And there are some bands with pretty shitty websites and merchandise.

Dude. They used to receive thousands and thousands of envelopes by mail and manually processed every pair of tickets and somehow did that without needed a government subsidy. As far as the single goes, bands have pressed records for decades at extremely low costs. I'm glad 10 Club is offering a membership without the single given that 95% of their fan club doesn't play the record and many throw it out. We might as well be given the option to not get it - though the price shouldn't remain the same.

RE: profit margins. A T-shirt costs $1-$2 to manufacture and they charge $20-$25. That's a 90% gross profit margin.

I didn't even try to figure out how much they make on tickets, which is huge. They probably sell 100,000 tickets a year and make 400-500,000 off of that alone. How much do you think these part time employees cost? Let's forget about the $75-$100 ticket price they also get on top of the convenience fee or the fact they charged their biggest fans $20 just for the right to maybe purchase tickets if they happen to play in their area.

My point isn't that they aren't entitled to make a profit. I'm just cracking up at you thinking it might be a money losing operation and thus the need for a hike.

Considering there are bands out there that will give you merch for FREE without having to join any club, any argument for a price increase for the same shit service we've been getting for years just don't add up.

Probably nothing. Promoters get the money from the tickets. They get a small fee as resellers and they don't have that much tickets to sell to make it a relevant part of their income compared to the merch. I doubt they get to keep anything from the bootlegs too as there's no way bootlegs are making much money to the band anyway. They cost something to produce and don't sell nearly as well as proper records even live albums do. I also think the number of people in the fan club is largely overestimated by the fans.

That's probably part of the promotion that the recording company does and pays for.

You're imagining that Pearl Jam pays for the Ten Club. I'd bet my left arm that they expect the Ten Club to be either revenue neutral or possibly even expect them to pay some sort of fee back.

If I'm wrong and my product purchases are subsidizing RIAA-free musicians, that's worth a premium to me.

if the bootlegs didn't make money they wouldn't continue to sell them

they do it for the fans, dude

Well they stopped in 2007 for a year and it seems to be a constant work in progress so it doesn't seem to be an easy cash machine and if it would be i presume it would be a much more common practice for other bands.

They make money off the bootlegs. No question.

Far too many bands play the same exact setlist, give or take 2 or 3 songs, EVERY night. A bootleg for every show wouldn't make sense.

Huh? Pearl Jam is the Ten Club.

Pearl Jam runs the 10C, this isnt like the DMB fanclub where Live Nation runs it for them or whatever. I'm willing to pay 40 dollars if I actually get all the stuff I'm supposed to, but given 10C's history that is highly unlikely and is what makes having my fee doubled suck.

The vast majority of the people who buy bootlegs only buy the shows they attended. Very few buy more thus the setlist argument doesn't make much sense in practice. I don't know if RM ever had a pol about it but judging by random posts I'd say collectors are a few percent especially if you don't count people who download shows for free.

Well actually PJ pays people to run the 10C for them.
Didn't Tim once bitch about the 10C barely making it financially because the band isn't putting enough money in it?

bands are doing it, and other bands (OAR, Metallica, The Black Crowes etc) have opened up their vaults for older shows as well...trust me, if a much smaller operation like the Black Crowes is making enough money off of current and archive shows to make the operation of such worth it, PJ is making plenty of bank on the bootlegs

I'm sure they make some money off of it but i doubt they make a shitload of money from it. I mean i don't think they have as big a market you assume they do. The vault is a different story altogether. It all depends about who owns them. Not knowing what PJ contracts with Sony were like and not knowing what deals they may have tried to achieve about the vault shows makes it completely irrelevant to discuss about them.

We really don't know shit about this. But there is no way in hell they're losing money on the ten club. If they are they're fucking retarded.

THIS.

If it was a well run club, where the presales worked (for everybody, not just pearl jam r good and CHUD) properly, and mailings occured when they were supposed to, it would be a lot different. This is a club that everyone but the most ardent supporters has major gripes with. It has been run very poorly, with very little communication or response to any complaints- no matter how valid. Have they EVER addressed a couple years back when they announced a leg of a tour, sold non refundable, no transferrable tickets, then 2 weeks later released a whole round of shows in entirely different cities? So people were traveling 8 hours to a show, but skipping the one in their own city? That screwed A LOT of pearl jam fans, and cost them a lot of money, yet not so much as an admission that maybe mistakes were made.

A poorly run organization, doubling costs, with no real justification, is somewhat shady to me, but because they know so many people are going to be afraid of losing their Seniority, they know we'll all continue to pay.

Absolutely. I know I'm just lucky.