Tomberlin hit out at venue asking for 41 per cent cut of merch sales

nme.com:

pic.twitter.com/rJeT1g1rjQ— tomberlin (@tomberlin) September 18, 2023She also explained the situation further on Instagram this morning (September 20), providing a longer statement which detailed how they tried to enforce “the most aggressive merch cuts I’ve seen”.“They had the most aggressive merch cuts I’ve seen so far with a forced venue sell (meaning my seller I pay each day could not sell for me and we could not use our own square account),” she wrote. “The cuts: 30% of soft merch (anything that is not music), 10% on recorded merch, a 5% card fee, and a 6% tax (which they retain).“I felt it was an extremely unfair rate and that altogether a merch cut is an archaic rule and truly a made up model by the heads of these venues and [companies] to continue to profit off of the labour of those [whose] labour is already undervalued.“That is why we have to go on tour and become a Walmart and sell you t-shirts.

to make a living. because we artists today, especially those of us starting out the last few years, cannot afford to make a living if we don’t sell you t-shirts.”A post shared by tomberlin (@tomberlinnnn)The issues shared by Tomberlin were also highlighted in 2022, when a campaign was launched to stop music venues from taking a cut of artists’ merchandise sales.It came as the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) announced a new directory, highlighting music venues that charge zero commission on the sale of merchandise and aimed to address the “outdated and unfair” practice of performance spaces taking a cut of acts’ merch proceeds at gigs.In August last year, the FAC told NME that over 400 venues had signed up, but several of the large arenas and venue groups in the UK had still not become part of the database.Along with.