Tim Burgess is bringing back his Merch Market in 2027, and it’ll make stops in London, Manchester and Glasgow.
The Charlatans frontman first launched his Merch Market last year, with the inaugural edition taking place in Manchester. With the initiative, the artist provides bands with the opportunity to sell merchandise for free and keep 100 per cent of the income. The first year saw members of New Order, Inspiral Carpets, Everything Everything, Penfriend, Cabbage, and more manning the stalls.
At the start of this year, it returned for its second year and took place at London’s Troxy, where there were stalls live interviews, performances, and appearances from Sprints, Gurriers, Blur‘s Dave Rowntree, Dry Cleaning, Honeyglaze, Doves, and Public Service Broadcasting‘s J Willgoose.
Now, the 2027 edition is confirmed, and it will be spread across three days in three cities at the top of the year.
The first day will be held at Troxy in London once again, and see stalls, live sets and on-stage interviews running across Sunday January 24. The second day will take place at Manchester’s Freight Island on January 31, and the third will be held at Barrowlands in Glasgow on February 28 – the first time that the Merch Market will head to Scotland.
“When we first thought of doing The Merch Market, our aim was to bring it to Barrowlands – I can’t really overstate my love for the place,” Burgess said.
Details about the events will be shared at a later date, but it will follow the same structure as before, with stalls run by artists, live performances, Q&A discussions and more. Find out more about the event here.
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Live event payment platform atVenu have also stepped in to provide some “amazing support” for the events. “It was the perfect match up,” said Burgess. “We’ve used atVenu for The Charlatans tours for a while – payments and inventory all looked after and it was all started by a team who have a background of being in bands, touring and everything around actual band merch.”
“We came up with the idea of a place for bands to get together and sell much and make some cash – we didn’t realise how well it would be received,” Burgess continued. “It’s so much more than the sum of its parts – festivals have booked bands for line-ups, fans get to meet their favourite bands and it’s a brilliant way to spend a day. We love that it’s gone from strength to strength and we are really excited for the future.”
The 2026 edition included Tim’s Vinyl Adventures – a record fair that he’s been running since the publication of his book of that name. At his own stall, the singer had roughly 300 records from his own collection on sale.
He also launched a vintage souvenir ticket generator for the event, allowing fans to create a physical keepsake of gigs in a time when tickets are largely digital. Burgess got the idea after surveying over 2,000 fans on X/Twitter who said they would like a ticket as a memento of the band’s upcoming tour.
Inspiration for the event followed on from The Charlatans frontman speaking out about venues taking an unfair cut of merch sales back in 2021, and saying that “the whole system needs addressing.” In further comments to NME in 2022, he reiterated his stance was “about fairness” and not money, adding: “Often at Charlatans gigs, our fans smash the record for the bar take at a venue.”