A photo circulating on social media appearing to show a man purchasing a large stack of Dead & Company posters at the band’s recent show in Noblesville, IN has Deadheads up in arms.
Once created merely for promotional purposes, concert posters have become increasingly valuable in recent years as both pieces of art and collector’s items, with prints that retail for $50–$75 often fetching several hundred dollars apiece on the secondary market. Soaring demand has given rise to pre-show frenzies, with enthusiasts and resellers arriving early each night to battle it out at the merch booth for their chance to purchase the coveted prints. For the casual fan who just wants a memento to adorn their wall, acquiring a concert poster can seem like a hopeless endeavor—particularly at shows by high-profile bands like Phish and Dead & Company, which typically produce limited runs of prints with unique designs for each stop on their tours. The best available recourse for those would-be buyers is often to scour online marketplaces like eBay and pay significantly inflated prices.
Some touring acts 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 each fan can purchase. Dead & Company sell their official 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. In Noblesville where the photo in question was taken, however, the band appeared not to be enforcing a limit on how many posters an individual could buy.
The photo, which has made the rounds on various Dead & Company-related social media communities in recent days, was initially posted with a caption claiming that the man pictured had purchased 200 posters, though later reports indicate that it was closer to 50. Hundreds of fans have commented expressing their frustrations, with many of those remarks bemoaning the fact that this practice is not uncommon. Unless the artist or event 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.
[Correction]: A previous version of this article featured the headline, “Man Allegedly Buys 200 Dead & Company Posters,” which reflected initial witness estimates.