The Huge Moon name out venue for taking cuts of merch and announce pop up
The Huge Moon have introduced that they won’t be promoting merch at their London gig on the O2 Kentish City Discussion board tonight (September 28), and can as a substitute host a pop-up retailer at a close-by pub.
In a Twitter thread, the band known as out the venue’s practise of taking a lower of 25 per cent plus VAT on every sale. “That is principally all of our revenue on merch,” they mentioned.
“This leaves us with the selection of both not making any revenue, or growing costs and charging you guys extra – neither feels honest.”
To bypass this, the band shall be promoting merchandise at The Abbey Tavern on Kentish City Street earlier than and after the gig.
“Merch is likely one of the few methods we preserve ourselves afloat at this degree when touring income are nonetheless minimal!” the thread continued. “So please come right down to the Abbey tavern for a pre-show bev and a peruse of our merch from 6, or head down there after the present!! Thanks a lot to your help x.”
The Kentish City Discussion board, like many different o2 venues, take 25% plus VAT on each sale we make – that is principally all of our revenue on merch. This leaves us with the selection of both not making any revenue, or growing costs and charging you guys extra – neither feels honest. pic.twitter.com/jKfwQGCSdd
— The Huge Moon (@thebigmoon) September 28, 2022
Merch is likely one of the few methods we preserve ourselves afloat at this degree when touring income are nonetheless minimal!
So please come right down to the Abbey tavern for a pre-show bev and a peruse of our merch from 6, or head down there after the present!! Thanks a lot to your help x pic.twitter.com/p51HCN8sfJ— The Huge Moon (@thebigmoon) September 28, 2022
The Huge Moon additionally thanked London band Dry Cleansing for “opening this up as a risk.” Dry Cleansing took an similar strategy for the sale of merchandise at their very own Kentish City discussion board present earlier this yr.
This yr has seen large-scale campaigns towards the practise of venues taking a lower of merchandise gross sales.
Again in January, the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) introduced a brand new listing highlighting music venues that cost zero fee on the sale of merchandise. The ‘100% Venues’ database aimed to handle the “outdated and unfair” follow of efficiency areas taking a lower of acts’ merch proceeds at gigs.
Over 400 venues throughout Britain have since signed as much as the listing, together with iconic venues such because the Barbican Centre in London, Brudenell Social Membership in Leeds and Clwb Ifor Bach in Cardiff.
Chatting with NME in August, nonetheless, FAC CEO David Martin agreed that progress was encouraging, however that extra work was required – particularly to assist rising artists get established after the hardships attributable to Brexit and the COVID pandemic.
He mentioned: “We’re seeing now that followers are discovering out that this occurs, and so they hate it. It actually annoys them that the cash that they’re spending isn’t going to the artist as they thought.”