Just how a great deal are music fans unforced to pay to publicly proclaim their love for their favorite artist?
Some Bon Jovi fans haven't flinched at dropping US$750 for a tour jacket, and a few White Stripes diehards take parted with hundreds of dollars so they could look a little snatch like isaac Bashevis Singer Jack White.
With record gross sales down and music companies looking for ways to create new revenue streams, there ar some novel - and increasingly expensive - items being sold alongside the traditional T-shirts and posters at concerts.
And some fans seem more than than unforced to grease one's palms almost anything that's put in forepart of them.
The White Stripes have had a miscellany of kilts for sale - in their official tartans registered with the International Tartan Index - the most expensive merchandising for US$280. It's made of one C per centime wool and only 10 were made, making it an exclusive collector's item for the serious fan.
The band also sells 2 custom-made cameras - the Jack Holga and Meg Diana, named for bandmates Jack and Meg White - for US$180 each. Only 3,000 of each television camera were made.
For women wHO want to throw their underwear on stage, a growing phone number of rock bands are thoughtfully incorporating thongs into their selection of product available at shows, including Canadian grouping Three Days Grace, which sells panties for $20 each.
Prince sold pillowcases for around US$30 during his tour last year.
But mayhap the near expensive merch currently on sale is Bon Jovi's "Grade A distressed moo-cow hide leather" tour jacket, selling for the jaw-dropping price of US$750 - and fans are buying.
One Norwegian fan commented on the band's official site that she just had to have one - even though her size was no longer uncommitted - and was thrilled with her purchase, contempt the fact that it didn't really fit properly.
"It's a short big for me, being a female, but I still love it. It will be fine in the wintertime, nice to have some place for a perspirer," she wrote. "This is the nearly amazing (piece) of vesture I receive ever owned!"
Others have opted for a bottle of wine from the Bon Jovi touch collection, ranging between US$21.95 for a Chardonnay to US$145 for a 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon.
And for parents who want to excrete on their love of Bon Jovi to their kids, the band has its own baby product line, including onesies for US$20 and blankets for US$30.
It all seems a little ridiculous to Toronto concert buff Mark Churaman, although he admits to having dropped $120 on a Bon Jovi hooded sweatshirt that he only if somewhat regrets buying.
The 23-year-old - world Health Organization goes to as many as trey or four-spot shows a month - is the music industry's dream consumer, willing to pay whatever it costs to draw the latest, coolest piece of merch sold by their front-runner artists.
"If it's someone in the top side five artists that I love and I go to their shows, patently I want to buy a T-shirt or something," said Churaman, who works as an administrative assistant for a major fiscal company.
"If I'm spending $100 for a concert tag and it's someone I really like and I want a souvenir, then price truly isn't an issue."
With the slowdown in album gross revenue and a new reliance on concerts and product to institute in taxation, giving fans what they want has become more and more important to the euphony industry, aforementioned Gary Bongiovanni, editor of music diligence magazine Pollstar.
"It used to be 20 years agone that artists toured to help sell records, just today they tour to make money and hopefully, maybe, they'll sell a few more than records along the way," Bongiovanni said.
"Merchandise sales are now a very important part of their revenue streams, to the item it wouldn't surprise me if most (popular) recording artists make more money off their merchandise than they do off of their recording."
For fans that can't buy a concert ticket - or can't afford unitary - the same ware is ofttimes available on artists' websites, which can resemble full-blown retail outlets.
Avril Lavigne's on-line store features 78 items, ranging from a .99 cent glowstick to a hooded sweatshirt selling for $69.99. She likewise sells underclothing, comic books, belt buckles, tuques, change purses, hand bags - and, of course, T-shirts.
Marty Peters, the merchandising manager for Nettwerk Management, which represents Lavigne, said merchandise revenue is definitely growing and T-shirt sales buttocks sometimes explanation for as much as 30 to 70 per cent of a concert's gross profits.
He said ware companies ar thinking of gimmicky new products to sell plainly because they know fans will corrupt them.
"The companies that are savvy ar seeing where the niches are in the merch business and are constantly chomping at the bit to give you the next best item to offer your artist, to get their name out there and increase their exposure and their gross sales," Peters said.
There's a willingness to subscribe risks to come up with the next young hot piece of music of merch, and the industry is closely monitoring trends in what sells and what doesn't, Peters said.
"When one or 2 T-shirt designs are making 40 to 60 per cent of a megascopic on a show, that's a style we compensate attention to, naturally," Peters said.
Artists are being allowed to come in up with their own products, just the more out-there ideas can backfire - like the super-limited edition White Stripes kilts that are still available for sale.
"Sometimes the artists think there's certain items the fans may like and then it ends up they don't," he said.
"Things will get well-tried, and if they don't work and then we precisely drop it."
Overall, the best business is coming from younger fans whose parents are often accompanying them to concerts and picking up the tab for whatever their kids take a firm stand they "must" have.
"The per head is how we gauge concert tours, and there's a significant difference between sales at a Barenaked Ladies concert and an Avril Lavigne concert," Peters said.
"Parents are more likely to drop a credit bill than people at a Barenaked Ladies concert, where you take older fans that ar still departure to corrupt something only they're going to be a little more sophisticated in their decisions."
For Churaman, he's willing to drop but draws the wrinkle at band-branded candles, wine and $750 jackets.
"I could go see like septenary Bon Jovi shows for that money," he aforementioned.
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