Music Concerts

The rewards of creating music range from the deep satisfaction of writing a new song to the glowing pride of a successful performance. The emotions bolster our confidence, but do little to compensate for the financial investment ofttimes tied to making music. While selling your music via CDs and downloads is a nice start, you ought to also think about investing in band merchandise to  encourage  your band and cover the fee of instruments, rehearsal spaces, recording equipment and more.
In a Rolling Stone article (7/04), Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Carrabba spoke about the importance of merchandise: “Merch sales are what kept us going. Even now, we’re still not making our living from playing the shows. Merch is where  we  make our profit.” In that same story, John could er commented on merchandise sales and the current state of the recording industry: ” You’re not making that much resources off records anymore, so until people could figure out how to make a re-writable Hanes Beefy-T, merch is one of the last bastions of individuality, commerce and style that an musician has left.”
Echoing those sentiments, Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls related N Public Relations (1/17/07): “We make al most no resources off our recordings themselves.” To earn a steady income, N Public Relations interviewer Chris Arnold noted that “The Dresden Dolls could take in more than $1,000 a night selling merchandise, which makes the ‘merch table’ a major source of income why they’re on the road.”
While generating resources is the most obvious worth of band merchandise, the valuable impressions made from exposure to potential fans is just as vital. Arming your current fan base with a fashionable marketing tool will only advocate to  encourage  your band and raise your profile. To this end, musicians ought to take wonderful care in creating logos and images that accurately reflects their sound and image while appealing to consumers. For inspiration, turn to Threadless.com for a wide  range of arresting designs. If you don’t have the skills to establish the design, try cutting costs by recruiting a graphic arts student to handle the project for you.
Once the best design is approved, identify the medium that will give you the most important return. A quick Google search found a wealth of organizations dedicated to meeting the merchandise needs of independent musician s. Here are just a few of the deals out there: 100 printed t shirts for $405 at WeNeedMerch.com,
500 1″ buttons for $100 at BusyBeaver.net, 250 5.5″ x 1.42″ stickers for $25 at StickerGuy.com and 100 posters for $175 at BandWear.com.
Selling your band merchandise can be done at live shows or Internet via your Web site. Create links at social music web sites prefer Echoboost.com to draw more traffic and use gain payment services, such as PayPal, to handle the monetary transactions. Email fan venue members when new products become available and try offer ing special packages, bundling your CDs or downloads with t shirts, buttons and/or stickers to drive sales and spread the word about your music.
You ought to n’t let costs drain your passion for music. Put your music to work for you with your own merchandise and keep making the music you love.