The merch table
How does merch work on tour?
On tour, merch is stock that is printed and paid for before the first show, carried from city to city, sold by people at a table, and settled with the venue every night. The venue’s fee comes out before anything else, so what a table sells and what it keeps are different numbers.
One night, in five steps
A merch table is a shop that opens for one evening and then moves to another city. Everything on it was printed weeks earlier. Nothing can be made on the night, so what is not in the room cannot be sold, and what is not sold has to be carried on.
Every show follows the same order. The terms are agreed before the tour arrives, the stock is counted before the doors open and again after the show, and the money is divided that night.
- Before the dayAdvance
The tour and the venue agree the split, the local tax rate and who keeps the tax.
- Before doorsCount in
Every item is counted into the venue, size by size.
- Doors to closeSell
The table is restocked from the truck or the trailer as sizes run low.
- After the showCount out
What is left is counted. What came in, less what is left, is what was sold.
- The same nightSettle
The venue’s share is worked out from the count, and paid.
Third-party estimateA touring manager’s guide to merchandise. · Source: Tour Manager Info, Band Merchandise · checked
Hall fees come off the top
Many venues keep a share of what the table sells. It is called a hall fee, a venue cut, a merch cut or a commission, and it is the same thing under each name. The rate is agreed when the show is advanced, and it is written into the deal for the show. It is typically set separately for clothing and for recorded music.
Third-party estimateSource: Tour Manager Info, Band Merchandise · checked
The fee is not taken from everything the table took. atVenu, which makes settlement software for merch tables, takes it from the adjusted gross: total sales, less card fees, less taxes, less anything agreed off the top. So a 20% fee is 20% of a smaller number than the gross.
Filed or disclosedSource: atVenu help, What is a Venue Cut?, atVenu help, What is Adjusted Gross? · checked
There is no standard rate. A guide to merchandise deals puts the fee at around 25 to 30% of sales where the venue supplies the sellers. A survey of venue policies published in January 2026 gives a range from about 10% up to 25 to 30% at major venues, and calls 15 to 20% an unspoken norm at many theatres and clubs.
Third-party estimateA music rights company’s guide from 2021, and a ticketing company’s survey of press reports. · Source: Exploration, Merchandise Economics, Ticket Fairy, Merch Cuts Under Fire in 2026 · checked
Part of the fee pays for labour. The Salt Shed, an independent venue in Chicago, was reported in 2023 to take 10% of merch sales in exchange for several sellers, unloading the stock, and shipping it on to the next date. A tour that met the venue’s requirements could opt out.
Third-party estimateSource: Pitchfork, The Fight Between Musicians and Venues Over Merch Profits · checked
Some venues charge nothing. In the UK, the Featured Artists Coalition keeps a public directory of venues that take no commission, and over 700 have signed up. Its page also records that Academy Music Group cut its rate to 15% at its O2 Academy venues in August 2023.
The same page sets out what the coalition asks of venues: rates agreed up front, the option for a tour to staff its own table, and no commission on support acts. They make three questions for any advance. What is the rate, in writing? Is it lower if the tour brings its own seller? And is the support act charged as well?
Filed or disclosedSource: Featured Artists Coalition, 100% Venues · checked
In the United States, Live Nation said in September 2023 that it would stop taking merch fees at its club venues.
Third-party estimateReported at the time. Whether the policy still runs was not confirmed for this chapter. · Source: Music Business Worldwide, Live Nation scraps artist merch fees at its US club venues · checked
Moving the stock
Tour stock is smaller than it looks on an invoice. Gildan, a maker of blank t-shirts, packs them 72 to a case in the common sizes. A case weighs about 30 lb and measures 21 by 16 by 13 inches. Take a sample run of 2,016 shirts. It is 28 cases, 840 lb, and about 71 cubic feet.
Third-party estimateA wholesaler’s description of the maker’s cases, for sizes small to 2XL. · Source: Buck Wholesale, How many t-shirts are in a Gildan case · checked
What that run costs to move depends almost entirely on how it is moved.
| Method | One move | What sets the price |
|---|---|---|
| Parcel carrier, case by case | $650 to $838 in the nearest zones; $1,465 to $1,738 in the farthest | 28 labels, each at the published rate for a 30 lb parcel. A case this size is billed as 32 lb, so the true figure is a little higher. |
| Pallet freight | $280 to $430 a pallet under 500 miles, before extras | A liftgate adds $50 to $100, inside delivery $75 or more, and an appointment $25 to $50. The run weighs 840 lb, a little over the guide’s standard pallet of 500 to 800 lb. |
| On the tour’s own truck or trailer | No carrier’s charge | The run needs about 71 cubic feet. A small enclosed trailer holds 208 cubic feet and 1,800 lb. |
A sample run, not a real tour. Parcel prices are UPS Ground’s published daily rates, from the nearest zones (2 to 4) and the farthest (7 and 8), before fuel surcharges and any negotiated discount. Hiring and towing a trailer has a cost of its own, which varies by place and is not priced here.
Third-party estimateThird parties’ published rates and specifications, multiplied out for the sample run. · Source: I’d Ship That, UPS Ground Rates 2026, Freight Sidekick, How Much Does It Cost to Ship a Pallet?, U-Haul, 5x8 Cargo Trailer, Buck Wholesale, How many t-shirts are in a Gildan case · checked
Two things make the parcel price worse than it looks. First, it is paid again at every date, and the load barely shrinks. A table that sells 100 shirts in a night has emptied less than two of the 28 cases, so the next move costs almost what the last one did.
Second, a theatre is not a warehouse. A delivery to a building with no loading dock attracts the extras in the table, and they add up. One freight company’s guide puts such extras at 20 to 30% of what a typical shipper spends on pallet freight in 2026.
Third-party estimateSource: FreightPlus, LTL Accessorial Charges · checked
This is why tours carry their own stock. Space on the truck or in the bus trailer is set aside when the tour is planned. The stock is the last thing loaded out at night, and after the final date what is left is boxed up and sent to a warehouse to be sold online. Borders are the exception: stock has to be declared and taxed when it crosses one, so tours often print in the country they are playing.
Third-party estimateSource: Tour Manager Info, Band Merchandise · checked
Who stands behind the table
A show is either an artist sell or a venue sell. In an artist sell the tour provides the seller. In a venue sell the venue does, and that labour is part of what its fee pays for.
The job is more than taking money. A touring seller pulls the night’s stock, counts it in, builds the display, works with any local staff, restocks during the show, counts out and loads out.
Third-party estimateSource: Tour Manager Info, Band Merchandise · checked
One 2026 guide to touring costs puts a working seller at $400 to $900 a week plus 5 to 10% of merch revenue. Where crew are paid as employees in the United States, it adds about 12 to 18% on top of wages for payroll taxes and insurance.
Third-party estimateA modelled budget for independent tours in the United States, published in April 2026. · Source: Chartlex, Touring Economics 2026 · checked
A seller’s limit is the queue, and every choice a fan has to make slows it. atVenu’s yearly report on the shows it settles says that smaller product lines show a higher average in sales per show than larger ones, and that focused selections bring faster decisions at the table.
Filed or disclosedSource: atVenu, Artist Merchandise Trends of 2025 · checked
Printed before the tour
Table stock is screen printed in bulk and has to exist before the first show. One US printer quotes 10 to 15 business days to produce printed apparel, and 1 to 5 more to ship it. A merchandise supplier’s planning guide for events starts production three to four weeks before the date, and wants the brief four to six weeks before.
Filed or disclosedEach company’s own published lead times. · Source: Threadbird, Turnaround and Shipping FAQs, Broidr, Merchandise lead times · checked
So the order is placed before anybody has seen the designs on a table. Whatever is printed has been paid for, whether it sells or not.
Each design in each size is its own line of stock. Five designs in six sizes is 30 lines to buy, carry and count every night. The plain t-shirt still does most of the work: at the shows atVenu settled in 2025 it was 56% of all items sold, at an average price of $37.
Filed or disclosedThe average price is before tax. · Source: atVenu, Artist Merchandise Trends of 2025 · checked
The size curve
Sizes do not sell evenly, and a run bought in equal sizes leaves the small and the very large ones unsold. A size curve is the share of sales each size takes.
On those figures, medium, large and extra large are 78% of shirts. A 3XL is one shirt in fifty, yet it travels to every city in every design. A second supplier, working from its own orders, recommends a simpler ratio for small runs: one small, two medium, three large, three extra large and one 2XL.
Third-party estimateSource: RushOrderTees, How to Order Sizes for Group T-Shirts · checked
Published figures like these are a starting point. An audience has its own curve, and a tour learns it quickly, because the nightly count records what sold in every size. After a few shows the tour’s own numbers should replace anybody’s guide.
Settling the night
The settlement is the night’s account between the tour and the venue. It starts from the count and not from the till. In atVenu’s words, the physical counts determine the gross sales, and the only way to change the gross on a settlement is to change the counts.
Filed or disclosedSource: atVenu help, Settling a show on the web · checked
- 1Counted in
- 300
- 2Added during the show
- 24
- 3Comps
- −6
- Counted out
- −138
- 4Sold
- 180
- Total gross sales
- $6,660
- 5Sales tax
- −$460
- Card fees
- −$200
- 6Adjusted gross
- $6,000
- 7Venue cut, 20%
- −$1,200
- 8Left for the tour
- $4,800
- 1Counted before doors, by item and by size.
- 2Stock brought to the table after the count. It is added to what came in.
- 3Items given away. They are taken out of the count, so they are not treated as sold.
- 4In, plus adds, less comps, less what was counted out. If the till disagrees, the count wins.
- 5Whoever is selling usually keeps the tax and pays it over. It is the tour’s to pay unless the venue says it is keeping it.
- 6Total gross sales, less tax, less card fees, less anything agreed off the top. The venue’s cut is taken from this line.
- 7A sample rate. The real one is agreed at the advance.
- 8Not profit. The shirts, the seller and the haul are paid out of this.
Divini’s own dataSample figures, not a real show. Every item is priced at $37, atVenu’s average for a t-shirt in 2025, and the arithmetic follows atVenu’s own settlement guides. · Source: atVenu help, Settling a show on the web, atVenu help, Working with Counts on the web, atVenu, Artist Merchandise Trends of 2025 · checked
Two lines on that sheet are decided before the show, not after it: who collects the cash and the card payments, and who keeps the sales tax. atVenu’s guide notes that its software does not pay tax over for anybody. That stays with the tour or with the venue, whichever is keeping it.
Filed or disclosedSource: atVenu help, Settling a show on the web · checked
Divide the gross by the number of people who paid to get in and the result is the spend per head, the figure tours compare from night to night. Across the shows atVenu settled in 2025 the average was $10.24 a head, and 21% of fans bought something. That is an average over every genre and every size of room, and not a target for any one tour.
Filed or disclosedSource: atVenu, Artist Merchandise Trends of 2025 · checked
Why the table and the online store are two setups
An online store that prints on demand works the other way round. Nothing is printed until a fan has paid for it, so nothing is left over, nothing is carried and nothing is counted. No venue takes a share.
- Made
- At the table, before the tour and in bulk. Online, after each order is paid for.
- Unsold stock
- At the table, whatever was printed and not bought. Online, none.
- Reaches the fan
- At the table, across a counter on the night. Online, by post from the printer.
- Who else is paid
- At the table, the venue where it charges a fee, and the seller. Online, neither.
They are two operations with different suppliers, costs and risks, and a tour needs to plan each one. But each makes the other easier. A store that has been selling for a few months has already recorded which designs sell and in which sizes, which is what the bulk order for the table has to guess. And what the table does not sell has somewhere to go after the last date.