> Even for huge artists, from what I've heard merch is where the money is, not ticket or record sales
That’s not quite true. It’s an extreme example, but Taylor Swift’s personal earnings from her current tour is expected to end up in the billions.
Back in the day, touring was something of a marketing tool to sell records, today the records are marketing for the tours (and they build hype, which yields sponsorships and so on). Merch is an important revenue stream, but a large chunk of that is sold on tour.
That's like saying you should take VC money because you can end up being like Mark Zuckerberg. It's a 1/50'000'000 sort of case or perhaps even less likely.
I wasn’t suggesting anyone do anything, I was mostly trying to point out that large acts can make a lot of money on touring. Most make very little, if any at all.
Agreed but using examples like Taylor Swift in music is far off from focusing purely on (exited) unicorns when talking about VC. You have to look outside the 99th percentile to find generalized insights.
That’s not quite true. It’s an extreme example, but Taylor Swift’s personal earnings from her current tour is expected to end up in the billions.
Back in the day, touring was something of a marketing tool to sell records, today the records are marketing for the tours (and they build hype, which yields sponsorships and so on). Merch is an important revenue stream, but a large chunk of that is sold on tour.