Cultural Values Debate - from Hardbacks priced £1 to Concert Tickets priced £950! -

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GlynThincs Reading Civilization by Niall Ferguson

16 Oct 2012, 08:59 AM | Post: #1

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Cultural Values Debate - from Hardbacks priced £1 to Concert Tickets priced £950!

There is a popular celebrity biography hardback on sale at £1 per copy. This morning tickets went on sale at prices from £90 to £950 for a concert by a well known 60's (and older!) pop group. How do we decide what to pay for our cultural experiences?

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Glyn

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Jonathan Hill Reading Only the Innocent by Rachel Abbott

16 Oct 2012, 09:07 AM | Post: #2

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RE: Cultural Values Debate -from Hardbacks priced £1 to Concert Tickets priced £950!

Well I go to the theatre a lot and West End tickets can be around the sixty pound mark. I will pay that very rarely for things I am desperate to see. Discounts are usually available throughout the run.

There's no way I would spend upwards of £100 for a single concert where I have nothing afterwards but the memory.

Having said that, I suspect the £1 celebrity book would not even cause me to dig in my pocket for a pound coin.

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Ray Kingfisher Reading Skeleton Crew - Stephen King

16 Oct 2012, 12:02 PM | Post: #3

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RE: Cultural Values Debate - from Hardbacks £1 to Concert Tickets £950!

(16 Oct 2012 08:59 AM)GlynThincs Wrote: There is a popular celebrity biography hardback on sale at £1 per copy. This morning tickets went on sale at prices from £90 to £950 for a concert by a well known 60's (and older!) pop group. How do we decide what to pay for our cultural experiences?

To be fair to the music industry, CDs are (comparatively) very cheap - in fact they now use albums to promote concerts (it used to be v.v.).

I don't think I'd even pay a quid for a celebrity biog. - proper skilled actors/sportsmen/musicians okay.

So how do we decide?

With our feet (and with the small amount of our own cash the state lets us keep).
If people want to pay that much of their own cash to hear the amplified croakings of geriatrics (you won't get close enough to actually see them), then good for them.

So in my case I buy CDs but don't really go to concerts.
And have you seen the ticket prices for even the copycat 'tribute' acts?

Ultimately you have to leave it to the individual - would you really want others to decide what's good value for you?

RK

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daveb Reading Bed by David Whitehouse

21 Oct 2012, 09:39 AM | Post: #4

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I Suppose It's About What You Yourself Value

(16 Oct 2012 08:59 AM)GlynThincs Wrote: How do we decide what to pay for our cultural experiences?

I am willing to pay at a level relative to ...............

1. Whether the artist/actor/group/director etc is 'performing' at a high level of their chosen discipline

and/or

2. The cost (as perceived by me, the punter) of putting on the 'performance'

I think that that evaluation can be applied to any cultural experience. Some artists/performances are taking the pi$$ whilst others deliver a life enhancing experience for relatively small ticket/purchase price. However, once we get down to the realms of £1 for a hardback biography then we are well into the zone of marketing ploy and nothing else really has an influence.

Books are not much different (for me). For a favourite author -or- a subject/story I really wanted to read I would (within reason) pay more in anticipation of a good 'performance'. Otherwise, I wouldn't.

However it's also a very personal thing and we are all different in what we value. Last night I went to a family meal in a restaurant (mostly out of duty) and it cost a bloomin' packet. Afraid, as I'm on a budget, I just sat there thinking about all the exhibitions/concerts/books/films that I could have had for the money I spent on what is essentially just food & drink.

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leep

27 Oct 2012, 07:58 AM | Post: #5

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RE: Cultural Values Debate

And yet you can probably buy all the songs they'll play at the concert for a tenner. It's the difference between live and pre-recorded (the same with theatre vs a movie).

As for the celebrity bio, they may just be trying to shift some. That whole gamble (a little bit like movie remakes and cross-overs) doesn't always go well (I read Blair's memoirs had to be heavily discounted to get them to shift).

If I ever get into the best-selling category of authors (maybe even if I don't) I'd probably look to sell 'premium' versions of my books, by that I mean limited-edition printed copies (ala Cory Doctorow, who is charging $275 for a story that is also available to download for free).

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