A photo circulating on social media appearing to show a man purchasing a huge stack of Dead & Company posters at the band’s show in Noblesville, IN has Deadheads up in arms. A representative of the band denied initial estimates of 200 posters in the stack but confirmed that someone did buy more than 50, according to their transaction records. They indicated that the band has since implemented a limit on how many an individual can buy but did not specify what that number is.
Once created merely for promotional purposes, concert posters have become increasingly valuable in recent years as both pieces of art and collector’s items. Soaring demand has given rise to pre-show frenzies, with enthusiasts and resellers arriving early to battle it out at the merch booth. For the casual fan who just wants a memento to adorn their wall, there is no hope—at least not at larger shows like Phish and Dead & Company. Their only recourse is to scour online marketplaces like eBay, where posters are resold at inflated prices.
Some artists have implemented policies to help ensure that fans have a fair chance at obtaining posters and to prevent them from being resold at exorbitant rates on the secondary market. Billy Strings, for example, has a limit of how many posters fans can purchase. Dead & Company sells posters in the parking lot before concerts, which makes it convenient for fans who drove to get a poster and leave it in their vehicle instead of carrying it around all night. However, the band clearly was not enforcing a limit on how many posters an individual could buy in Noblesville, though a representative of the band confirmed that they have since implemented a limit.
Fans initially expressed anger at reports of someone buying 200 posters to resell, but the practice is not uncommon. Unless the artist or organizers say otherwise, there is nothing to prevent someone from investing their money in a stack of posters, even if it goes against the principles of fairness and goodwill within the fan community. And hey, who knows, maybe he was buying them to give away like “miracle” tickets.
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