Nashville merchandise maker Something Inked profits from country's touring resurgence

Nashville's growth as a music industry hub isn't limited to Music Row.

Head south of a series of East Nashville cemetery plots, and on merchandise embroidering, manufacturing and printing company Something Inked's multi-acre campus, $70 million in revenue is being earned via Morgan Wallen sweatshirts, merchandise for major sports leagues and more.

Three decades after being founded during the 1990s country boom, Something Inked — via country's touring resurgence and much more — is earning unprecedented profits.

With the mega-hot country industry seeing nine out of every 10 dollars for sales of its crossover music hits being earned from streaming — and platforms like Spotify paying artists only $0.0033 per stream — the flattening of revenue streams in all facets of country music's burgeoning industry is problematic.

However, a commercial solution has arrived: Artists experiencing immense streaming popularity are filling the world's arenas and stadiums for lucrative concert dates.

Wallen has scheduled six-dozen stadium concerts between April 2023-August 2024. Zach Bryan's breakout stardom has led to him having a simultaneous set of arena and stadium dates to keep him occupied on the road for 2024.

Even deeper, emotive singer-songwriter Noah Kahan's 2024 finds him graduating from packing buildings like Lower Broadway's Ascend Amphitheater to Bridgestone Arena for a May 2024 return, then finishing his run of scheduled dates with mid-July appearances at Boston's 38,000-seat Fenway Park.

Located 10 minutes from Nashville International Airport, Something Inked has a hand in ensuring that merchandise will meet the demand for live entertainment for Wallen and Kahan, among many.

Something Inked's diversified business model expands

David Schneiderman is Something Inked's vice president of Marketing Services. His background comes via Grammy award-winning record producer, Billboard record producer of the year and BMI multi-award-winning songwriter Mike Curb.

Schneiderman arrived in Nashville from New York in 1997 (his background includes hand-pressing logos into denim) to help with the Curb Records empire in the retail marketing of acts that included Tim McGraw, Jo Dee Messina and Leann Rimes.

His son, Todd, a 2002 graduate of the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga with a marketing degree, counts working with acts like Mark Chestnutt (including his 2002 Rockin' Roadhouse Tour with Joe Diffie and Tracy Lawrence) and Blake Shelton in his formative merchandising experiences.

David Schneiderman is walking the company's printing floor where hunter green sweatshirts emblazoned with "One Day at a Time" performer Wallen's face is being printed on what will end up being tens of thousands of sweatshirts headed out to meet the superstar's tour during his arena dates.

They're not just putting musical artists' faces, logos and names on merchandise or meeting numerous custom specification standards for them and retailers like Hot Topic.

Other frequent live venue fillers in the post-COVID quarantine era include Disney on Ice, the NBA, NHL, World Wrestling Entertainment and even churches. Medieval Times, Margaritaville, minor league sports teams and Las Vegas hotels are also seeing their merchandise rolling out of Something Inked's creative rooms and presses.

These companies have their needs met (even if they require the company to source unique cut-and-sew fashions from Chinese factories) by more than 125 employees and a full-time art department working on-site in Nashville, with print production capabilities extending across 19 states.

Because acts like Wallen are selling out stadiums for over 70 consecutive dates on worldwide tours by 2025 — and earning over $1 million per night in merchandise revenue — it's a not-so-conservative estimate to presume that Something Inked could occupy a 100,000-square-foot footprint of Nashville.

Merchandising creates value for artists, creatives

Daily, Todd Schneiderman checks in on global clientele, requiring up to 50 shipments of over 250,000 merchandise pieces worldwide. Something Inked performs rigorous on-site quality control and handles shipping and logistics tracking. Schneiderman believes that the company's hands-on approach is the reason for its growing popularity in the merchandising marketplace.

"Merchandise used to be the lowest consideration for road-touring industries," he says. "Now, those earnings are the first thing they concern themselves with nightly. We're the thing that pays the bills and keeps the lights on. More importantly, the overall value that has to be created in these artists for them to remain sustainable has to come from somewhere."

He's not just an unassuming music industry mogul, though.

Need a cereal box designed to market your WWE act that's gone viral? Talk to Todd. Have a 48-hour turnaround needed for 25,000 customized NBA playoff rally towels designed and shipped to an arena before a prime-time Game 6 matchup? Todd's your guy. Are you a representative of that team's opponent and in need of "World Champion" T-shirts designed and shipped in another 48-hour window? Todd's that powerful of a one-stop shop.

While conversing with The Tennessean, a 40-foot touring trailer truck bearing HARDY's face pulls into a shipping warehouse's parking lot. At the same time, in Schneiderman's office suite, an employee runs down updates about merchandise needs for Roger Taylor and Queen, Nas, Guns n' Roses, All-American Rejects, Kahan, Lauren Daigle, the Beach Boys, Three Days Grace, Midland, Paris Jackson and Maggie Rogers, among others.

Thankfully, both Schneidermans sit on swivel chairs in their respective offices to meet their ever-rising and unprecedented product demand.

"COVID left us in pretty bad shape, but we stayed in touch with our clients, who informed us that live events would likely explode once everything could return," Todd Schneiderman says. "That confidence allowed us to secure lines of credit with our raw merchandise vendors.

"Then, we were built to handle massive tours from established acts like the Guns n' Roses and the Rolling Stones. Also, we could always address unique merchandising needs from acts like Bad Bunny or Morgan (Wallen), who were big but niche pre-COVID but are now doing arenas and stadiums.

'Grab the bull by the horns'

Something Inked's business has evolved from solely working with individual artists, organizations and smaller labels to, since 2008, working with tour promotion agencies, labels and other groups handling more extensive clientele lists.

In the decade before COVID, Something Inked was earning roughly $40 million yearly in revenue. This occurred after the company grew from an embroidery and screen-printing operation that survived an initial partnership gone sour with the Sommet Group — which provided back-office business functions including payroll and benefits for small businesses and other organizations — that was subjected to a federal criminal investigation and eventual bankruptcy.

The organization repurchased its equipment and hardware from bankruptcy liquidation and relaunched as Something Inked. One year later, the company needed an expansion in physical operations to handle the Memphis Grizzlies and Nashville Predators' simultaneous 2011 playoff runs.

By 2018, their capacity grew to require work with AIA Community, a top-20 promotional products distributor community, including over 200 independent distributors nationwide.

This year finds them working with acts and concepts affiliated with Bravado, a global, 360-degree, full-service merchandise company. Plus, the company is breaking ground on a new 25,000-square-foot facility to house its e-commerce business and finalizing an agreement with Chase Bank for future needs.

"Anyone can sell merchandise, but it's the service we provide that keeps them coming back," Oliver Landry, Something Inked's president and managing member, said in a statement. "Our customers' success is our success, so we aren't afraid to grab the bull by the horns and hold on tight. In fact, we quite enjoy the ride."

Todd Schneiderman pauses, then looks over an office filled with custom merchandise per square foot from at least four different music genres, professional sports leagues, and three global touring entertainment franchises.

He's content and exhausted, smiling and laughing at the unknown, untapped potential of forthcoming business opportunities in country music and elsewhere.

"Back in the day, George Strait was the only country act who could play a stadium -- now there's a dozen of them," he says. "That number's only going to grow. We still view ourselves as a (merchandising) industry underdog finding creative ways to move the needle. This moment we're in right now is unbelievable."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville's Something Inked expands with country music's touring boom