The new rules of music’s growth engine: Insights from MIDiA’s merch and ticket buyer survey

Expanded rights are quickly becoming the growth engine of the recorded music industry. The category – which includes labels’ participation in revenue streams like merch and live – grew an impressive 21.5% in 2025, according to MIDiA’s recorded music market shares report, leaving all other revenue segments in the dust.

Yet what got fandom monetisation here is not the same as what will drive its next era. As new generations age up, their diverging preferences will increasingly shape the market for fan products and experiences. To this end, MIDiA recently surveyed 1,000 US fans who had bought either merchandise, physical music, or live concert tickets in the last year. The results, explored in a 44-page report out next week, point towards a rising bar for music merch and experiences – and suggest that two genres in particular may be overlooked.

Sophistication

While band t-shirts may be the market’s bread-and-butter today, younger buyers expect a wider variety of merchandise than ever. In fact, 16–24-year-olds under-index for favouring t-shirts, but over-index for options like hoodies, posters, keychains, and jewellery. It makes sense – if you grow up in a world of algorithmic feeds and the ability to order pretty much anything online, why wouldn’t you expect merch to be similarly tailored and accessible?

Younger fans also value subtlety and “if you know, you know” signals over more obvious artist branding. Together these data points reflect a growing appetite for bespoke merchandise tailored to the artist and fanbase – consider Earl Sweatshirt’s incense, Sabrina Carpenter’s pajama set, or Bon Iver’s home fragrance. This means more effort, but the potential reward is high, and there is a growing market of boutique merch agencies looking to help. 

Fragmentation

As listenership fragments, so does fandom. The result is that just under half of respondents say they mainly purchase merchandise from larger, more well-known artists and bands. The shift becomes more pronounced with each younger age cohort. While teens are often more likely to seek underground culture anyway, the ongoing trend of fragmentation suggests that this shift is generational, not just demographic. Mainstream artists may drive higher spend, but in terms of overall sales volume, merch this is no longer only a superstars’ game. A proliferation of on-demand merch startups are helping artists of many sizes meet fan appetite.

The hip hop and R&B sweet spot

A general rule of thumb is that the more niche the genre fandom, the higher the spend. However, hip hop and R&B stand out. These genres occupy a unique sweet spot – not only do they count more than 50% of merchandise, physical music, and concert ticket buyers as fans, but those fans also spend above-average on those respective categories. The only other genre for which this is the case is rock, and only when it comes to tickets (not merch or physical music).

The takeaway: While fan monetisation has traditionally revolved around “mainstream” genres like pop and rock, hip hop and R&B may be overlooked. This is especially true as younger generations age up. Hip hop is the third most popular genre among global consumers in MIDiA’s Q4 2025 survey, but rises to the number one most popular among 16–19-year-olds and second among 20–24s.

A rising bar

The merch, live – and even physical – markets are thriving. Yet this doesn’t mean the music industry can sit back. The competition for fandom (and fan spend) is intensifying, and expectations are rising with it. Success will hinge on how well artists and their teams understand their audiences, and how precisely they can design products and experiences that genuinely resonate.

That starts with nurturing fandom, not rushing to monetise it. Alarmingly, just under half of survey respondents agree that merch is becoming unaffordable for them, and 39% say they sometimes feel their fandom is being exploited. In this environment, every release, drop, and activation carries more weight. The opportunity is not to extract more value from fans, but to build value with them – taking a considered, thoughtful approach that reinforces trust and connection rather than eroding it.

This is just a snapshot of the report findings, with many more layers to the story. For a deeper look at buyer preferences, vendors, discovery methods, reported annual spend, future spend expectations, and more, clients can look out for the full report coming later this month.

If you are not a client but would like to find out how you can access this report, contact us at enquiries@midiaresearch.com.

Image credits: Curated Lifestyle / Nick Fancher / Dylan Mullins via Unsplash+