The Manager’s Corner–June 2012
by Chris Daniels
I’ve managed my own band since the 1980s, and despite the amazing change in technology, success in the music business is built around four tried and true elements: great music, really hard work, and timing (often mistaken for luck). The other key element is getting the help you need to make that luck happen. These days that help is everywhere. The book I wrote for my CU Denver class on artist management is called “DIY: You’re Not in it Alone” and that is exactly what you need to understand. You need to make the most of the tools that are out there.
Merch, short for merchandise, was the manna from heaven that all bands thought would pay their gas bills, and make up the difference between the crappy road pay on a Monday night, and set them into the black for the festivals they played. Make no mistake, it is an important revenue stream but you have to be smart and very disciplined.
Merch comes in two basic categories: “hard goods,” which are your CDs or vinyl records, or USB bracelets or iTunes download cards–whatever you use to sell your recorded music. “Soft goods,” which are your t-shirts, hoodies, stickers, panties, spaghetti-tops, beer-bottle coolers, fly swatters, jackets, sun glasses what- ever the heck you sell that is not recorded music.
Rules of the game: there are two essential rules: (1) the venue will take a cut for allowing you to set up your shopping mall in their facility, (2) you have to pay sales tax.
Smart players: those who do this well, bands like Air Dubai, are meticulous about their “offer” – which means the size, style, quantity of each product, and different items or products that fill your limited merch-booth space. Smart players also ALWAYS COME PREPARED, and that means, duck tape, pens and mailing lists (email), clip-on lights and extension chords, printed price lists that are easy to read, banners for the merch booth, lots of sharpies for the artist to sign stuff, a folding table (just in case the venue does not have one), and folding pop-up tent (in case you are out at a festival in 90 degree sun), credit-card reader (usually on your cell phone), and bags for people to take their stuff home.
Reality check: the rule of thumb used to be that 15% of your audience would buy stuff: meaning if you played at the Bluebird and sold out the 900 seats, you could count on selling to roughly around 100 people. The recession, too many t-shirts given away by every act out on the road, and a few other factors including digital downloads, have cut that percentage to between 5% and 10% of an audience, which means that you are selling to 60 people at that same show. Now, if they all buy the hoodie at $25 that’s a pretty good deal, but if they all buy the panties at $5, then you are not making much cake.
So the smart folks are doing a few things to increase sales: (1) buy one get something free. You buy the new CD we will toss in a refrigerator magnet and a beer mug cooler for free. You buy a $25 hoodie we will give you a 4-song EP free. (2) Giving away SOME music. Terry McBride manager of Bare Naked Ladies speaks to this, saying the artist should say something like, ‘we want you to have some of our music for free so please stop by the merch tent and pick up a free EP.’ This drives traffic to the merch booth; it’s the oldest drug dealer trick in the book “first one’s free.” You can do this with a stack of CDs that you burn for 7 cents apiece – you don’t even need sleeves – put two or three great songs on it, and you give one away to everybody who signs up on the email list. Terry said it increased his sales 15% on the first gig!
Be creative! If you have a favorite song lyric that everybody likes to sing, put it on a t-shirt, “I eat, I sleep, I drink, I fuck, and it’s just not a problem!” If that is your lyric, you might want to have two versions of the shirt, one that uses “fuck” and one that has “f*@k” instead. You will sell a ton of both because both fans exist–the one that wants to piss off mom, and the one that doesn’t.
Last, but not least, understand that the venue, festival, or club, wants to work with you to make it a success so WORK WITH THEM. Be nice, don’t be an ass, if they are taking 15% plus the city sales tax of 7.6% that is fair, price your stuff accordingly.
OK, next month, tips for surviving the road. It’s summer, we are all out there, and it’s important not to murder the bass player because she ate three beef and bean burritos at Taco Bell and is stinking up the van. Fix the problem, don’t make it worse; simple rule, kindness. Really! Try it! ONWARD!
Category: The Post
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