View From The Merch Table: Why Skipping a Proper Merch Manager Is a Colossal Mistake

By George Pirounakis

Why do bands still think it’s smart to skip bringing a merch manager and just work with some random local kid every night? It’s the dumbest false economy you can make. You think you’re saving on the day rate, but what you’re really doing is torching your own money night after night.

Imagine this: first show, some rookie gets thrown behind the table. No clue about your prices, no clue about your stock, no clue about how to handle a rush. End of night the cash doesn’t line up, the shirts are a mess and fans walked away empty handed because the seller froze when 50 people lined up at once.

Next night, brand new rookie. No handover, no system, just inheriting yesterday’s mess. They waste the first hour trying to figure out what the hell is going on while sales are slipping through your fingers. Multiply that across twenty shows and watch how much money is gone without anyone noticing.

This is what happens when there’s no continuity. Each person finds the table in worse shape than the last. The float’s wrong, the counts are wrong, the sizes are mixed up, and nobody has a clue what was sold yesterday or what’s running out tomorrow. There’s no order, no planning, no follow-up. Just chaos on repeat. And chaos in merch always means money lost.

A real merch manager is the difference between making a tour work and bleeding dry. Not because they’re some mystical wizard, but because they bring consistency. They know the system, they protect the money, they keep the stock in line, they know when to reorder, they keep the table looking pro, and they don’t need to learn the job from scratch every single night.

Bands kill themselves on the road. Long drives, shit food, bad sleep, all for the hope of breaking even or making it home with something in their pocket. And then they sabotage it all by cheaping out on the one thing that actually brings cash in every night.

You wouldn’t rotate drummers every night and expect the set to sound tight. So why the hell do you think it’s fine to rotate rookies at the merch table and expect the numbers to add up?