NME can exclusively reveal details of Tim Burgess launching a vintage souvenir ticket generator ahead of the 2026 London Merch Market. See details below and check out a demo video above.
- READ MORE: The Charlatans tell us about “euphoric, transcendent” new single ‘We Are Love’ and first album in eight years
The Charlatans frontman’s merch market, which allows bands to sell merchandise for free and keep 100 per cent of the income and follows a successful launch in Manchester, is set to take place at London’s Troxy on January 11 2026.
Ahead of the event, Burgess has announced a new ticket generator, which allows fans to create a physical keepsake of gigs in a time when tickets are largely digital. Burgess explained how he got the idea for 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.
“So many people asked about ticket stubs from Charlatans shows as you don’t get them any more with a link or QR code, so the original idea was to make some printable ticket souvenir stubs for our upcoming dates in September,” Burgess told NME.
“We looked at lots of old tickets, and it hit us that there wasn’t a huge number of templates, so we asked the question: ‘Would it be possible to recreate any ticket from any show ever, even ones that haven’t happened yet?’
“I discussed it with our tech guy Andrew Brindle and his answer was a resounding YES,” he continued. “So, for the next couple of months we worked on building The Souvenir Ticket Generator and it’s a thing of absolute beauty.”
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Upon entering the website, you can select different vintage ticket styles and colours, before filling in details of any gig – including the promoter, artist, support act, venue, and date.
Then, you can save the ticket and print it out. “It’s totally free to use and your boss even said you can print them at work if you want,” Burgess added.
“We shared the prototype with friends and they went crazy with it,” he added. “Manda from Bis had lost the ticket from when they supported Foo Fighters, so she made one for that.
“You can buy souvenir tickets online but it’s not like there aren’t enough extra charges when you buy a ticket anyway. Plus not sure they have them for Prefab Sprout at The Hacienda in 1984.”
Try out the ticket generator here. Fans of course should note that these are just souvenir tickets and not valid for gig access.
The 2026 London leg of the merch market will see The Troxy will form the main hub for stalls, live interviews, performances and more surprises at the event in 2026. Other venues participating include The George Tavern – a nearby walk that will host bands and stalls all day – along with The Old Ship and The Clement Attlee, who will host even more stalls, interviews and book events. Thanks to Tonic Music, Terry Hall’s piano will be making an appearance at the Merch Market as well.
The first Merch Market in Manchester saw members of New Order, Inspiral Carpets, Everything Everything, Penfriend, Cabbage, and more manning stalls, while Burgess hosted his own stall and delivered a live performance on the day.
News of this year’s edition of the Merch Market follows comments Burgess made in 2021, where he spoke out about venues taking an unfair cut of merch sales. “The whole system needs addressing,” he said at the time.
“This isn’t about The Charlatans. It’s about those bands who need merch income to survive. Some places take 25 per cent. A quarter of the full selling price. Vinyl doesn’t even have that markup to begin with.”
Following a campaign started by the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), who started a directory highlighting venues charging zero commission for selling merchandise, it was confirmed that 400 venues had agreed not to take a cut of artists’ merch proceeds by joining the database. There are still many venues that have not signed up to the scheme.
In further comments to NME in 2022, Burgess 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.
“When I first tweeted about merch commission, Warren Ellis from The Bad Seeds replied [saying] that we could maybe ask the venues for a percentage of the bar take. It’s no more unreasonable than them taxing the merch.”
In other news, The Charlatans recently announced a set of UK dates for Spring 2026 in support of their new album ‘We Are Love’.
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