If you follow the music industry at all, you’ll know the business in recent years has seen a monumental shift in the way bands and artists make their money. Music stores have vanished, sales of CDs and vinyl are now a drop in the bucket, and streaming services – despite their popularity – haven’t come close to making up the difference in revenue.
For many musicians, the answer to the problem was obvious: touring. But going on the road is exhausting, and touring has limitations in terms of audience reach and is expensive in its own right. There are only so many ticket buyers in a city, so many days in a year to play a show. And after the pandemic landed, playing venues in front of on-site audiences went away entirely. That won’t last forever, but concerns around COVID are sure to adversely affect the concert market for the near future.
In the meantime, bands have another, increasingly lucrative resource: merchandising. In addition to providing a pandemic-proof revenue stream that shows continued growth, merchandise sales haven’t yet been optimized. Many artists have a website (usually including a merch page), but they are rarely comprehensive or fully realized. To capitalize on swag-sales potential, musicians would do well to incorporate over-the-top video into their online media platform.
Think of an OTT-equipped website as an all-in-one fan shop. By offering a landing spot for anyone to fully engage their passion for an artist – complete with streamed live performances, behind-the-scenes footage, photos, news, tour dates, music, merchandise sales, and more – fans know precisely where to go to indulge all their wants and whims around a band. Meanwhile, an artist can advertise their swag, amplify their brand and stay connected with fans to offer special deals and VIP exclusives that keep them coming back.
InPlayer allows musicians and entertainers of all sorts to host virtual events. Not only does this help expand the footprint of live entertainment beyond theaters and arenas, but also provides these artists the opportunity to sell merchandise as indicated above. We have the technology and experience to deliver large or mid-sized events to a huge global audience and let your content shine. With integrated ticketing and livestreaming technologies, content providers can easily boost virtual engagement with full-featured livestreams across multiple devices and platforms.
This isn’t to suggest bands should exploit or go price-gouging their audience. Concert merch is expensive, and there are surely limits to how much the average fan will spend before being turned off by cost. But fans are already excited about swag. According to atVenu, merchandise sales outpaced artists’ music sales by a 9-to-1 ratio in 2019. T-shirts were the most-purchased items, and the cost of those shirts increased by $2 in that year alone. Data from atVenu’s year-in-review insights indicates merch sales grew over a three-year period leading up to 2019 – a trend that was consistent even across smaller-capacity venues.
OTT can help serve as outreach for a band, 24/7 and around-the-world advertising that far exceeds the limitations of the merchandise table in the dark corner of a concert venue. The highest-spending U.S. markets per ticket buyer, according to atVenu, are scattered across the country, from Sacramento to San Antonio and New York to Detroit. Why not create a platform that can reach all of them, all at once, at any given moment? A fan video depicting a musician wearing his own band’s tee – or maybe clips of other supportive artists wearing them – can do as much to sell swag as any other form of advertising.
For years, part of the novelty of attending a show had been browsing the band’s merch, buying a shirt or a hat to commemorate the moment, maybe scoring a pic with the drummer. And to be clear: that experience shouldn’t go away for those who want it. But no one wants to carry around an autographed poster or vinyl for three hours and hope it arrives home in one piece. OTT offers an off-site alternative. And because pre-show sales continue to grow in relation to after-show sales, according to atVenu, perhaps it’s only a small leap for many fans to shop online, then wear their gear to the show.
OTT doesn’t have to change the traditional concert experience for fans. But it can bring new wrinkles – better merchandise access, more variety and perhaps even more affordability – to fandom, while helping the artists we love stay solvent.
If you follow the music industry at all, you’ll know the business in recent years has seen a monumental shift in the way bands and artists make their money. Music stores have vanished, sales of CDs and vinyl are now a drop in the bucket, and streaming services – despite their popularity – haven’t come close to making up the difference in revenue.
For many musicians, the answer to the problem was obvious: touring. But going on the road is exhausting, and touring has limitations in terms of audience reach and is expensive in its own right. There are only so many ticket buyers in a city, so many days in a year to play a show. And after the pandemic landed, playing venues in front of on-site audiences went away entirely. That won’t last forever, but concerns around COVID are sure to adversely affect the concert market for the near future.
In the meantime, bands have another, increasingly lucrative resource: merchandising. In addition to providing a pandemic-proof revenue stream that shows continued growth, merchandise sales haven’t yet been optimized. Many artists have a website (usually including a merch page), but they are rarely comprehensive or fully realized. To capitalize on swag-sales potential, musicians would do well to incorporate over-the-top video into their online media platform.
Think of an OTT-equipped website as an all-in-one fan shop. By offering a landing spot for anyone to fully engage their passion for an artist – complete with streamed live performances, behind-the-scenes footage, photos, news, tour dates, music, merchandise sales, and more – fans know precisely where to go to indulge all their wants and whims around a band. Meanwhile, an artist can advertise their swag, amplify their brand and stay connected with fans to offer special deals and VIP exclusives that keep them coming back.
InPlayer allows musicians and entertainers of all sorts to host virtual events. Not only does this help expand the footprint of live entertainment beyond theaters and arenas, but also provides these artists the opportunity to sell merchandise as indicated above. We have the technology and experience to deliver large or mid-sized events to a huge global audience and let your content shine. With integrated ticketing and livestreaming technologies, content providers can easily boost virtual engagement with full-featured livestreams across multiple devices and platforms.
This isn’t to suggest bands should exploit or go price-gouging their audience. Concert merch is expensive, and there are surely limits to how much the average fan will spend before being turned off by cost. But fans are already excited about swag. According to atVenu, merchandise sales outpaced artists’ music sales by a 9-to-1 ratio in 2019. T-shirts were the most-purchased items, and the cost of those shirts increased by $2 in that year alone. Data from atVenu’s year-in-review insights indicates merch sales grew over a three-year period leading up to 2019 – a trend that was consistent even across smaller-capacity venues.
OTT can help serve as outreach for a band, 24/7 and around-the-world advertising that far exceeds the limitations of the merchandise table in the dark corner of a concert venue. The highest-spending U.S. markets per ticket buyer, according to atVenu, are scattered across the country, from Sacramento to San Antonio and New York to Detroit. Why not create a platform that can reach all of them, all at once, at any given moment? A fan video depicting a musician wearing his own band’s tee – or maybe clips of other supportive artists wearing them – can do as much to sell swag as any other form of advertising.
For years, part of the novelty of attending a show had been browsing the band’s merch, buying a shirt or a hat to commemorate the moment, maybe scoring a pic with the drummer. And to be clear: that experience shouldn’t go away for those who want it. But no one wants to carry around an autographed poster or vinyl for three hours and hope it arrives home in one piece. OTT offers an off-site alternative. And because pre-show sales continue to grow in relation to after-show sales, according to atVenu, perhaps it’s only a small leap for many fans to shop online, then wear their gear to the show.
OTT doesn’t have to change the traditional concert experience for fans. But it can bring new wrinkles – better merchandise access, more variety and perhaps even more affordability – to fandom, while helping the artists we love stay solvent.
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