A Larger Product Line Doesn't Make You More Money

A lot of changes happened in 2021 for live events. With material shortages and shipping constraints, artists reduced the size of their product lines when going on tour. We take a deeper look into how it impacted their Gross Sales.

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The TL;DR section:

1.    The average artist product line declined from 17 to 13 items (a 24% decrease)

2.    The average Gross Merchandise Sales per show increased +33% from 2019

3.    3 items make up 61% of sales in 2021, up from 50% in 2019

4.    Artists with 15 or more items in their product line averaged a lower $/head than artists with fewer items at 5-10K capacity venues

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The average number of items an artist brings on tour went down 25% in 2021 from 2019.

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Does a smaller product line negatively impact an artist's Gross Merchandise Sales? No.

In 2021 the average $/head was $8.47 compared to $5.54 in 2019. Even with 1/4 less items, artists  made +54% more money per show in 2021.

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In our Year In Review we share that 61% of Gross Merchandise Sales comes from 3 items, up from 50% in 2019.

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Do those 3 items make up the majority of an artist's gross sales regardless of the product line size?

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Yes. We break out how many items make up majority of sales based on the number of items in a product line.

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Now that we've established that only a few items make up the majority of your sales, does a larger product line increase your $/head?

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No. Looking at the 5-10K capacity grouping as an example, artists with fewer items had a higher average $/head than those with 15 or more items. We see the same trend for all capacity groupings under 20K. For 20K+ events, the $/head were consistent

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Larger product lines don't guarantee you make more money. Remember that when planning for your upcoming tour!