AltPress shines a light on band merchandise price matching

Our friends at Alternative Press have published a fascinating article by Emily Zemler titled Expensive White T's: The Politics of Price Matching. In it she profiles and debates the practice in which a headlining band will set merchandise prices for their opening acts to prevent undercutting. From the article:

In simple terms, price matching is a practice in which the headlining band on a tour set the merch prices. If that band sell their T-shirts for $40, every other band on the bill must comply with that price... For a smaller, up-and-coming band, each T-shirt and album sold at a show can mean gas and food for the next day. In that scenario, being forced to sell your shirts at a higher price can mean you don't sell any, which in turn hurts your ability to travel to the next venue.

Check out the full article at AltPress. We're interested to see what you think about this issue. Do you agree with it? How widespread is it among the bands we cover here? The price matching issue will be further discussed in this week's episode of the Punknews Podcast.