What Will People Pay For?

So we had the show last week and it went great.  Tons of people there.  An amazing energy.  A bit of a buzz that seems to have trickled out to other places.  All in all, it couldn’t have gone better.

And yet.

We had a person at the show explicitly to sell stuff and to get email addresses.  He did a great job of the latter and not as well at the former.  And I saw him trying and getting the word out so I don’t think it was a personal failing.  I just think there is a gap these days in the music entertainment experience.  The gap between someone willing to take in the music and enjoy themselves and then the further gap between getting out their wallet and shelling out some dough for a CD or a poster or something else.

I have been scratching my head on how to close that gap and I can’t seem to come to any conclusion.  Theories, sure.  Here are a few:

1. You need to merchandise the product and if you don’t, you won’t sell it
Merchandising the product means thinking about how its displayed, how its presented, and, ultimately, how you’re marketing it.  So for the Rockwood show, sure we had a great guy talking about the posters. But there wasn’t a merch table and the room was crowded and there wasn’t a natural moment to take out the wallet and lay down some ducats for a poster or a CD.   Maybe this was the case.  But I’ve had shows with nicely developed merch stands and crystallizing that energy into getting people to shell out money still seems difficult.

2. You need options
There was this video I watched where the guy said you need two t-shirts for merch.  Not just one.  Because people need choices.  And if you give them discrete choices of a limited number then they will make them but if you are only selling a poster (for $20) and CDs that everyone can get for free on the internet then you’re not exactly maximizing your opportunity.  There’s probably merit to this argument.  And we’re going to make t-shirts.  But that’s an even bigger upfront investment for an uncertain return.  Oh well.  This thing is a not-for-profit until it’s not and we’ll figure it out.

3. You need to be creative with your merch
Maybe people are tired of t-shirts and posters and want something else.  Ian Rogers has his band doing an Uzi-shaped flash drive.  I’ve always thought of making matches.  I like the flash drive idea.  Something people can use.  Not sure though.  They’d still be expensive to make and the per-unit pricing on small quantities might still price them out of people’s price range.

4. Your prices are too high
$20 for a poster is too much.  Or, a related argument

5. If you want to charge a lot, you need to accept credit cards, because people don’t want to drop a ton of their going out cash on the spot. They need that for drinks.
This makes sense.  I hate accepting cash.  You have to carry around a wad of change and it never works out.  I’d much rather swipe a credit card.

6. You’re just not big enough yet.  When you are, the people will come.  Or, more to the point, you need different people at your shows.
This is certainly a possibility.   Maybe my shows are still mainly either a) all my friends or b) poor musicians that I’m friendly with.  When we have the real fans, they’ll shell out their wallets for my dingleberries if I sign them.  That’s probably a function of it too.

But honestly, I don’t know and I’m thinking about this a lot.

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