Let’s get this out of the way rather quickly. Venues who take merch cuts from musicians are fucking ridiculous. The venues in question have literally nothing to do with the merch itself, it just so happens to be in their building for the night – a building that said band(s) are bringing plenty of bodies out to. Bands like Alpha Wolf have already called out the damaging practice publicly, and with musicians finding it harder than ever before to survive (not even thrive), it’s pretty clear they’re sick of it all.
Bad Omens, currently on their sold-out headlining tour, aren’t taking this lying down either. The band recently called out venues who siphon a merch percentage from these bands, also drawing attention to the fact that they don’t get a cut of the bar tab in return. Of course, they don’t actually want any of your bar sales – they just don’t want to give away 15-20% of their merch a night, which adds up rather quickly on their headlining tour right now.
Thankfully, bands and music venues (who aren’t greedy assholes) are teaming up with a directory of so-called “100% Venues”, which are exactly what they sound like – venues who don’t take arbitrary and malicious merch cuts from musicians. It means you can be secure that at these venues, 100% of what you’re paying for merch goes to the musicians themselves.
Just to be clear – we don’t want a cut of your bar sales. We just don’t want to give you 20% of the merchandise we design, pay for, manage, set up, carry, and sell ourselves because you gave us 24sq ft of floor space in your venue we sold out.
— BAD OMENS (@badomenscult) December 4, 2022
That’s dope, artists still don’t get a cut from bar sales tho even if the venue gives cocktails cute little names after your songs, but still take 15-20% of touring artists’ gross merch sales every night. Nowhere To Go punch does sound delicious though, tip your bartenders.
🐸 🍹 https://t.co/3Ptnrm1CRX— BAD OMENS (@badomenscult) December 4, 2022
