Merch for the stage: magicians, actors and theatre productions.

What we run for a stage show

A magician on tour, an actor with a show of their own and a theatre production are three different businesses. They share a room: a seated audience, an interval, and a foyer that the theatre’s own staff run. We build a range for that room and for the store behind it, and you approve every piece before it goes on sale.

The act	What the audience knows	What goes on the product	Who approves it
A magician	The show’s title, and the effect nobody could explain	The tour poster, and a deck in the show’s design	You. The material is yours
An actor	Your name, from parts in other people’s productions	Your own show: its poster, and a signed print	You. A character belongs to its production
A theatre production	The title, the poster and the songs	The show’s artwork, on a tee, a tote and a print	The producer, and the licensor of a licensed show

We run the rest: the store, the printing, the customer service and the advertising. Online, each order is printed after it is placed, so the store is still open on the nights the theatre is dark.

The counter belongs to the theatre

On a music tour the act brings a table. In a theatre the counter is usually the building’s. It stands in the foyer and sells before the show, in the interval and on the way out, often with the theatre’s own front-of-house staff behind it. The theatre keeps a commission either way. Most do not publish the rate. These five do, in their hire terms.

The figures

Theatre	Commission on sales
The Core Theatre, Solihull	25%
Babbacombe Theatre, Torquay	15%
Queen’s Hall Arts Centre, Hexham	10%
The Blake Theatre, Monmouth	10%
The Victoria Wood Theatre, Lake District	10%

The rate when the theatre’s own staff sell. The Core Theatre and Queen’s Hall add VAT, and The Core Theatre charges 15% when the visiting company sells instead. The Blake Theatre also charges £10 plus VAT an hour for its sellers. Babbacombe’s terms do not say who sells.

Filed or disclosedEach theatre’s published hire terms: five that print a rate, not a survey. The Blake Theatre’s pack is dated January 2023. · Source: The Core Theatre Solihull, Hiring the theatre, Babbacombe Theatre, Theatre hire, Queen’s Hall Arts Centre, Programming policy, The Blake Theatre, Hire pack, The Victoria Wood Theatre, Venue hire · checked 13 October 2026

The programme is usually sold from the same counter under the same commission: three of the five name programmes in the same clause.

Larger theatres agree the rate show by show. UK Theatre, the trade body, leaves it as a question on its template deal memo: “Merchandise and commission charge?” So tell us what each theatre’s contract says, and whether the visiting company may sell for itself.

Official sourceA template from UK Theatre’s Producing, Presenting and Touring Handbook 2019. · Source: UK Theatre, Deal memo template · checked 13 October 2026

A run and a tour are two jobs

A production that sits in one theatre for weeks has one counter and one contract, and what sold in the first week decides what is reprinted for the third. A tour of one-night dates carries its stock from town to town and settles with a different theatre every night. Tour and music merch sets that out.

Nobody publishes what a theatre audience spends on merchandise. The Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre counted 17.64 million attendances in the West End in 2025, and more than 37 million across their members’ venues. Their report gives no figure for merchandise. So an estimate for a stage show starts from the room and the number of performances, and is given as a range.

Official sourceTheatre in the UK 2026, published in March 2026. The word “merchandise” does not appear in it. · Source: Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre, Theatre in the UK 2026 · checked 13 October 2026

The deck of cards

A magician has a product no other act has: the thing in their hands. A deck in the show’s own design is bought to be used, and it is made differently from a tee.

The United States Playing Card Company, which makes Bicycle cards, sets a minimum of 2,500 decks for its custom service for magicians. Smaller makers go lower. Ivory Graphics, which prints in Cambridgeshire, has a general minimum of 50, and MakePlayingCards has none.

1. No minimumMakePlayingCards

   Printed to order, from a single deck.

2. 50 unitsIvory Graphics

   Its general minimum. Printed in the UK, in 14 working days once the proofs are approved.

3. 100 decksBicycle, promotional

   Under 5,000 decks the order is printed digitally elsewhere, and not on Bicycle card stock.

4. 2,500 decksBicycle, magic

   The United States Playing Card Company’s custom service for magicians.

Filed or disclosedEach maker’s own page. Cartamundi says it is not making custom cards in Europe at present, and sends that work to the Bicycle service. · Source: MakePlayingCards, Ivory Graphics, FAQ, Bicycle, Custom playing cards, Cartamundi, Custom playing cards · checked 13 October 2026

So on the stock magicians know best, a deck is a print run: somebody buys 2,500 before the first one is sold. We treat it as we treat a tour run. We buy it, and what does not sell is our risk and not yours. It is also the first piece agreed for a tour, because it takes the longest to make.

Whose it is to print

What an audience wants on a shirt is often not the performer’s to put there. An actor is known for a character a producer owns, and a company may be performing a show it has licensed for a season. That is settled first, because it decides what the range can be.

What is going on the product?

• Your own name, signature or show

  Yours

  Your name, your signature and a show you created are your own.

• A character you played

  The production’s

  The character, the costume and the photographs belong to whoever made it.

• A show’s title or artwork

  Is the show yours, or performed under licence?

  • Ours

    The producer’s

    Check who drew the poster: artwork is the designer’s until it is signed over.

  • Under licence

    The licensor’s

    A licence to perform a show is not a licence to sell its name on a product.

• The company’s own name

  Yours

  A company’s name and its building are its own, whatever is on stage.

Music Theatre International, which licenses musicals, says merchandise sold to the public needs a separate licensing agreement, which it warns can be difficult to get, and that the authors are entitled to a share and may refuse. Its own logo t-shirts may be sold at a profit. Shirts a company prints from its logo pack may go only to the cast and crew, at cost.

Filed or disclosedSource: Music Theatre International, Do’s and Don’ts of Licensing, Music Theatre International, Logo T-Shirts · checked 13 October 2026

For an actor the line runs between the person and the part. UK law has no image right as such: HM Revenue & Customs’ own manual says a person’s image is protected only through the law of passing off. A part is protected far better, because the production owns it. So an actor’s range is built from what is theirs: the name, the signature and a show of their own.

Official sourceSource: HMRC, Capital Gains Manual CG68405 · checked 13 October 2026

The money

Nothing up front. There is no fee, no retainer and no minimum order. Online there is no stock for you to buy, and for a run of dates we buy the stock and carry the risk on what does not sell. We are paid a share of the profit, and the split is put in writing before you sign. How we get paid sets out what counts as profit, line by line.

The theatre’s commission comes off first

The commission is taken from what the counter sells, before the stock and the sellers are paid for and before any profit is shared. A quarter of sales, plus VAT, changes what a range can earn in that building.

Questions

The theatre sells merchandise itself; how does that work?

Its staff sell our stock. Every design and size is counted in before the first performance and counted out after the last, and the theatre is settled on the difference, less its commission. We do the settling, and you get one statement.

Where the contract lets the visiting company sell, a vending partner staffs the counter instead. Some theatres charge less when their own staff are not selling, so both ways are costed before the dates.

We perform a show under licence; can we sell its merchandise?

Only with the licensor’s agreement. Ask the licensing house in writing before anything is designed, and bring the answer to the first call.

What needs nobody’s permission is the company’s own name. A range for the company or its building can go on sale whatever is being performed.

Can an actor sell merch from a part they played?

Not without the production. That range is the producer’s to agree.

Your name and your own work are yours. An actor who signs at fan conventions already prices a signature: MCM Comic Con, for one, leaves autograph pricing to the guest. A signed print from a show of your own is the same idea, sold from your own store all year.

Filed or disclosedSource: MCM Comic Con London, Meeting celebrities · checked 13 October 2026

Do you make the programme?

No. A programme is a publication, with its own writing, advertising and printer, and specialist publishers make it. John Good, one of them, describes programmes as “valuable additional income”.

We plan the range around it. At the National Theatre’s own shop a programme costs £6.00 or £6.50, so the impulse buy is already on the counter, and the range starts above it.

Filed or disclosedThe four programmes listed in the National Theatre’s shop that day. · Source: John Good, Publishing, National Theatre Shop, Programmes · checked 13 October 2026