Merch Sales Up While CD Sales Down

[Sharifa]

A new article from the Canadian Press talks about the phenomenon of seeing music fans buying fewer CDs but more expensive tour merchandise. They say, "Some Bon Jovi fans haven't flinched at dropping US$750 for a tour jacket... With record sales down and music companies looking for ways to create new revenue streams, there are some novel - and increasingly expensive - items being sold alongside the traditional T-shirts and posters at concerts." Avril Lavigne is mentioned in the article as an artist who has mastered the art of diversifying her revenue streams under the management of Terry McBride at Nettwerk. The article also discusses why merch sales at an Avril Lavigne concert are much higher than those of other successful touring artists. Click here to find out why from "Music fans buying expensive concert merchandise but fewer CDs". This ties in directly with press that Avril's manager Terry is getting over saying that free music downloads ought to be treated by labels as advertising for their artists as a loss-leader for other ways to fund the industry (i.e. merch sales). Read more about that in Record Labels Need to Treat Downloads as Advertising.