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Jack Antonoff has entered the Touring Is Untenable chat<\/a>. Posting to Twitter yesterday, the superproducer wrote, \u201cWhile we are having the discussion, can venues simply stop taxing merchandise of artists? This is literally the only way you make money when you start out touring.\u201d <\/p>\n Antonoff added: \u201cThe more we make it tenable for young and small artists to make a living on the road, the more great music we will get\u201d and \u201ctouring is one of the most honest ways to make a living. some of the hardest and most heartfelt work you can do. so why must fuck artist so hard?\u201d<\/p>\n He concluded: \u201cSimpel [sic] solutions, stop taxing merch, stop lying to artists about costs of putting on shows, include artists in more areas of revenue. the stories i could tell from my years touring are bananas. young artists on tour are the last to see any money.\u201d<\/p>\n This is the newest in a collection of artist-led discussions round touring \u2014 as Lorde lately put it<\/a> \u2014 a \u201cdemented struggle to break even or face debt.\u201d Last month, Spiral Stairs tweeted that Live Nation \u201ctook 30% [of our merch] last night for doing NOTHING.\u201d<\/p>\n Last August, a whole lot of venues signed an settlement to not take a minimize of artists\u2019 merch gross sales after Tim Burgess of the Charlatans introduced how Nottingham venue Rock City waived their conventional minimize of merch gross sales in May. \u201cIt\u2019s something that\u2019s been around for years,\u201d Burgess informed NME<\/a> of the follow. \u201cBut when we spoke up to our manager and label, they\u2019d just say \u2018That\u2019s the way it is.’\u201d<\/p>\n Burgess additionally spoke about elevating fan consciousness: \u201cThey definitely didn\u2019t know about the scale of it at first. But lots more fans know now. So many said that they bought merch as a way of supporting the band and thinking it helped with costs of being on the road. It was a wake-up call. It\u2019s a start, and I\u2019m glad that lots of venues are listening.\u201d<\/p>\n