I mean, that’s a good problem to have for a new artist.
At this point everybody knows that most artists make the majority of their income not from streaming, but from album sales, touring, and merchandise sales.
So when you sell so much merch that you run out of shirts to sale, sometimes you have to get creative.
And that’s exactly what happened to Wyatt Flores recently.
If you’re not yet familiar with Wyatt, the incredibly talented up-and-comer is one of my favorite new artists out there right now with his gritty sound reminiscent of guys like Tyler Childers, Charles Wesley Godwin and Zach Bryan, and his songwriting that’s as good as anybody out there right now.
I mean, just listen to songs like “Please Don’t Go” and “Break My Bones” and it’s not hard to see why fans are lining up to get a Wyatt Flores shirt at the merch table after his shows.
But unfortunately, fans may have been even more excited for merch than Wyatt expected. And they sold him completely out.
Speaking with Whiskey Riff, Wyatt admits that he wasn’t prepared to sell as much as he did at a recent show:
“We didn’t know if things were going to go well on numbers or anything like that, so we just had our regular merch. And we sold out the first night of the run in OKC and then we went down to Texas and didn’t have anything, and we were trying to order shirts and get everything moving again.”
But rather than leave fans disappointed (and leave money on the table), Wyatt came up with a creative solution: He went through his own closet to find some shirts to sell.
“I was like, well man, if we ain’t going to have very much to sell, I guess I’ll just go through my closet and just start picking out shirts.
So we did. We went through a whole bunch of clothes and we showed up to Asheville.”
It sounds like Wyatt may have hit on a brilliant new idea – because he said as soon as he announced on stage that he would be selling his own clothes at the merch stand, fans were more excited than ever.
“People didn’t really know where the merch stand was I don’t think, but as soon as I announced it on stage I was like, ‘Guys, I’m sorry we don’t have merch but I’m gonna be selling personal clothes that I’ve worn.’
And a girl in the front row just starts scream crying, and I mean was geeking out like I was Taylor Swift. And I was like, ‘This is the oddest thing I’ve ever seen.’ But heck of a deal. If that’s what makes them happy.”
And Wyatt says that when he got to the merch stand, it turns out fans were eager to get their hands on one of his own personal shirts – and bought those before any of the other merch he had available:
“They bought that faster than anything else that was on the merch table. We still had a couple shirts but they were just in small and mediums, and we had stickers and koozies and everything else, but they wanted the personalized clothing.”
There was also one shirt in particular that fans were excited to get their hands on:
“I think I only sold one sweatshirt. It was my FFA sweatshirt.
Our demographic is for the most part super young, so they wanted that one super badly.”
And Wyatt said it was also a cool experience because he got to tell fans the backstory of the clothes they were buying.
“We stayed there until like 2 or 3 in the morning saying hi to fans, and met everyone that wanted to meet us and take a picture, and they’d come up with the shirt and I thought it was just the coolest thing ever because I’d kind of tell them the quick backstory of the shirt.
It was like ‘Actually I wore this shirt to my first ever full band show at the Tumbleweed in Stillwater, Oklahoma.’ And then I’d go on to the next one and I’d be like, ‘Oh yeah, this one’s kind of interesting because I recorded in this one with this song.’
And I didn’t realize that I remembered that off of a shirt. I’m not a huge clothing person. But I thought it was hilarious that I got to tell them the backstory and just seeing their faces light up like a Christmas tree. I was like, ‘This is cool as all get out.'”
In fact, the whole thing went over so well that it’s given Wyatt ideas for the future:
“It’s crossed my mind now just seeing that work out so well, like buying shirts, my little Hawaiian shirts or my button ups that I wear, and only wearing them for a couple shows and turning around and constantly selling like actual, personal clothing.
I dunno if that’ll ever work out, the logistics of it, but I thought that would be really funny to do.
Or just sell the shirt you wore that night. Which may seem weird to others but someone’s probably gonna want it.”
Like I told Wyatt, there are always fans out there who would buy something like that if it were for sale.
Might not be a bad idea. I just hope he has enough clothes in his closet to keep up with the demand – because if he keeps releasing killer music like he has so far, the demand for a personal shirt from Wyatt Flores’ closet is only going to get bigger and bigger.
