This is how I received my Metallica Vinyl Club shipment yesterday. Not their fault but they are already sending me a new one.
4/22/92 St. Petersburg, 8/23/92 Orlando, 3/29/94 St. Petersburg, 10/7/96 Ft. Lauderdale, 9/8/98 East Rutherford, 9/22/98 West Palm Beach, 9/23/98 West Palm Beach, 8/9/00 West Palm Beach, 8/10/00 West Palm Beach, 8/12/00 Tampa, 4/11/03 West Palm Beach, 4/13/03 Tampa, 6/2/03 Irvine, 6/3/03 Irvine, 9/28/04 Boston, 9/29/04 Boston, 9/1/05 George WA, 9/11/05 Kitchener, 9/12/05 London, 9/13/05 Hamilton, 10/03/05 Philadelphia, 5/16/06 Chicago, 5/17/06 Chicago, 6/23/06 Pittsburgh, 6/24/06 Cincinnati, 6/11/08, West Palm Beach, 6/12/08 Tampa, 6/19/08 Camden, 6/20/08 Camden, 8/23/09 Chicago, 8/24/09 Chicago, 10/27/09 Philadelphia, 10/28/09 Philadelphia, 10/30/09 Philadelphia, 10/31/09 Philadelphia, 5/18/10 New Jersey, 5/20/10 New York, 5/21/10 New York, 9/3/11 East Troy, 9/4/11 East Troy, 9/11/11 Toronto, 9/12/11 Toronto, 9/02/12 Philadelphia, 9/21/12 Pensacola, 7/19/13 Chicago, 10/18/13 Brooklyn, 10/19/13 Brooklyn, 11/23/13 LA, 10/24/13 LA, 11/16/13 Oklahoma City, 10/1/14 Cincinnati, 10/20/14 Milwaukee, 10/22/14 Denver, 4/8/16 Ft. Lauderdale, 4/9/16 Miami, 4/11/16 Tampa, 5/1/16 New York, 5/2/16 New York, 8/5/16 Boston, 8/7/16 Boston, 8/20/16 Chicago, 8/22/16 Chicago, 4/07/17 New York, 8/08/18 Seattle, 8/10/18 Seattle, 8/20/18 Chicago 9/02/18 Boston, 9/04/18 Boston, 9/11/22 New York, 9/16/22 Nashville, 9/22/22 Denver, 8/31/23, St. Paul, 9/2/23 St. Paul, 9/18/23 Austin, 9/19/23 Austin
As a fellow artist who sells small amounts of photographs through Etsy and such (maybe 10 a week) I will say she has the classic “artist who can’t run a business” traits. Her work is solid, but I’m betting she has never had a large order to deal with. She’s not prepared mentally or supply capacities to play in this league. The first 150 piece order I had produced a very small profit. I was way unprepared for how much time and money it would cost to deliver. I had to put other projects on hold and eat some costs I didn’t pass to the client. Lessons learned. Unfortunately she is not ready for this type of transaction.
It's kinda sad to watch. Knowing what we know now we could have given her advice like @ryanphishes had thought to give. For a gig poster destined to sell out, she had all the time in the world to acquire proper tubes, craft paper, actually sign-and-number the prints, and package them in tubes before she listed them for sale. Printing shipping labels and having them picked up for delivery would have been a breeze. But judging by her initial lack of communication, followed by utterly poor (public) communication, she's missing some business skills in addition to being inexperienced in project planning/management.
We should start a tips for artists new to shipping posters to poster collectors:
damage by a shipping company is going to happen and you need to plan accordingly:
Yes, it sucks that once the tube leaves your hands, postal carriers can be careless and damage the products you are shipping.
Either charge customers and pay for insurance on all tubes you ship out, or do as Justin Hampton told me when I started, and set aside X amount to have as replacements for some percentage of shipping damage. You can either spend money paying for shipping insurance on all orders, or have to spend potentially less money giving away a few replacements. The better you pack the poster, the less replacements you will need to send out and eat money on (which you not only lose money losing a piece of inventory you could sell, but then paying to ship the replacement as well...so packing is important and saves you money in the long run, even if you have to spend a little more for better quality tubes.)
To help avoid having to send replacements and lose money on those, you need thicker walled tubes, and wider mouthed tubes... the wider the tube, the less potential for creases being cause when rolling the poster to go in the tube. The tubes I use have a 4 inch diameter. But know, even with thicker walled tubes, some will still get crushed or smashed or driven over or lord knows what happens to them sometimes.
You need to use some sort of paper in between the poster and the tube. The paper I use and many use is standard 24" x 36" newsprint paper you can buy in bulk reams of 500 sheets.
You need to use tubes with a length longer then 24 inches for poster that are 24 inches, and you need to make sure when you put the poster in the tube, wrapped in newsprint, that it does not slide around in the tube. I usually try and test each tube while I pack them, and lightly move the tube from side to side to see if the poster/paper moves around and will hit the end caps in transit. If it does move inside the tube, you need to try and stop that from happening. Often times an easy solution is once the poster is in the tube, see if you can't slightly pull the rolled paper (the way a Chinese yo yo elongates out) a little and this can cause the whole roll to press against the walls of the tube and keep it stationary and not sliding around inside.
If your poster is printed on a special stock of paper, say black paper or a more kraft paper, from my experience those papers slide around more inside tubes (Atlantic City, black paper, oversized poster, many were damaged in transit... 2018 Seattle / Boston, tan/kraft paper, smaller size, more arrived damaged than normal though there were more mailed out than normal).
Always keep in mind... you are selling a limited edition collectible paper good to collectors... dings, dents, and creases matter and are important. Some collectors are okay with minor damage that they know will frame out... but not every poster is going into a frame, some are going into collections. So as with other paper collectibles, like comic books or baseball cards, a minor dented corner effects the value of the item you are selling to collectors. Some don't care about this. Some collectors are very picky about this... and if they spend $60-200 on a limited edition paper collectible, and they purchase it as a "new" or "mint" product, it should arrive in mint condition. If it does not, it is the artist's responsibility to make sure the customer gets what they paid for...even if a postal carrier is responsible for the damage.
If a customers emails and says their poster arrived damaged.. ask to see photos of the damage so you can be certain they are not lying trying to get another poster for free. If you want you can have them send you back the damaged poster, or you can tell them to destroy it or keep it, it is up to each artist how they want to handle the damaged print. If you are out of replacements, offer a refund. I tend to offer a full refund, even if the damage is minimal and barely noticeable... the customer did not get what they ordered and are displeased, so instead of haggling over partial refunds, I tend to just refund the whole order, shipping and all.
For artists new to the Pearl Jam world..... PJ fans are avid poster collectors. If you do a poster for PJ / Eddie Vedder, expect a lot of traffic to your site the day of the sale. Expect your poster to sell out potentially in seconds. Expect that your site might fail during the sale due to lots of traffic all trying to buy the same thing at once. Expect an influx of emails from eager, and sometimes overly eager, and sometimes aggressive fans who may be angry with you because they were unable to get a copy of the poster, due to it selling out in seconds or issues with your site failing or them having a slower internet connection then others. Expect that a percentage of those buyers are buying specifically to flip the poster on Ebay to make a small profit for themselves and to use tactics to try and get more than one poster. Expect that some percentage of buyers are flippers who will profit off your hard work and there's not too much you can do to stop that. Expect that some of your artist copies will end up on Ebay even before you have shipped them.
And to any artists new to the world of gigposters.... you will almost never get paid a commission to make a poster for a band. If you do get paid a commission or fee, expect it to be insultingly low, like $200-300 for weeks of your time and energy. This is why most poster artist figured out a long time ago instead of getting paid $200, why not just have the merchandise company pay for $200-300 worth of more prints they can give to you as your payment that you can sell on your own for what ever price you choose... so say you get 100 posters and charge $90 and sell out... your commission is $9000 instead of $300.... not bad right? And Pearl Jam / Tsurt takes care of posters artists better then most bands / merchandise companies..so don't always expect you will get 100 posters as payment... some companies will give you 25-50.
If you are a one person operation, like I am... dealing with orders is a time suck. It takes days to process the orders, to print the packing slips, the postage labels, to sign and number all prints, and to handle customer service emails (especially if your site fails and you over sell and have to process refunds or some wonky weird thing happens with all the orders due to your site / store failing). It will take time away from your other responsibilities as an artist, it will take time away from you working on new art, and packing orders is boring and not creative and not all that fun...but put on music or a tv show or podcast and remind yourself, while this is not fun and you should be creating, you are getting paid to pack and ship your art to people who wanted your art and sent you money for it, and your job could be way worse, so smile and revel in being a professional artist who is now shipping off your art all over the world. If taking time out of your schedule to pack orders is not something you can handle alone, ask for help from friends or pay a friend or intern for a day to help you pack orders... if you are packing orders for a sold out PJ poster, you probably made out pretty well financially from that sale and can afford to toss $100 to a friend or intern to help you pack orders for a day or two while you work on other things.
If you do not have help, as I choose not to have (I like quality checking each print as I pack them, something I don't want someone else to do), it will take you a little longer to ship things so try and keep customers abreast of your shipping timelines and possible conflicting work schedule so they don't start worrying their order is lost in transit or stolen off their front porch. And remember, mostly people are just psyched to get your art, so they are eager to get it and any email they send asking "where is my order" is often coming from a place of excitement and anticipation (or they flipped it on ebay before they got it and they are getting emailed from the ebay buyer saying "where's my poster?!?!").
hope that helps to any future PJ / gig poster artists out there... for future PJ poster artists... PJ poster fans are very passionate about posters and the band... if you try and take care of them, they will take care of you. There are a few bad apples out there, but such is the nature of all things in life, most are just really into collecting PJ posters and love it and the band, and it can be overwhelming if you are not used to or expecting their attention when it comes your way.
Man that was a perfect blue print by @bradklausen so cool to read. And I imagine as artists and fans both recognize that there’s a want for even more different paper stocks (foil, etc) that even more precautions and paranoia comes into play.
As a fellow artist who sells small amounts of photographs through Etsy and such (maybe 10 a week) I will say she has the classic “artist who can’t run a business” traits. Her work is solid, but I’m betting she has never had a large order to deal with. She’s not prepared mentally or supply capacities to play in this league. The first 150 piece order I had produced a very small profit. I was way unprepared for how much time and money it would cost to deliver. I had to put other projects on hold and eat some costs I didn’t pass to the client. Lessons learned. Unfortunately she is not ready for this type of transaction.
It's kinda sad to watch. Knowing what we know now we could have given her advice like @ryanphishes had thought to give. For a gig poster destined to sell out, she had all the time in the world to acquire proper tubes, craft paper, actually sign-and-number the prints, and package them in tubes before she listed them for sale. Printing shipping labels and having them picked up for delivery would have been a breeze. But judging by her initial lack of communication, followed by utterly poor (public) communication, she's missing some business skills in addition to being inexperienced in project planning/management.
We should start a tips for artists new to shipping posters to poster collectors:
damage by a shipping company is going to happen and you need to plan accordingly:
Yes, it sucks that once the tube leaves your hands, postal carriers can be careless and damage the products you are shipping.
Either charge customers and pay for insurance on all tubes you ship out, or do as Justin Hampton told me when I started, and set aside X amount to have as replacements for some percentage of shipping damage. You can either spend money paying for shipping insurance on all orders, or have to spend potentially less money giving away a few replacements. The better you pack the poster, the less replacements you will need to send out and eat money on (which you not only lose money losing a piece of inventory you could sell, but then paying to ship the replacement as well...so packing is important and saves you money in the long run, even if you have to spend a little more for better quality tubes.)
To help avoid having to send replacements and lose money on those, you need thicker walled tubes, and wider mouthed tubes... the wider the tube, the less potential for creases being cause when rolling the poster to go in the tube. The tubes I use have a 4 inch diameter. But know, even with thicker walled tubes, some will still get crushed or smashed or driven over or lord knows what happens to them sometimes.
You need to use some sort of paper in between the poster and the tube. The paper I use and many use is standard 24" x 36" newsprint paper you can buy in bulk reams of 500 sheets.
You need to use tubes with a length longer then 24 inches for poster that are 24 inches, and you need to make sure when you put the poster in the tube, wrapped in newsprint, that it does not slide around in the tube. I usually try and test each tube while I pack them, and lightly move the tube from side to side to see if the poster/paper moves around and will hit the end caps in transit. If it does move inside the tube, you need to try and stop that from happening. Often times an easy solution is once the poster is in the tube, see if you can't slightly pull the rolled paper (the way a Chinese yo yo elongates out) a little and this can cause the whole roll to press against the walls of the tube and keep it stationary and not sliding around inside.
If your poster is printed on a special stock of paper, say black paper or a more kraft paper, from my experience those papers slide around more inside tubes (Atlantic City, black paper, oversized poster, many were damaged in transit... 2018 Seattle / Boston, tan/kraft paper, smaller size, more arrived damaged than normal though there were more mailed out than normal).
Always keep in mind... you are selling a limited edition collectible paper good to collectors... dings, dents, and creases matter and are important. Some collectors are okay with minor damage that they know will frame out... but not every poster is going into a frame, some are going into collections. So as with other paper collectibles, like comic books or baseball cards, a minor dented corner effects the value of the item you are selling to collectors. Some don't care about this. Some collectors are very picky about this... and if they spend $60-200 on a limited edition paper collectible, and they purchase it as a "new" or "mint" product, it should arrive in mint condition. If it does not, it is the artist's responsibility to make sure the customer gets what they paid for...even if a postal carrier is responsible for the damage.
If a customers emails and says their poster arrived damaged.. ask to see photos of the damage so you can be certain they are not lying trying to get another poster for free. If you want you can have them send you back the damaged poster, or you can tell them to destroy it or keep it, it is up to each artist how they want to handle the damaged print. If you are out of replacements, offer a refund. I tend to offer a full refund, even if the damage is minimal and barely noticeable... the customer did not get what they ordered and are displeased, so instead of haggling over partial refunds, I tend to just refund the whole order, shipping and all.
For artists new to the Pearl Jam world..... PJ fans are avid poster collectors. If you do a poster for PJ / Eddie Vedder, expect a lot of traffic to your site the day of the sale. Expect your poster to sell out potentially in seconds. Expect that your site might fail during the sale due to lots of traffic all trying to buy the same thing at once. Expect an influx of emails from eager, and sometimes overly eager, and sometimes aggressive fans who may be angry with you because they were unable to get a copy of the poster, due to it selling out in seconds or issues with your site failing or them having a slower internet connection then others. Expect that a percentage of those buyers are buying specifically to flip the poster on Ebay to make a small profit for themselves and to use tactics to try and get more than one poster. Expect that some percentage of buyers are flippers who will profit off your hard work and there's not too much you can do to stop that. Expect that some of your artist copies will end up on Ebay even before you have shipped them.
And to any artists new to the world of gigposters.... you will almost never get paid a commission to make a poster for a band. If you do get paid a commission or fee, expect it to be insultingly low, like $200-300 for weeks of your time and energy. This is why most poster artist figured out a long time ago instead of getting paid $200, why not just have the merchandise company pay for $200-300 worth of more prints they can give to you as your payment that you can sell on your own for what ever price you choose... so say you get 100 posters and charge $90 and sell out... your commission is $9000 instead of $300.... not bad right? And Pearl Jam / Tsurt takes care of posters artists better then most bands / merchandise companies..so don't always expect you will get 100 posters as payment... some companies will give you 25-50.
If you are a one person operation, like I am... dealing with orders is a time suck. It takes days to process the orders, to print the packing slips, the postage labels, to sign and number all prints, and to handle customer service emails (especially if your site fails and you over sell and have to process refunds or some wonky weird thing happens with all the orders due to your site / store failing). It will take time away from your other responsibilities as an artist, it will take time away from you working on new art, and packing orders is boring and not creative and not all that fun...but put on music or a tv show or podcast and remind yourself, while this is not fun and you should be creating, you are getting paid to pack and ship your art to people who wanted your art and sent you money for it, and your job could be way worse, so smile and revel in being a professional artist who is now shipping off your art all over the world. If taking time out of your schedule to pack orders is not something you can handle alone, ask for help from friends or pay a friend or intern for a day to help you pack orders... if you are packing orders for a sold out PJ poster, you probably made out pretty well financially from that sale and can afford to toss $100 to a friend or intern to help you pack orders for a day or two while you work on other things.
If you do not have help, as I choose not to have (I like quality checking each print as I pack them, something I don't want someone else to do), it will take you a little longer to ship things so try and keep customers abreast of your shipping timelines and possible conflicting work schedule so they don't start worrying their order is lost in transit or stolen off their front porch. And remember, mostly people are just psyched to get your art, so they are eager to get it and any email they send asking "where is my order" is often coming from a place of excitement and anticipation (or they flipped it on ebay before they got it and they are getting emailed from the ebay buyer saying "where's my poster?!?!").
hope that helps to any future PJ / gig poster artists out there... for future PJ poster artists... PJ poster fans are very passionate about posters and the band... if you try and take care of them, they will take care of you. There are a few bad apples out there, but such is the nature of all things in life, most are just really into collecting PJ posters and love it and the band, and it can be overwhelming if you are not used to or expecting their attention when it comes your way.
This is incredibly insightful. Very easy to forget the operations that artists need to run, and sometimes learn on the spot. I really hope that the commission numbers you mentioned are lower than the reality, but if they are I'll happily buy APs knowing it benefits artists exponentially more.
As a fellow artist who sells small amounts of photographs through Etsy and such (maybe 10 a week) I will say she has the classic “artist who can’t run a business” traits. Her work is solid, but I’m betting she has never had a large order to deal with. She’s not prepared mentally or supply capacities to play in this league. The first 150 piece order I had produced a very small profit. I was way unprepared for how much time and money it would cost to deliver. I had to put other projects on hold and eat some costs I didn’t pass to the client. Lessons learned. Unfortunately she is not ready for this type of transaction.
It's kinda sad to watch. Knowing what we know now we could have given her advice like @ryanphishes had thought to give. For a gig poster destined to sell out, she had all the time in the world to acquire proper tubes, craft paper, actually sign-and-number the prints, and package them in tubes before she listed them for sale. Printing shipping labels and having them picked up for delivery would have been a breeze. But judging by her initial lack of communication, followed by utterly poor (public) communication, she's missing some business skills in addition to being inexperienced in project planning/management.
We should start a tips for artists new to shipping posters to poster collectors:
damage by a shipping company is going to happen and you need to plan accordingly:
Yes, it sucks that once the tube leaves your hands, postal carriers can be careless and damage the products you are shipping.
Either charge customers and pay for insurance on all tubes you ship out, or do as Justin Hampton told me when I started, and set aside X amount to have as replacements for some percentage of shipping damage. You can either spend money paying for shipping insurance on all orders, or have to spend potentially less money giving away a few replacements. The better you pack the poster, the less replacements you will need to send out and eat money on (which you not only lose money losing a piece of inventory you could sell, but then paying to ship the replacement as well...so packing is important and saves you money in the long run, even if you have to spend a little more for better quality tubes.)
To help avoid having to send replacements and lose money on those, you need thicker walled tubes, and wider mouthed tubes... the wider the tube, the less potential for creases being cause when rolling the poster to go in the tube. The tubes I use have a 4 inch diameter. But know, even with thicker walled tubes, some will still get crushed or smashed or driven over or lord knows what happens to them sometimes.
You need to use some sort of paper in between the poster and the tube. The paper I use and many use is standard 24" x 36" newsprint paper you can buy in bulk reams of 500 sheets.
You need to use tubes with a length longer then 24 inches for poster that are 24 inches, and you need to make sure when you put the poster in the tube, wrapped in newsprint, that it does not slide around in the tube. I usually try and test each tube while I pack them, and lightly move the tube from side to side to see if the poster/paper moves around and will hit the end caps in transit. If it does move inside the tube, you need to try and stop that from happening. Often times an easy solution is once the poster is in the tube, see if you can't slightly pull the rolled paper (the way a Chinese yo yo elongates out) a little and this can cause the whole roll to press against the walls of the tube and keep it stationary and not sliding around inside.
If your poster is printed on a special stock of paper, say black paper or a more kraft paper, from my experience those papers slide around more inside tubes (Atlantic City, black paper, oversized poster, many were damaged in transit... 2018 Seattle / Boston, tan/kraft paper, smaller size, more arrived damaged than normal though there were more mailed out than normal).
Always keep in mind... you are selling a limited edition collectible paper good to collectors... dings, dents, and creases matter and are important. Some collectors are okay with minor damage that they know will frame out... but not every poster is going into a frame, some are going into collections. So as with other paper collectibles, like comic books or baseball cards, a minor dented corner effects the value of the item you are selling to collectors. Some don't care about this. Some collectors are very picky about this... and if they spend $60-200 on a limited edition paper collectible, and they purchase it as a "new" or "mint" product, it should arrive in mint condition. If it does not, it is the artist's responsibility to make sure the customer gets what they paid for...even if a postal carrier is responsible for the damage.
If a customers emails and says their poster arrived damaged.. ask to see photos of the damage so you can be certain they are not lying trying to get another poster for free. If you want you can have them send you back the damaged poster, or you can tell them to destroy it or keep it, it is up to each artist how they want to handle the damaged print. If you are out of replacements, offer a refund. I tend to offer a full refund, even if the damage is minimal and barely noticeable... the customer did not get what they ordered and are displeased, so instead of haggling over partial refunds, I tend to just refund the whole order, shipping and all.
For artists new to the Pearl Jam world..... PJ fans are avid poster collectors. If you do a poster for PJ / Eddie Vedder, expect a lot of traffic to your site the day of the sale. Expect your poster to sell out potentially in seconds. Expect that your site might fail during the sale due to lots of traffic all trying to buy the same thing at once. Expect an influx of emails from eager, and sometimes overly eager, and sometimes aggressive fans who may be angry with you because they were unable to get a copy of the poster, due to it selling out in seconds or issues with your site failing or them having a slower internet connection then others. Expect that a percentage of those buyers are buying specifically to flip the poster on Ebay to make a small profit for themselves and to use tactics to try and get more than one poster. Expect that some percentage of buyers are flippers who will profit off your hard work and there's not too much you can do to stop that. Expect that some of your artist copies will end up on Ebay even before you have shipped them.
And to any artists new to the world of gigposters.... you will almost never get paid a commission to make a poster for a band. If you do get paid a commission or fee, expect it to be insultingly low, like $200-300 for weeks of your time and energy. This is why most poster artist figured out a long time ago instead of getting paid $200, why not just have the merchandise company pay for $200-300 worth of more prints they can give to you as your payment that you can sell on your own for what ever price you choose... so say you get 100 posters and charge $90 and sell out... your commission is $9000 instead of $300.... not bad right? And Pearl Jam / Tsurt takes care of posters artists better then most bands / merchandise companies..so don't always expect you will get 100 posters as payment... some companies will give you 25-50.
If you are a one person operation, like I am... dealing with orders is a time suck. It takes days to process the orders, to print the packing slips, the postage labels, to sign and number all prints, and to handle customer service emails (especially if your site fails and you over sell and have to process refunds or some wonky weird thing happens with all the orders due to your site / store failing). It will take time away from your other responsibilities as an artist, it will take time away from you working on new art, and packing orders is boring and not creative and not all that fun...but put on music or a tv show or podcast and remind yourself, while this is not fun and you should be creating, you are getting paid to pack and ship your art to people who wanted your art and sent you money for it, and your job could be way worse, so smile and revel in being a professional artist who is now shipping off your art all over the world. If taking time out of your schedule to pack orders is not something you can handle alone, ask for help from friends or pay a friend or intern for a day to help you pack orders... if you are packing orders for a sold out PJ poster, you probably made out pretty well financially from that sale and can afford to toss $100 to a friend or intern to help you pack orders for a day or two while you work on other things.
If you do not have help, as I choose not to have (I like quality checking each print as I pack them, something I don't want someone else to do), it will take you a little longer to ship things so try and keep customers abreast of your shipping timelines and possible conflicting work schedule so they don't start worrying their order is lost in transit or stolen off their front porch. And remember, mostly people are just psyched to get your art, so they are eager to get it and any email they send asking "where is my order" is often coming from a place of excitement and anticipation (or they flipped it on ebay before they got it and they are getting emailed from the ebay buyer saying "where's my poster?!?!").
hope that helps to any future PJ / gig poster artists out there... for future PJ poster artists... PJ poster fans are very passionate about posters and the band... if you try and take care of them, they will take care of you. There are a few bad apples out there, but such is the nature of all things in life, most are just really into collecting PJ posters and love it and the band, and it can be overwhelming if you are not used to or expecting their attention when it comes your way.
This is incredibly insightful. Very easy to forget the operations that artists need to run, and sometimes learn on the spot. I really hope that the commission numbers you mentioned are lower than the reality, but if they are I'll happily buy APs knowing it benefits artists exponentially more.
sad but true... and been that way since at least I started making posters, so from 2004/5 to 2022, I will still get people asking me to do a poster and offering like $300 for it... companies want quality work but don't want to pay for it (but this is true in most fields..or you get the ol "you are getting paid in exposure and this will look good in your portfolio and help you get other work in the future so you should be grateful for the opportunity to work for US"..but that happens too in other fields / professions), and/or have no clue how much time and energy it takes to make a whole piece for a gigposter and think it's something that happens super easily in a day or two. Like I said, not many take care of poster artists like PJ/Tsurt... think of the 2018 baseball stadium shows, each artist got like 200 prints and 100 variants to sell on their own... that's a very nice payment for an artist's time and energy, even if you can sell only half of them, let alone sell out... most bands / merch companies don't come close to trying to help artists profit like that.
it's part of the risk of doing gigposters...since we get paid in selling our own work, you only make money if people respond to the poster and want to buy it... the band and merch company will make some amount of money at the show... but you might not sell much...so it's a crap shoot. You just try and do good work and if people dig it they buy it and if they aren't feeling it, you just move on to the next one and try again.
As a fellow artist who sells small amounts of photographs through Etsy and such (maybe 10 a week) I will say she has the classic “artist who can’t run a business” traits. Her work is solid, but I’m betting she has never had a large order to deal with. She’s not prepared mentally or supply capacities to play in this league. The first 150 piece order I had produced a very small profit. I was way unprepared for how much time and money it would cost to deliver. I had to put other projects on hold and eat some costs I didn’t pass to the client. Lessons learned. Unfortunately she is not ready for this type of transaction.
It's kinda sad to watch. Knowing what we know now we could have given her advice like @ryanphishes had thought to give. For a gig poster destined to sell out, she had all the time in the world to acquire proper tubes, craft paper, actually sign-and-number the prints, and package them in tubes before she listed them for sale. Printing shipping labels and having them picked up for delivery would have been a breeze. But judging by her initial lack of communication, followed by utterly poor (public) communication, she's missing some business skills in addition to being inexperienced in project planning/management.
We should start a tips for artists new to shipping posters to poster collectors:
damage by a shipping company is going to happen and you need to plan accordingly:
Yes, it sucks that once the tube leaves your hands, postal carriers can be careless and damage the products you are shipping.
Either charge customers and pay for insurance on all tubes you ship out, or do as Justin Hampton told me when I started, and set aside X amount to have as replacements for some percentage of shipping damage. You can either spend money paying for shipping insurance on all orders, or have to spend potentially less money giving away a few replacements. The better you pack the poster, the less replacements you will need to send out and eat money on (which you not only lose money losing a piece of inventory you could sell, but then paying to ship the replacement as well...so packing is important and saves you money in the long run, even if you have to spend a little more for better quality tubes.)
To help avoid having to send replacements and lose money on those, you need thicker walled tubes, and wider mouthed tubes... the wider the tube, the less potential for creases being cause when rolling the poster to go in the tube. The tubes I use have a 4 inch diameter. But know, even with thicker walled tubes, some will still get crushed or smashed or driven over or lord knows what happens to them sometimes.
You need to use some sort of paper in between the poster and the tube. The paper I use and many use is standard 24" x 36" newsprint paper you can buy in bulk reams of 500 sheets.
You need to use tubes with a length longer then 24 inches for poster that are 24 inches, and you need to make sure when you put the poster in the tube, wrapped in newsprint, that it does not slide around in the tube. I usually try and test each tube while I pack them, and lightly move the tube from side to side to see if the poster/paper moves around and will hit the end caps in transit. If it does move inside the tube, you need to try and stop that from happening. Often times an easy solution is once the poster is in the tube, see if you can't slightly pull the rolled paper (the way a Chinese yo yo elongates out) a little and this can cause the whole roll to press against the walls of the tube and keep it stationary and not sliding around inside.
If your poster is printed on a special stock of paper, say black paper or a more kraft paper, from my experience those papers slide around more inside tubes (Atlantic City, black paper, oversized poster, many were damaged in transit... 2018 Seattle / Boston, tan/kraft paper, smaller size, more arrived damaged than normal though there were more mailed out than normal).
Always keep in mind... you are selling a limited edition collectible paper good to collectors... dings, dents, and creases matter and are important. Some collectors are okay with minor damage that they know will frame out... but not every poster is going into a frame, some are going into collections. So as with other paper collectibles, like comic books or baseball cards, a minor dented corner effects the value of the item you are selling to collectors. Some don't care about this. Some collectors are very picky about this... and if they spend $60-200 on a limited edition paper collectible, and they purchase it as a "new" or "mint" product, it should arrive in mint condition. If it does not, it is the artist's responsibility to make sure the customer gets what they paid for...even if a postal carrier is responsible for the damage.
If a customers emails and says their poster arrived damaged.. ask to see photos of the damage so you can be certain they are not lying trying to get another poster for free. If you want you can have them send you back the damaged poster, or you can tell them to destroy it or keep it, it is up to each artist how they want to handle the damaged print. If you are out of replacements, offer a refund. I tend to offer a full refund, even if the damage is minimal and barely noticeable... the customer did not get what they ordered and are displeased, so instead of haggling over partial refunds, I tend to just refund the whole order, shipping and all.
For artists new to the Pearl Jam world..... PJ fans are avid poster collectors. If you do a poster for PJ / Eddie Vedder, expect a lot of traffic to your site the day of the sale. Expect your poster to sell out potentially in seconds. Expect that your site might fail during the sale due to lots of traffic all trying to buy the same thing at once. Expect an influx of emails from eager, and sometimes overly eager, and sometimes aggressive fans who may be angry with you because they were unable to get a copy of the poster, due to it selling out in seconds or issues with your site failing or them having a slower internet connection then others. Expect that a percentage of those buyers are buying specifically to flip the poster on Ebay to make a small profit for themselves and to use tactics to try and get more than one poster. Expect that some percentage of buyers are flippers who will profit off your hard work and there's not too much you can do to stop that. Expect that some of your artist copies will end up on Ebay even before you have shipped them.
And to any artists new to the world of gigposters.... you will almost never get paid a commission to make a poster for a band. If you do get paid a commission or fee, expect it to be insultingly low, like $200-300 for weeks of your time and energy. This is why most poster artist figured out a long time ago instead of getting paid $200, why not just have the merchandise company pay for $200-300 worth of more prints they can give to you as your payment that you can sell on your own for what ever price you choose... so say you get 100 posters and charge $90 and sell out... your commission is $9000 instead of $300.... not bad right? And Pearl Jam / Tsurt takes care of posters artists better then most bands / merchandise companies..so don't always expect you will get 100 posters as payment... some companies will give you 25-50.
If you are a one person operation, like I am... dealing with orders is a time suck. It takes days to process the orders, to print the packing slips, the postage labels, to sign and number all prints, and to handle customer service emails (especially if your site fails and you over sell and have to process refunds or some wonky weird thing happens with all the orders due to your site / store failing). It will take time away from your other responsibilities as an artist, it will take time away from you working on new art, and packing orders is boring and not creative and not all that fun...but put on music or a tv show or podcast and remind yourself, while this is not fun and you should be creating, you are getting paid to pack and ship your art to people who wanted your art and sent you money for it, and your job could be way worse, so smile and revel in being a professional artist who is now shipping off your art all over the world. If taking time out of your schedule to pack orders is not something you can handle alone, ask for help from friends or pay a friend or intern for a day to help you pack orders... if you are packing orders for a sold out PJ poster, you probably made out pretty well financially from that sale and can afford to toss $100 to a friend or intern to help you pack orders for a day or two while you work on other things.
If you do not have help, as I choose not to have (I like quality checking each print as I pack them, something I don't want someone else to do), it will take you a little longer to ship things so try and keep customers abreast of your shipping timelines and possible conflicting work schedule so they don't start worrying their order is lost in transit or stolen off their front porch. And remember, mostly people are just psyched to get your art, so they are eager to get it and any email they send asking "where is my order" is often coming from a place of excitement and anticipation (or they flipped it on ebay before they got it and they are getting emailed from the ebay buyer saying "where's my poster?!?!").
hope that helps to any future PJ / gig poster artists out there... for future PJ poster artists... PJ poster fans are very passionate about posters and the band... if you try and take care of them, they will take care of you. There are a few bad apples out there, but such is the nature of all things in life, most are just really into collecting PJ posters and love it and the band, and it can be overwhelming if you are not used to or expecting their attention when it comes your way.
This is incredibly insightful. Very easy to forget the operations that artists need to run, and sometimes learn on the spot. I really hope that the commission numbers you mentioned are lower than the reality, but if they are I'll happily buy APs knowing it benefits artists exponentially more.
sad but true... and been that way since at least I started making posters, so from 2004/5 to 2022, I will still get people asking me to do a poster and offering like $300 for it... companies want quality work but don't want to pay for it (but this is true in most fields..or you get the ol "you are getting paid in exposure and this will look good in your portfolio and help you get other work in the future so you should be grateful for the opportunity to work for US"..but that happens too in other fields / professions), and/or have no clue how much time and energy it takes to make a whole piece for a gigposter and think it's something that happens super easily in a day or two. Like I said, not many take care of poster artists like PJ/Tsurt... think of the 2018 baseball stadium shows, each artist got like 200 prints and 100 variants to sell on their own... that's a very nice payment for an artist's time and energy, even if you can sell only half of them, let alone sell out... most bands / merch companies don't come close to trying to help artists profit like that.
it's part of the risk of doing gigposters...since we get paid in selling our own work, you only make money if people respond to the poster and want to buy it... the band and merch company will make some amount of money at the show... but you might not sell much...so it's a crap shoot. You just try and do good work and if people dig it they buy it and if they aren't feeling it, you just move on to the next one and try again.
Thanks for the info. I find the whole process fascinating.
PJ - 09/23/98: West Palm Beach II, 08/12/00: Tampa, 04/12/03: Orlando, 04/13/03: Tampa, 06/12/08: Tampa, 06/27/08: Hartford, 09/22/09: Seattle II, 04/11/16: Tampa, 05/01 &05/02/16: MSG I & II, 09/18/21: Sea Hear Now, 10/01& 10/02/21: Ohana Encore I & II, 05/06 & 05/07/22: Los Angeles I & II, 09/11/22: MSG, 09/16/22: Nashville, 09/02/23: St. Paul II, 09/07/23: Chicago II, 09/18& 09/19/23: Austin I & II, 05/16& 05/18/24: Las Vegas I & II, 08/29& 08/31/24: Wrigley Field I & II, 09/03& 09/04/24: MSG I & II, 09/27& 09/29/24: Ohana Festival I & II
EV - 08/04 & 08/05/08: (Eddie solo, w/Liam Finn) NYC I & II, 11/27 & 11/28/12: (Eddie solo, w/Glen Hansard) Orlando I & II, 02/09 & 02/10/22: (Eddie & the Earthlings) Chicago I & II, 09/30/23: (Eddie & the Earthlings) Ohana Festival
Song Wishlist: Oceans, Brother, Alone, Let Me Sleep, full W.M.A., Hold On, Bugs/all of Vitalogy, Gremmie Out Of Control (BAM!), Mankind, Around The Bend (full band), Whale Song (DOUBLE BAM!), The Long Road, Don't Gimme No Lip, Pilate, Push Me Pull Me, All Those Yesterdays, Rival, Parting Ways, Ghost, Bu$hleaguer, WWS, Parachutes, Army Reserve, low octave Driftin', Strangest Tribe, Other Side, Undone, Fatal, Hitchhiker, Education, Black Red Yellow, Of the Earth, Love Reign O'er Me, Gonna See My Friend, Amongst the Waves, Santa Cruz, Infallible, Yellow Moon, Alright, Comes Then Goes, Got to Give, and the Mamasan Trilogy.
Wanted Posters: WPB '98, Tampa/WPB '00, Tampa '03, EV Batmobile '08 ISO: any picks, or setlists from any of my shows!
One of these days I'll track down an affordable Ed Batmobile from '08 was too busy getting to my seat!
PJ - 09/23/98: West Palm Beach II, 08/12/00: Tampa, 04/12/03: Orlando, 04/13/03: Tampa, 06/12/08: Tampa, 06/27/08: Hartford, 09/22/09: Seattle II, 04/11/16: Tampa, 05/01 &05/02/16: MSG I & II, 09/18/21: Sea Hear Now, 10/01& 10/02/21: Ohana Encore I & II, 05/06 & 05/07/22: Los Angeles I & II, 09/11/22: MSG, 09/16/22: Nashville, 09/02/23: St. Paul II, 09/07/23: Chicago II, 09/18& 09/19/23: Austin I & II, 05/16& 05/18/24: Las Vegas I & II, 08/29& 08/31/24: Wrigley Field I & II, 09/03& 09/04/24: MSG I & II, 09/27& 09/29/24: Ohana Festival I & II
EV - 08/04 & 08/05/08: (Eddie solo, w/Liam Finn) NYC I & II, 11/27 & 11/28/12: (Eddie solo, w/Glen Hansard) Orlando I & II, 02/09 & 02/10/22: (Eddie & the Earthlings) Chicago I & II, 09/30/23: (Eddie & the Earthlings) Ohana Festival
Song Wishlist: Oceans, Brother, Alone, Let Me Sleep, full W.M.A., Hold On, Bugs/all of Vitalogy, Gremmie Out Of Control (BAM!), Mankind, Around The Bend (full band), Whale Song (DOUBLE BAM!), The Long Road, Don't Gimme No Lip, Pilate, Push Me Pull Me, All Those Yesterdays, Rival, Parting Ways, Ghost, Bu$hleaguer, WWS, Parachutes, Army Reserve, low octave Driftin', Strangest Tribe, Other Side, Undone, Fatal, Hitchhiker, Education, Black Red Yellow, Of the Earth, Love Reign O'er Me, Gonna See My Friend, Amongst the Waves, Santa Cruz, Infallible, Yellow Moon, Alright, Comes Then Goes, Got to Give, and the Mamasan Trilogy.
Wanted Posters: WPB '98, Tampa/WPB '00, Tampa '03, EV Batmobile '08 ISO: any picks, or setlists from any of my shows!
One of these days I'll track down an affordable Ed Batmobile from '08 was too busy getting to my seat!
I broke down and bought mine off Ninersfan on eBay back in the day.
I love it, but I don't/can't $400 love it :#
PJ - 09/23/98: West Palm Beach II, 08/12/00: Tampa, 04/12/03: Orlando, 04/13/03: Tampa, 06/12/08: Tampa, 06/27/08: Hartford, 09/22/09: Seattle II, 04/11/16: Tampa, 05/01 &05/02/16: MSG I & II, 09/18/21: Sea Hear Now, 10/01& 10/02/21: Ohana Encore I & II, 05/06 & 05/07/22: Los Angeles I & II, 09/11/22: MSG, 09/16/22: Nashville, 09/02/23: St. Paul II, 09/07/23: Chicago II, 09/18& 09/19/23: Austin I & II, 05/16& 05/18/24: Las Vegas I & II, 08/29& 08/31/24: Wrigley Field I & II, 09/03& 09/04/24: MSG I & II, 09/27& 09/29/24: Ohana Festival I & II
EV - 08/04 & 08/05/08: (Eddie solo, w/Liam Finn) NYC I & II, 11/27 & 11/28/12: (Eddie solo, w/Glen Hansard) Orlando I & II, 02/09 & 02/10/22: (Eddie & the Earthlings) Chicago I & II, 09/30/23: (Eddie & the Earthlings) Ohana Festival
Song Wishlist: Oceans, Brother, Alone, Let Me Sleep, full W.M.A., Hold On, Bugs/all of Vitalogy, Gremmie Out Of Control (BAM!), Mankind, Around The Bend (full band), Whale Song (DOUBLE BAM!), The Long Road, Don't Gimme No Lip, Pilate, Push Me Pull Me, All Those Yesterdays, Rival, Parting Ways, Ghost, Bu$hleaguer, WWS, Parachutes, Army Reserve, low octave Driftin', Strangest Tribe, Other Side, Undone, Fatal, Hitchhiker, Education, Black Red Yellow, Of the Earth, Love Reign O'er Me, Gonna See My Friend, Amongst the Waves, Santa Cruz, Infallible, Yellow Moon, Alright, Comes Then Goes, Got to Give, and the Mamasan Trilogy.
Wanted Posters: WPB '98, Tampa/WPB '00, Tampa '03, EV Batmobile '08 ISO: any picks, or setlists from any of my shows!
Where are all these replacement copies coming from?
I was wondering the same thing. Just when we think this story can't get any crazier, if it comes out she is "bootlegging" her own posters to replace the originals, this might be the one of the greatest threads on this board of all time.
One of these days I'll track down an affordable Ed Batmobile from '08 was too busy getting to my seat!
I broke down and bought mine off Ninersfan on eBay back in the day.
Was the enigma of Ninersfan ever confronted? Was he on expressobeans? On FB? Are they still around?
No idea... just that mythical phone video of him at MSG with armfuls of merch. Like some kind of Pearl Jam Zapruder film we dissected that thing endlessly at the time.
1996: Randall's Island 2 1998: East Rutherford | MSG 1 & 2 2000: Cincinnati | Columbus | Jones Beach 1, 2, & 3 | Boston 1 | Camden 1 & 2 2003: Philadelphia | Uniondale | MSG 1 & 2 | Holmdel 2005: Atlantic City 1 2006: Camden 1 | East Rutherford 1 & 2 2008: Camden 1 & 2 | MSG 1 & 2 | Newark (EV) 2009: Philadelphia 1, 2 & 4 2010: Newark | MSG 1 & 2 2011: Toronto 1 2013: Wrigley Field | Brooklyn 2 | Philadelphia 1 & 2 | Baltimore 2015: Central Park 2016: Philadelphia 1 & 2 | MSG 1 & 2 | Fenway Park 2 | MSG (TOTD) 2017: Brooklyn (RnR HOF) 2020: MSG | Asbury Park2021: Asbury Park 2022: MSG | Camden | Nashville 2024: MSG 1 & 2 (#50) | Philadelphia 1 & 2 | Baltimore
Comments
9/02/18 Boston, 9/04/18 Boston, 9/11/22 New York, 9/16/22 Nashville, 9/22/22 Denver, 8/31/23, St. Paul, 9/2/23 St. Paul, 9/18/23 Austin, 9/19/23 Austin
Looks like a treasure map. Check it out for invisible ink
Nicole responded to my email within 5 mins and is going to send a replacement copy.
Probably Kinkos.
Damn!!
damage by a shipping company is going to happen and you need to plan accordingly:
Yes, it sucks that once the tube leaves your hands, postal carriers can be careless and damage the products you are shipping.
Either charge customers and pay for insurance on all tubes you ship out, or do as Justin Hampton told me when I started, and set aside X amount to have as replacements for some percentage of shipping damage. You can either spend money paying for shipping insurance on all orders, or have to spend potentially less money giving away a few replacements. The better you pack the poster, the less replacements you will need to send out and eat money on (which you not only lose money losing a piece of inventory you could sell, but then paying to ship the replacement as well...so packing is important and saves you money in the long run, even if you have to spend a little more for better quality tubes.)
To help avoid having to send replacements and lose money on those, you need thicker walled tubes, and wider mouthed tubes... the wider the tube, the less potential for creases being cause when rolling the poster to go in the tube. The tubes I use have a 4 inch diameter. But know, even with thicker walled tubes, some will still get crushed or smashed or driven over or lord knows what happens to them sometimes.
You need to use some sort of paper in between the poster and the tube. The paper I use and many use is standard 24" x 36" newsprint paper you can buy in bulk reams of 500 sheets.
You need to use tubes with a length longer then 24 inches for poster that are 24 inches, and you need to make sure when you put the poster in the tube, wrapped in newsprint, that it does not slide around in the tube. I usually try and test each tube while I pack them, and lightly move the tube from side to side to see if the poster/paper moves around and will hit the end caps in transit. If it does move inside the tube, you need to try and stop that from happening. Often times an easy solution is once the poster is in the tube, see if you can't slightly pull the rolled paper (the way a Chinese yo yo elongates out) a little and this can cause the whole roll to press against the walls of the tube and keep it stationary and not sliding around inside.
If your poster is printed on a special stock of paper, say black paper or a more kraft paper, from my experience those papers slide around more inside tubes (Atlantic City, black paper, oversized poster, many were damaged in transit... 2018 Seattle / Boston, tan/kraft paper, smaller size, more arrived damaged than normal though there were more mailed out than normal).
Always keep in mind... you are selling a limited edition collectible paper good to collectors... dings, dents, and creases matter and are important. Some collectors are okay with minor damage that they know will frame out... but not every poster is going into a frame, some are going into collections. So as with other paper collectibles, like comic books or baseball cards, a minor dented corner effects the value of the item you are selling to collectors. Some don't care about this. Some collectors are very picky about this... and if they spend $60-200 on a limited edition paper collectible, and they purchase it as a "new" or "mint" product, it should arrive in mint condition. If it does not, it is the artist's responsibility to make sure the customer gets what they paid for...even if a postal carrier is responsible for the damage.
If a customers emails and says their poster arrived damaged.. ask to see photos of the damage so you can be certain they are not lying trying to get another poster for free. If you want you can have them send you back the damaged poster, or you can tell them to destroy it or keep it, it is up to each artist how they want to handle the damaged print. If you are out of replacements, offer a refund. I tend to offer a full refund, even if the damage is minimal and barely noticeable... the customer did not get what they ordered and are displeased, so instead of haggling over partial refunds, I tend to just refund the whole order, shipping and all.
For artists new to the Pearl Jam world..... PJ fans are avid poster collectors. If you do a poster for PJ / Eddie Vedder, expect a lot of traffic to your site the day of the sale. Expect your poster to sell out potentially in seconds. Expect that your site might fail during the sale due to lots of traffic all trying to buy the same thing at once. Expect an influx of emails from eager, and sometimes overly eager, and sometimes aggressive fans who may be angry with you because they were unable to get a copy of the poster, due to it selling out in seconds or issues with your site failing or them having a slower internet connection then others. Expect that a percentage of those buyers are buying specifically to flip the poster on Ebay to make a small profit for themselves and to use tactics to try and get more than one poster. Expect that some percentage of buyers are flippers who will profit off your hard work and there's not too much you can do to stop that. Expect that some of your artist copies will end up on Ebay even before you have shipped them.
And to any artists new to the world of gigposters.... you will almost never get paid a commission to make a poster for a band. If you do get paid a commission or fee, expect it to be insultingly low, like $200-300 for weeks of your time and energy. This is why most poster artist figured out a long time ago instead of getting paid $200, why not just have the merchandise company pay for $200-300 worth of more prints they can give to you as your payment that you can sell on your own for what ever price you choose... so say you get 100 posters and charge $90 and sell out... your commission is $9000 instead of $300.... not bad right? And Pearl Jam / Tsurt takes care of posters artists better then most bands / merchandise companies..so don't always expect you will get 100 posters as payment... some companies will give you 25-50.
If you are a one person operation, like I am... dealing with orders is a time suck. It takes days to process the orders, to print the packing slips, the postage labels, to sign and number all prints, and to handle customer service emails (especially if your site fails and you over sell and have to process refunds or some wonky weird thing happens with all the orders due to your site / store failing). It will take time away from your other responsibilities as an artist, it will take time away from you working on new art, and packing orders is boring and not creative and not all that fun...but put on music or a tv show or podcast and remind yourself, while this is not fun and you should be creating, you are getting paid to pack and ship your art to people who wanted your art and sent you money for it, and your job could be way worse, so smile and revel in being a professional artist who is now shipping off your art all over the world. If taking time out of your schedule to pack orders is not something you can handle alone, ask for help from friends or pay a friend or intern for a day to help you pack orders... if you are packing orders for a sold out PJ poster, you probably made out pretty well financially from that sale and can afford to toss $100 to a friend or intern to help you pack orders for a day or two while you work on other things.
If you do not have help, as I choose not to have (I like quality checking each print as I pack them, something I don't want someone else to do), it will take you a little longer to ship things so try and keep customers abreast of your shipping timelines and possible conflicting work schedule so they don't start worrying their order is lost in transit or stolen off their front porch. And remember, mostly people are just psyched to get your art, so they are eager to get it and any email they send asking "where is my order" is often coming from a place of excitement and anticipation (or they flipped it on ebay before they got it and they are getting emailed from the ebay buyer saying "where's my poster?!?!").
hope that helps to any future PJ / gig poster artists out there... for future PJ poster artists... PJ poster fans are very passionate about posters and the band... if you try and take care of them, they will take care of you. There are a few bad apples out there, but such is the nature of all things in life, most are just really into collecting PJ posters and love it and the band, and it can be overwhelming if you are not used to or expecting their attention when it comes your way.
tsurt I would assume would be best
Cincinnati 2014
Greenville 2016
(Raleigh 2016)
Columbia 2016
so cool to read. And I imagine as artists and fans both recognize that there’s a want for even more different paper stocks (foil, etc) that even more precautions and paranoia comes into play.
it's part of the risk of doing gigposters...since we get paid in selling our own work, you only make money if people respond to the poster and want to buy it... the band and merch company will make some amount of money at the show... but you might not sell much...so it's a crap shoot. You just try and do good work and if people dig it they buy it and if they aren't feeling it, you just move on to the next one and try again.
Song Wishlist: Oceans, Brother, Alone, Let Me Sleep, full W.M.A., Hold On, Bugs/all of Vitalogy, Gremmie Out Of Control (BAM!), Mankind, Around The Bend (full band), Whale Song (DOUBLE BAM!), The Long Road, Don't Gimme No Lip, Pilate, Push Me Pull Me, All Those Yesterdays, Rival, Parting Ways, Ghost, Bu$hleaguer, WWS, Parachutes, Army Reserve, low octave Driftin', Strangest Tribe, Other Side, Undone, Fatal, Hitchhiker, Education, Black Red Yellow, Of the Earth, Love Reign O'er Me, Gonna See My Friend, Amongst the Waves, Santa Cruz, Infallible, Yellow Moon, Alright, Comes Then Goes, Got to Give, and the Mamasan Trilogy.
Song Wishlist: Oceans, Brother, Alone, Let Me Sleep, full W.M.A., Hold On, Bugs/all of Vitalogy, Gremmie Out Of Control (BAM!), Mankind, Around The Bend (full band), Whale Song (DOUBLE BAM!), The Long Road, Don't Gimme No Lip, Pilate, Push Me Pull Me, All Those Yesterdays, Rival, Parting Ways, Ghost, Bu$hleaguer, WWS, Parachutes, Army Reserve, low octave Driftin', Strangest Tribe, Other Side, Undone, Fatal, Hitchhiker, Education, Black Red Yellow, Of the Earth, Love Reign O'er Me, Gonna See My Friend, Amongst the Waves, Santa Cruz, Infallible, Yellow Moon, Alright, Comes Then Goes, Got to Give, and the Mamasan Trilogy.
Song Wishlist: Oceans, Brother, Alone, Let Me Sleep, full W.M.A., Hold On, Bugs/all of Vitalogy, Gremmie Out Of Control (BAM!), Mankind, Around The Bend (full band), Whale Song (DOUBLE BAM!), The Long Road, Don't Gimme No Lip, Pilate, Push Me Pull Me, All Those Yesterdays, Rival, Parting Ways, Ghost, Bu$hleaguer, WWS, Parachutes, Army Reserve, low octave Driftin', Strangest Tribe, Other Side, Undone, Fatal, Hitchhiker, Education, Black Red Yellow, Of the Earth, Love Reign O'er Me, Gonna See My Friend, Amongst the Waves, Santa Cruz, Infallible, Yellow Moon, Alright, Comes Then Goes, Got to Give, and the Mamasan Trilogy.
astoria 06
albany 06
hartford 06
reading 06
barcelona 06
paris 06
wembley 07
dusseldorf 07
nijmegen 07
this song is meant to be called i got shit,itshould be called i got shit tickets-hartford 06 -
No idea... just that mythical phone video of him at MSG with armfuls of merch. Like some kind of Pearl Jam Zapruder film we dissected that thing endlessly at the time.