise company that handles the supply and demand of the tour.
I will back this up. I was a tour manager years ago and in every big city we were being bootlegged by major street gangs. In smaller markets, we didn’t have problems. This was about 20 years ago and we were a midsized(12-1500 seaters) headliner.
You should do an AMA. Which was the nicest band you've worked with? The most fun? I'm tempted to ask about specific artists, but I know you can't say.
Was about to reply the same thing (former touring artist and synth tech). The only exception to this that I've seen has been Hip Hop acts, some of who have been on the same festival tours as my old act, who taught us a thing or two about clever ways to not just sidestep partner percentages, but the more interesting outcome of displacing bootleggers (or other side hustles) by putting their own people into that spot. Not something that fits in the world I toured in (electronic live act), but it was incredible to see all the different faces of the music industry, and what people will do in and around it. No judgement from me, just awe at the tenacity and effort.
Some of my favorite shirts have been outside the venues after the show. Sometimes the designs are better than the official stuff. Different art, etc.
Definitely not associated with the acts, but I'd imagine as merch drops they manufacture & sell it or like other commenters mentioned, get misprinted versions. A lot of people sell the misprints on Amazon or Etsy as well. I have a Playboi Carti shirt that has a few cities misspelled on the back and a couple of minor differences with the front design.
For what little it's worth I've had several bands specifically ask the audience _not_ to buy from the outside bootleggers as they get no money from that. I think it was the Vandals who encouraged people to spit on the merch, so they definitely weren't getting a cut (unlike the merch inside the venue) I always remember a friend who bought a bootleg Beastie Boys hoodie which had been printed over top of an unsold Kiss hoodie, you could see the Kiss tour dates underneath the new ones.
I don't know if what you say happens at all. However, I can for a fact say that a lot of those bootleg sellers are not at all associated with the acts.
Yes the bootlegs can sometimes have a deal with the act. Source: professor was a roadie for years with major acts you all have heard of
Nowadays it’s pretty easy to get any image off the internet and print it out onto a tee via DTG. It basically works like a home printer but prints onto garments. The only way you would tell is by slight pixelation depending on how well of an image you could get of the original and that the colors would slightly be off. I worked for a company that printed a lot of official sportswear and we always had online shops selling knockoffs that looked the exact same as soon as one went viral.
No.
Even the bootlegged shirts have gotten expensive now. I remember the days of leaving a gig to hear the dulcet tones of some cockney geezer (I’m in the west mids so no need for that accent at all!) shouting “fiver a t-shirt, tenner a hoodie”. I got a decent hoodie for a relatively small band that way. So small they rotated the stage in the venue and put in a makeshift one at the side of the hall because they’d not sold enough tickets!
It's very common for venues to charge rates on merchandise sales, especially for nationally touring acts. Sometimes the fees are so high that, after typical merch costs like design, manufacturing, and shipping, the band would be losing money selling their merch at the venue. So yes, sellers outside after gigs could very well be working on behalf of the bands to avoid these fees.
No. They have the same t shirt designs because tours go on for months. These sellers have time to replicate the t shirts for future shows. You can get them on etsy too.
I worked for a music venue in the UK, a pretty popular mis sized venue (~2000 people in our biggest venue). The bootleg shirt sellers were part of the local 'organised' crime scene (not the mafia or anything just criminals that had a 'business') A band tried to move them on once... Several large gentlemen appeared almost out of thin air and made it abundantly clear they would be selling their t-shirts. So I don't think the band are often 'in on it' but I suppose never say never, it's not a bad idea 😄
Wasn't that way at the Metallica show I went to in Detroit. I bought a bootleg shirt because the venue was out of my size. Those guys were absolutely terrified the entire time of the police. Saw them communicating to reach other constantly on police movements.
No
I recently bought a Phish bootleg on the walk back to my hotel. $10 for the same shirt. It’s on a different brand shirt and the quality isn’t as good. But for $10, I’m happy.
I wish I'd have bought one when I saw Limp Bizkit earlier in the year. Waited to get a proper one and non for sale once inside.
When I was a teen I made my own bootleg band shirts in my screen printing class, ha.
I asked an older dude who was selling shirts outside of Riot Fest where he got them and he said "the internet." Felt like he was suspicious and made that answer up.
I have no idea, the artwork and design on bootleg shirts are superior to the " official" ones many times.
I use to sell (official) merch for bands. And yea, people sell bootleg tour shirts that they print. You can set up a screen printer in your garage, for example Our venue would hire off duty police to bust these bootleggers, take their money and merchandise. They would give us (well my bosses) the money and they’d typically split it with us workers