Hi All,
I was just popping in to say I'm finally going to start putting up some of these shows from the last tour.
(How come every time I come on this board someone's always whingeing?)
I guess update on the T-shirts is apparently more in order.
Ok, so to clear things up for anyone who is wondering. All the T-shirts we are now selling on the site are high quality silk screen prints only. Originally we started with laser print on demand T-shirts (in attempt to bring a variety of full color designs to shop without having to come up with 50,000 pounds up front to produce screens and print them all). Apparently the print on demand were not of acceptable quality and I received complaints from many of you, (I've been wearing them myself for well over a year now and washing them tons, I've not had any problems with the ones I have, they still look fine
, but it seems they just weren't consistent I guess. ) Apparently there was an error with the printing on some of the Yum Yum Tree shirts which I know backstreet had apologized for and excepted returns on, hence they have been removed from the site as they were not cost effective to silk screen at the moment.
The "Erpland" shirt isn't really meant to be an "Erpland" shirt. It's meant to read "2010 Tour T-shirt" and the back has all the dates and the band logo printed in full colour. - I personally love these shirts I think they look great, and I know a lot of people who were very happy with them, and wear them all the time.
The "Sunburst" T-shirt should read "Glow-in-the-dark" as it is now a colour silk screen which does glow in the dark. (The matching bags we're thrown in as a little example by the merch company of alternate things they can do with the same screens and were actually surprisingly popular on tour.) I was very impressed with how the print came out on these shirts, they were much better than I expected.
One thing you should remember is that although most all of our fans are rainbow warriors on the inside, not all of them like to advertise it on the outside all the time. The black and white designs are just as popular as the colour designs, and each design appeals to different people.
We are constantly trying to get new merch out to you and if we had the cash flow to print up all the designs you are requesting then that would absolutely be the first thing I would do. As it stands at the moment this is what we could afford to get together. I've got a ton of designs, but colour prints are costly.
Posters - We ordered bigger ones, the ones which are up there are the size they came, sorry about that. Again if I might add my opinion though, I think the Yum Yum Tree posters are great, I like the size of them too. The other two are a bit small, but still a nice thing to have in a frame on the wall if one wishes and didn't have one previously, I don't think they should really provoke insult. (I've seen people sell smaller Ozric posters for a lot more, without merchandising rights for the band.)
The shirts that are on the site at the moment are the shirts that we had with on tour, and to be honest, we did much better on merch than we usually do, and saw way more young people buying the T-shirts than usual. It was the first time I've ever needed more shirts before we were half way through the tour.
I will obviously bring all of your points up to our merchandising company and we will see what we can do towards making everyone happy. Maybe we'll take votes on which old T-shirts to have reprinted? or just let you guys design one ! ....Though there is a few designs I'm dying to have printed. Maybe I can post them on here and you can decide which one we should do? There is lots we could do like that. Posters, which ones do people want most ? Mugs? Hats ? Does anyone actually buy these things? I think this could be a lot of fun actually . . .
Anyway, I've got other things I wanted to be talking about as well, but for the moment I'm going to try and get the first of these gigs up and running . . then more news in a bit . .
Orpheus & Dj Rad - I thought I got back to your messages and sent your complaint/requests to backstreet, I'm sorry to hear that no one got back to you in the end. I can chase that up again for you no problem. Orpheus I would like to see the response you got, obviously I mind if they are not taking care of complaints or returns in a prompt and courteous manner.