Record Store Day is now firmly established on the music industry calendar, while Bandcamp Fridays are returning this year as a recurring event too. Now Spotify has teamed up with non-profit organisation MerchFriends to invent a new diary date: Band Shirt Day. It’s due to take place on 16 September, and revolves around exclusive merch (or discounts on existing products) and donations to charities.
Driven from the US, the event will see the likes of Blondie, Portugal. The Man, Sonic Youth, Best Coast, Mac DeMarco and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizzard taking part. Meanwhile, charities set to benefit include Planned Parenthood, Children of Ukraine, the Ally Coalition, MusiCares, TransLifeline and the American Civil Liberties Union.
This all fits in with Spotify’s on-platform efforts around merch. It struck a new deal with e-commerce firm Shopify in October 2021; published some data on how and when merch sales work best on its service that November; and added merch to its Blend playlists feature in July this year.
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