Originally Posted by
theimage13
Look, time for some roadie talk.
Venues usually provide the staff for the merch, and generally speaking, the hardware for displays as well. So the venue is providing equipment, plus personnel to sort, count, set up, sell, and tear-down. You expect them to do that for free?
And as someone astutely pointed out, concerts are expensive to put on. Every bus and truck has massive fuel bills. Every person on staff needs to eat four meals a day on show days (breakfast, lunch, dinner, after show). And they also need hotel rooms on days without shows. You've also got dozens, if not 100+, local staff who are hired just to set up and tear down - often at union rates, which are insanely high in many places. That's not even counting security and other building staff. Example: Madison Square Garden. Most bands LOSE money playing there, even if the show is sold out, because it costs so much money to put on a show there.
And to wrap it all up, you have to think about scale. Larger bands can order larger quantities of merch and get pretty sizable discounts. Smaller bands often go with lower quality gear to save money. People seem to be thinking the APC stuff is higher quality, but they're not buying numbers like large stadium or arena pop artists are, so they're paying more for the stuff they're selling.
Moral of the story: everyone's gotta make money if they want to be successful on tour. So if you're bitching about the stuff being overpriced because you think they're being greedy, chances are you're really just inadvertently saying "I don't care if you guys can afford to keep touring".
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