Music

Black Country, New Road: Selling Out a Merch Drop Live

Black Country, New Road: Selling Out a Merch Drop Live

How the band used a livestream Q&A to sell out their new album formats — powered by Single and Big Cookie.

When Black Country, New Road went live for their new album Forever Howlong, it looked like a simple Q&A — just the band chatting with fans, answering questions, and talking about the record. But behind the scenes, it was a fully-planned direct-to-fan moment.

During the stream, the band quietly dropped exclusive physical formats — CDs and cassettes — available only on their own store. Within minutes, every format was gone. Fans were watching, chatting, and buying in real time, turning a conversation into a sellout.

 

The Setup

Using Single, Black Country, New Road streamed the Q&A directly through their Shopify store. Fans could tune in, ask questions, and instantly purchase limited editions without ever leaving the page. 

black country, new road livestream

Working with Big Cookie, the team built buzz ahead of the stream through social posts, email invites, and RSVP forms that doubled as list growth. On launch day, reminder emails and social pushes sent fans straight to the stream, where the drop and the Q&A ran side by side.

Big Cookie Black Country New Road

 

The Results

The campaign blew past expectations:

  • Thousands of fans registered in the 24 hours leading up to the event
  • Over 3K tuned in live
  • 25 conversion viewer conversion rate during the activation
  • All limited formats sold out live - in under 20 minutes!

black country, new road

"Bringing joy to fans on an artist's owned channels is core to our strategy at Big Cookie. Single's tech and feature set allows us to get creative with our partners and provide not only an authentic connection for Black Country, New Road with their fans but also drive considerable ROI on their own store. This campaign has inspired similar executions across our client roster, always delivering a massive conversion percentage on Shopify!" - Aaron Bogucki, Big Cookie

 

Built with Single Partners

This project was powered by Single in collaboration with Big Cookie, part of the Single Partners network — a community of creative teams helping artists, labels, and creators launch their biggest ideas direct-to-fan on Shopify with Single.

If you’re looking for help building or scaling your direct-to-fan setup, Big Cookie works with artists’ teams to bring it all together — from creative strategy and fan relationship management to first-party audience growth.

→ Learn more about Big Cookie and our partners at sn.gl/partners