Are More Fans Buying Merchandise in 2022?

As summer comes to an end we want to share insights into fan behavior around concert merchandise. With live events fully returned there are more shows in all genres year to date than in 2021. How has that impacted merchandise sales and fan interest in merchandise as a whole? Let's take a look.

‍

For context, the data for this post comes from the following:

‍

‍

Now to the insights!

‍

We have mentioned in recent posts how $/head has continued to grow over the last few years but we haven't recently mentioned the metric: percentage of fans who are purchasing merchandise and how that may be even more important in referencing the state of concert merchandise.

‍

What Percent of Fans Buy Merchandise At Concerts?

‍

In 2019, 11% of concert attendance bought merchandise. That grew to 19% in 2021 and is currently at 20% year to date. Another way to put that is in 2019 1 in 10 people purchased merchandise at a concert, that doubled to 2 in 10 over the last year and a half.

‍

‍

Fan Interest In Merchandise by Genre

‍

The percentage of fans buying merchandise varies drastically between the top ten genres ranging from 15% to 30%. Breaking it out into more detail, below shows the top genres by percentage of fans buying merchandise.

‍

‍

‍

‍

To go back to the overall question, are more fans buying merchandise? Yes. While this year's increase is not as significant as 2019 to 2021, trends show more fans are buying merchandise.

‍

‍

‍