Merch commission explained: who takes a cut, the 700-plus venues that take nothing, and how to negotiate

A merch commission is the share of an artist's merchandise sales that a venue keeps for letting them sell at the show. It is usually a percentage of gross takings, not profit, and it can be charged by the venue itself or by a company the venue has contracted to run its merch stands. The UK's Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) has spent nearly five years campaigning against it, and its 100% Venues directory now lists the rooms that charge nothing. Here is how the cut works, what the directory does and doesn't tell you, and how to negotiate.

We covered what merch can mean for a single tour in Los Campesinos!' published tour accounts. This piece is the practical companion.

How big is a merch cut?

It varies, and the published figures are mostly upper bounds. The FAC's 2023 open letter says that in some cases the fee is 25% of gross revenue plus VAT, so the venue earns more from the merch table than the band does. The Guardian reported in 2022 that Academy Music Group took 25% at venues including O2 Academy Brixton, and that stands at some of them were run by a company owned by Bravado, Universal Music Group's merch division, as summarised by The FADER. In Loudwire's 2023 round-up, Trash Boat's Tobi Duncan said venues can take up to 30%, and Holding Absence's Lucas Woodland described a 20% cut as the difference between a small profit and a loss.

Why "of gross" hurts is easiest to see with numbers. Take a hypothetical £25 shirt that costs the band £10 to make. A 25% commission is £6.25. If VAT at the UK's standard rate of 20% is added to the commission, that's another £1.25. The venue takes £7.50 and the band keeps £7.50 of a £15 margin, before card fees or its own tax. That's our arithmetic, not any venue's real terms, but the shape holds: a percentage of the price takes a much bigger share of the profit.

You'll often see 20 to 25% described as the typical rate. We found no data showing that's the norm across venues. According to Music Venue Trust data reported by Pollstar in 2022, fewer than 2% of grassroots venues charged any commission. The same report said the practice was common at large corporate venues and at many Arts Council-funded and council-run ones.

Why do venues charge it?

Some of it is cost. Selling merch needs staff, and FAC chief executive David Martin told Loudwire that merch selling costs a 1,500-capacity venue nothing, but there is a cost in an arena with 30 staff. Pollstar reported that the Barbican in London charged 20% until about five years before the article, then dropped to zero and lost around £20,000 a year.

Some of it is structure. The FAC's open letter says many larger venues have sold or outsourced their merch rights to a third party, so the fee is "baked in" to the hire cost with little room to move. Loudwire also notes that the promoter, not the venue, often sets the term, so the first question is who actually controls it.

What is the 100% Venues directory?

The FAC announced the directory on 19 January 2022: a public list of UK venues that take 0% commission on artists' merch. Venues add themselves through a short sign-up form. It grew quickly. Absolute Radio reported more than 400 venues by 4 August 2022, FAC chief executive David Martin wrote in Music Week in January 2023 that more than 550 had signed up, and the FAC's campaign page now says over 700. That page doesn't date the figure, and the count is self-reported.

The list isn't only small rooms. The FAC's open letter says its 0% venues run from the grassroots up to 1,000-plus capacity rooms, and names KOKO, EARTH, Village Underground, the Electric Ballroom, Troxy and the Barbican in London, The Sage in Gateshead, Tramshed in Cardiff, SWX in Bristol and the Olympia in Liverpool.

The campaign has moved beyond the directory too. According to the FAC:

• In November 2022 it extended the campaign to North America with the United Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) and the Canadian artist Cadence Weapon.
• In July 2023 it published the open letter, backed by more than 80 organisations, and a petition for four principles.
• In August 2023 Academy Music Group cut its commission to 15% at its O2 Academy venues. That is the FAC's account; we couldn't find an AMG statement confirming it.

In May 2024, the FAC and the Music Managers Forum welcomed the endorsement of the campaign by Parliament's Culture, Media and Sport Committee. The UK Musicians' Union backs it. In the US, UMAW's Raise the Bar pledge includes no merch cuts, and Hypebot reported on 19 October 2026 that nearly 70 venues had signed.

How do you negotiate a merch cut?

The FAC's four principles make a usable checklist: support acts pay no commission, artists can staff their own stand, rates are agreed up front, and every show is open to negotiation. In practice:

1. Check before you route the tour. Search the 100% Venues list (UK and North America) and UMAW's pledge list. At similar capacity in the same city, a 0% room is worth real money.
2. Get the rate in the offer, in writing. Ask whether it's a percentage of gross or net, whether VAT is added on top, whether it differs between clothing and records, and whether card fees come out as well. "No surprises at the venue" is one of the FAC's principles, so asking is normal.
3. Find who owns the term. Venue, promoter or concessionaire? Your agent's leverage is with whoever signs the contract.
4. Offer to sell it yourself. If the venue's case is staffing cost, bring your own seller and ask for the commission to be dropped or replaced by a flat fee. A cost argument should get a cost-based price.
5. Write "no merch commission" into support slots. Headliners with leverage can make it a rider term for their openers.
6. Keep a record. The band Igorrr told Loudwire it proposed solutions to a venue that never replied. Emails showing what you asked, and when, make that kind of account hard to dismiss if a dispute goes public.
7. Know the workarounds. Martin's Music Week piece describes Dry Cleaning and The Big Moon running pop-up shops in nearby pubs, and Yard Act selling merch at 25% off to offset a venue's commission.

What we think

The "700-plus" headline flatters the problem's progress. If fewer than 2% of grassroots venues charged a commission in 2022, much of the directory is probably rooms that were already fair before it existed. That still matters: it gives artists a routing map and shows venues that 0% is normal. But the fight is where the FAC's own letter places it: the step up to larger rooms, run by chains or concession contracts, at the moment an act's costs rise. That makes the KOKO and Troxy entries the most useful in the directory: they show big rooms can run at 0% too.

The Barbican number deserves an honest reading. Around £20,000 a year is a real cost, and venues under cost pressure aren't villains for wanting it back. The problem is the form of the charge. A percentage of gross has nothing to do with what selling merch costs. It is a toll on the artist's own product, and when a label-owned concessionaire runs the stand, part of the cut can reach a label whether or not the act on stage is signed to it. A flat, published fee for a seller, waivable when the artist sells their own goods, would cover the cost and remove the conflict.

Two things would speed this up. First, the FAC should publish the directory as a dated, open dataset with capacity, so artists and journalists can track change by venue size rather than a running total. Second, artists and agents should share the commission rates they're actually quoted at venues that haven't signed. Nothing moves venues like a public price list.

Sources

• Featured Artists Coalition, 100% Venues
• Featured Artists Coalition, #100PercentVenues Petition and Open Letter (12 Jul 2023)
• Record of the Day, Featured Artists Coalition announces the 100% Venue Directory (19 Jan 2022)
• Pollstar, Indie venues forgo merch cut under enormous financial pressure (30 Aug 2022)
• Absolute Radio, Tim Burgess speaks out as 400 venues axe commission on artists' merch (4 Aug 2022)
• Music Week, Featured Artists Coalition CEO urges live sector to back campaign against excessive merch commission (11 Jan 2023)
• The FADER, Report: Universal skimming from artist merch sales at some UK venues (18 Apr 2022)
• Loudwire, Why Do Venues Take Merch Cuts From Bands? (21 Apr 2023)
• Record of the Day, Culture Committee report on grassroots live music: statements (11 May 2024)
• Music Ally, Musicians' Union backs FAC's 100% Venues merch fees campaign (15 Feb 2023)
• Hypebot, Raise the Bar Campaign Targets Venue Merch Cuts, Pay-to-Play (19 Oct 2026)
• GOV.UK, VAT rates