{"id":6347,"date":"2012-04-24T10:21:51","date_gmt":"2012-04-24T17:21:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/?p=6347"},"modified":"2015-09-30T18:54:29","modified_gmt":"2015-09-30T18:54:29","slug":"your-are-a-indie-band-why-arent-you-selling-any-merchandise-at-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/your-are-a-indie-band-why-arent-you-selling-any-merchandise-at-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"You Are a Indie Band, Why Aren&#039;t You Selling Any Merchandise at Shows?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-6349\" title=\"Tour Merchandise\" src=\"http:\/\/www.michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/2251-300x191.jpg\" alt=\"Tour Merchandise\" width=\"300\" height=\"191\" \/>A recent article on New Driven on <a href=\"http:\/\/newdriven.tumblr.com\/post\/21615198761\/how-to-find-success-for-an-independent-band\">How To Find Success For An Independent Band<\/a> contained a couple quotes from me, but I was more interested in another comment in the article, &#8220;Armstrong\u2019s eyes rolled. He knows how hard it is to get an audience to buy merchandise from any independent artist. Even if they leave a show uplifted by the music, they often will withhold buying product.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t let the fact that you are a independent artist be any reason as to why you are not selling merchandise. I have attended MANY shows in my life and not once has the fact that they are a indie band influenced me in not buying. Actually it has been the opposite, knowing they are indie has made me want to support them. What has influenced me?<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Did I like the music.<\/li>\n<li>Do they have great merchandise and a selection of more than one shirt.<\/li>\n<li>Did the band connect with me on stage.<\/li>\n<li>And after one of the above, do you take credit cards.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>I have had bands do one of the above and I bought something, just to support them. I have bought CDs when I already had the digital download. Bought a shirt I only wore once or twice.<\/p>\n<p>If the audience is not buying your merchandise I think you have to give a honest look at why they aren&#8217;t buying&#8230; does the merchandise suck? A logo on a black shirt is not exciting. If you were at another band&#8217;s show and they were selling the items you had would you buy them? Are you great on stage&#8230; not good, but great? A good band is not going to get nearly the same amount of support, a great band excites you to connect with them. It could also be as simple as you don&#8217;t tell the audience you have merchandise and to come meet you at the stand immediately after the show. More bands don&#8217;t mention the merchandise stand than those that do. If you do mention you have merchandise at the beginning of the show, do it again at the end&#8230; make sure they remember.<\/p>\n<p>Make sure you sell to your fans, it is your show&#8230; sell. You have one chance that night, get out in the audience and meet the fans. Before the show and after the show. Don&#8217;t blame your status as a indie act as why people aren&#8217;t buying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent article on New Driven on How To Find Success For An Independent Band contained a couple quotes from me, but I was more interested in another comment in the article, &#8220;Armstrong\u2019s eyes rolled. He knows how hard it is to get an audience to buy merchandise from any independent artist. Even if they [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[1550,337,931],"class_list":["post-6347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-marketing-2","tag-indie-artist","tag-merchandise","tag-t-shirt"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6347"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11513,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6347\/revisions\/11513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}