Old_Tom_Bombadil wrote:truehobbit wrote:I think I'd be willing to pay up to, say, 30 USD to see Paul McCartney.
I don't think you could have purchased one of the (admittedly overpriced) T-shirts for $30, let alone a ticket to see him perform!
![Laughing :rofl:](./images/smilies/th_ROTFLMAO.gif)
$30 US might get you parking.
That proves what I said about the price being inversely proportional to what the thing is worth!
Jewel, on the one hand I agree about a price being high or low depending on what it's worth
to yourself - I mean, a lot of people probably wouldn't spend 30 USD to see
any opera
![MrGreen :D](./images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif)
- but there's also such a thing as the industry asking inappropriate prices just because they know that people will probably pay them - and I think in most cases I'd rather go without the experience than give in to that kind of extortion and feel the fool of the market.
Opera tickets are very expensive, too. My wife and I had subscriptions to the San Francisco Opera for a few years when we were first married. Not only do you have to pay the face value of the tickets, but you have to give a "donation" to increase your chances of getting a better seat. Also, you have no guarantee that the marquee performers will even perfom the night that you hold the ticket for.
I think it's astonishing they manage to fill the house in the first place, if they are that expensive. Maybe there just are a lot of rich people around who still treat opera as a social duty and hence fill the seats. However, as long as opera is a way for the rich to show off, it's making it a posh affair, and putting of normal people.
I guess there are some houses with the same attitude on this side of the pond, but in Cologne you can see an opera for much the same price as go to the cinema.
I looked it up (and felt quite tempted to see an opera once again - haven't been in a year or more, I think
![MrGreen :D](./images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif)
): tickets are from 10 Euros to 65 Euros. The attitude to opera here is that it should be a similarly normal event as the cinema, not something that is special even for the rich. Of course, Cologne opera doesn't deal in big names a lot, but it's one of the category A houses in the country.
But it's true that when there is a special guest, they usually perform just once or twice, and tickets for that are sold out months in advance, or given to subscription holders, so the ordinary visitor doesn't get to see them.
However, there's still the Philharmonics, where you have a reasonably good chance to see interesting people at reasonable prices.
I've been to some very memorable performances for comparatively little money, but I do like recordings, and have had some very memorable entertainment from listening to them, too - I get annoyed very easily, so it needs some luck for me to make live entertainment worthwhile
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
- so, I have to disagree about your evaluation of cheap entertainment/live entertainment!
![Razz :P](./images/smilies/77tongue.gif)