To Ten Club – Merch suggestion (fellow fans, please add your support)

jervin007

I bought multiple Fenway items off eBay. Most were only for a slight markup. I’d love the option to preorder a few items to avoid doing this. I can’t justify wasting hours waiting for merch so until another option is given I will be supporting flippers 

DL136722

StevieG73 said:

slabahn13 said:

fgalpern said:

Dear Ten Club,

I'm sure you're aware of the number of posters, shirts, hats, etc. being sold for exorbitant prices on eBay, immediately after they first go on sale at concerts. Fans have little opportunity to get these items at the shows and wind up paying these unfair eBay prices
fattening the wallets of flippers who do nothing but hurt this great community. That money could go direct to the Ten Club, or even better, go to support worthy charities.

To solve this problem, please consider offering posters, setlist shirts and other items for sale online directly to Ten Club members who have purchased tickets through the club for those specific shows. You could even offer these items in a bundle and charge an extra dollar or two for charities.

Thanks for considering!

So 50-60 hours of sales at outside merch stands, 2 nights of inside merch stands during the shows with 10-12 different stands open, artists drops and 10 Club drops equal LITTLE opportunity to purchase merch?? NO ONE says you have to buy anything on eBay. If you don't like the price, wait for it to fall or don't buy it. Also, 10 Club is NOT in charge of merch at the shows, MrTsurt is, so complaining to 10 Club won't do anything. 

The fact is, no one is entitled to anything. If you want something bad enough, put in the time and effort to get it. 

Couldn't agree with this guy any more.  If you want to sit at a patio bar having beers before the show...don't knock the people that stand in line to get what they want...flippers OR fans, the effort has to be there.

I hate the merch situation as well but I agree with these guys. This isn't news though, we've all have heard stories about the merch for a while now so I just planned for it. Unfortunately, I had to get up at 5am to get my butt in line by 630am to get everything I wanted.

Does anyone really want to go through all this shit for merch? Of course not but it's evolved into this so you adapt and get what you want or don't, that simple.  Yes, it sucks but until the situation changes just plan accordingly and get what you want. 

Again, this isn't news at all. The stories I've read over the years on here, everyone knows it's a shit show. It does suck having to plan a trip around a merch schedule but nobody is making anybody do that.  I'm not a flipper and I was in line with regular people not flippers just fans traveling from all over, not locals, who planned for the shit show and were successful getting what they wanted because they simply put in the effort and planned accordingly. 

mpedone

KW6232 said:

mpedone said

4:45AM Flag
“The fairest way to "fix" the merch would be to end pre-show sales, and move all the merch back inside the venues. Flippers would still eat the cost of a ticket to get in, but it would be more difficult for them to buy up everything before non-flippers get in. Even more so if the stands hold firm to item limits and the venue is strict on what people can bring in (so, poster tubes of a certain size, and only one).”

the problem with this is merchandise is the bands biggest money maker now days. Albums sales generate nearly nothing anymore. If you limited it to just inside sales with the demand of PJ merchandise you still wouldn’t get what you wanted. Half the people would miss the show by being in line and the band would be losing thousands of dollars. 
That limits sales to about 6 total hours. How would you get 25,000( estimating half the crowd wants merch) thru  these lines in that time. Your never going to please everyone. 

I think FOMO is a HUGE factor, especially for these stadium shows (I didn't pay as much attention to the way merch was rolled out for the European shows). The days are announced well ahead of the shows, and pictures of most of the merch is posted online, with blurry previews of the posters. This gets people thinking about merch. They start to pick out the things they like, and from other posts, they start to glean what's popular, and what's going to sell out fast. On top of that, they know that anyone who wants can walk right up and buy up whatever they want and then turn around and sell it for double (or more) on ebay.

The mentality goes from "Well, I'll get a shirt if I like any of them" to "Crap, I have to get there SUPER early to get in line and get THAT SPECIFIC shirt", often without the person being cognizant of the change. This leads to longer and longer lines that start earlier and earlier as people try to beat the flippers to the tables.

Contrast that to merch that's not revealed until the day of the show, and only sold inside the venue. Fan know that any flipper will have to buy a ticket and get to one of many stands inside the venue before anyone else. There's no build-up of "I have to have that!" leading up to show time, there's no "it" item. Maybe not everyone gets stuff, because the lines are too long, but maybe they're also not as determined to get stuff, because they haven't spent a week reading about how awesome this poster or that shirt or this other sweatband is.

Of course, this isn't perfect, either. Flippers could be willing to eat the cost of a few tickets to get in, stand in line (during the show, if need be) to walk out with a similar haul. I still think, though, that this would allow more fans to get what they want before the flippers, and lessen demand for merch, that the flippers would lose a lot of steam.

I also wouldn't disagree that the band makes a lot of money on merch, but none of this discussion has really cared whether the band makes money or not. It's about the best way to make merch sales the most fair to fans, which really means battling flippers, not necessarily getting merch into the hands of the most fans at showtime. What happens to merch that doesn't sell at the shows? It ends up on the website, where people can buy it with no lines, no waiting. People keep saying they'd buy stuff if it was on the website, so I don't think that would be a problem for most people.

WindowPaine

things won't change. multiple merch stands = more money. why would a band/business/people sacrifice making money just to make things more 'fair' or convenient? 

unknown

look guys there are a million ways to make this situation better, bottom line is its not going to change, because pearl jam

likes the supply and demand.  i wouild love to be able to get these osters without havign to go to flippers