Originally Posted by
Damage
I don't work for NIN or their Merch company, so I don't pretend to actually know the answers to your questions ... just chipping my two scents in as an experienced Touring Merchandise Professional.
Someone at the merch company factors:
1) What is the venue capacity. 500 people or 50,000 people? As you can imagine they might print a little bit more for a bigger capacity venue but always keep in mind that printing venue specific merchandise is a gamble. They don't want to over print and be stuck with 72 Small Nebraska Event tees that no other market will want after the fact. The goal is to make the hardcore fans happy and sell out.
2) Is this a "proven Big" market? Again, good markets will probably get a few more vs "leaner" markets.
3) How many booths does this venue have? While not a game changer when ordering to print, this IS important when doing the distribution to the different booths. Note: Usually distribution is left up to the person who manages the venue as they know which stands do the better sales.
If had to guess the print run for the Dated event tour tee for an 2,000 Capacity show average i'd guess:
36 Small (Why so little, hardly anyone buys smalls, also women have option to purchase the women's tanks and tees anyway)
60 Medium
72 Large (Large and X-large is the bulk of what most people will buy, these numbers are conservative, also 72 tees usually fit in a normal box without overstuff)
72 Xlarge
60 XX large
Again I don't pretend to know or work for the band or any of the venues the shows have landed at so this is all guess work to give you an idea of what is going on.
"""Then THAT begs the question, though - what about the venues with two merch booths?"""
That depends. Do both stands do about the same business on average? Or is one locations better then the other one? If both do the same you split it in half. If one location has historically done better then another location ... well then the busier stand gets more stock. Size of a booth can also be a factor. A bigger booth will squeeze the whole product line where a small booth might only get the mail tour tees, event tees and a few other items just depends.
"""How are those low-quantity items split? At Red Rocks, the guy working one booth told me that they never even had foil posters that night, those were just all kept at the other booth. No signs to indicate it, no nothing. Just had to walk from one to the other and look before choosing a line.""""
I know exactly what you're talking about as i was at those Red Rock Shows. As far as I could tell, the upstairs merch booth didn't get any foil posters ... again speculation as I was at the downstairs booth to begin with then walked upstairs to get food and drinks and saw that there was a merch booth upstairs as well - but saw no sign of Foil posters or any signage advertising it or an empty spot where it used to hang. So i deducted that that booth did not get any foil posters.
They probably didn't get any because if you look at both stands the downstairs stand was bigger, had more room to display essentially and item that was going to sell out despite the price point. There were only 30 foil posters so "why make room for it at both stands" when the bigger busier stand could get rid of all of them in the span of less then 30 mins.
Sure they could have been fair and had them upstairs as well but I can see their logic in placing them all in one stand. Sucks. Specially for everyone going early hoping to get one and ending up at the "wrong" booth to no fault of their own. But what can you do? If the print run was higher ... 100 foil posters, maybe they would have spilt them 60 / 40 or something like that?
""""So there’s a chance that you may wait in line for 15-45 minutes, or more, or miss one of the bands, just to find out “Sorry Mario, your princess is in the other castle.”""
That's funny! Come to think of it i felt like Mario jumping to grab the flag when i was successful getting the posters! lol
""""Unfortunately, early bird gets the worm.""""
Let me share a story from Red Rocks.
Night One. I was 30-45 in line for night one, waiting in the downstairs line. Got in and despite being 45 in line or so, I got both version easy. I saw that they still had plenty of foil after my purchase ... did everyone in front of me not like that nights design? Not everyone was buying the foil? Too expensive? Who knows it just worked out that way. Hell everyone in front of me at merch didn't even go for that nights event tour tee. It's just hard to predict what people will do or buy.
Night two. Got there a little earlier then the previous night and I'm 15th in line. Guaranteed foil poster right? So when the time comes they let us up to the gates ... from the gates we can see a few venue staff getting a little pre crowd shopping. No worries. Only one or two got the posters that still leaves ... 28 or 26 or so foils right. I'm 15th should be no problem.
Then we notice more and more people coming to the merch booth ... we frantically realize that the other side has opened earlier then our side and we start yelling at security to let us in. They look at their clocks ... and finally let us in.
I was 15th in line and barely got the second to last Red Rock Foil poster ... and only because the person in front of me (there was a credit card issue) told the merch person to quickly help me while their issue was being resolved - had he taken up the attendants time i'm certain I would have missed out on the foil version).
Moral of the story. Sometimes you get lucky ... You just never know.
"""And it really, REALLY sucks that we have to do go out of our ways to do it that way because other people are cunts trying to take advantage of an artist’s fanbase for money."""
Yup but what can you do?
"""It all just seems to be handled very loosely, and I wish something would be done about it. Even a one or two poster limit, anything."""
I attended all 3 Pre Europe Vegas shows (1 merch booth at that venue) and both Red Rocks shows (2 booths) and both venues had a strictly 1 poster per person policy.
Meaning you could get only get ONE of EACH poster being offered (Both events had 3 posters sold in total. The Event Poster, Event Foil and a generic Tour poster) - but not multiples of the same version of a poster. So you could NOT get two foils or Two regulars if you wanted two, but you could buy a regular and a foil if possible.
Not sure if this has been the policy the whole tour. The touring merchandiser may or may not say something to the venue about doing only one poster per person ... but then it's up to the venue to remember and follow those rules.
Here's where it gets tricky. If you have a seated venue, It's fine you can make a run for the merch booth get your stuff then casually get to your seat and enjoy. BUT where it gets tricky is if it's a general admission venue ... what do you do? Do you hit up merch first then get whatever spot you want? Or try to get rail or the best spot you can and then hope for the merch afterwards?
If you're with someone perhaps you can divide and conquer? But what if you're by yourself ...