What Do You See!!

The gripping tensile strength of art lies in its complete subjectivity. Take Andy Warhol’s can of tomato soup. Whaddaysee? Take a second and think about it, what DO you see??

Uwannaknow what I see? A ticketing system. A metaphor of the business that I’m in. You go to the store you grab the soup you go to the register you pay your 2 bucks for the soup. BUT there’s more than soup in that purchase. You don’t think of it right at first but you just paid a Canning Fee, a Labeling Fee, a Packaging and Transportation Fee, a Retail Markup Fee – you can probably think up a few more can’t you?

Every company that participated in getting that can of soup into your hands got a piece of your 2 bucks. If your receipt had that all broken out into its individual parts, if each company’s chunk of the pie was allocated, separated and defined you would look at all those fees and charges and you might have a complaint or two about this outrage!

I don’t WANNA pay a Canning Fee or a Labeling Fee. I just want the soup. BUT you can’t get the soup without paying for what it takes to get it to you. You just want soup? No label or can or delivery? Grow the ingredients and make it yourself. After you’ve spent the time effort and energy to make that can of soup yourself, suddenly that Canning Fee is gonna look like a good deal won’t it? You might start thinking ‘How did they do that so cheaply?’

But the food peeps have figured out that you don’t need or want all those costs broken out, you just want the grand total. The only thing broken out is, you know it, the tax.

You can’t buy an evening with AC/DC without paying for what it takes to get them on that stage, and to get you in that seat. For some reason MY industry finds it necessary to break out all the fees and charges and show them to you. What is that? Honesty? Integrity? Foolishness? Amazing how Mr. Patron will fork out hundreds of bucks of his hard earned dough to a scalper for great seats at an astronomical price without seeing and without questioning the breakdown of costs. But have the legitimate ticket supplier whose name you recognize all too well plainly and forthrightly inform the patron of the pieces and parts, and suddenly they’re the devil.

By the way, that scalper didn’t get that ticket without paying all those fees, so guess who’s paying them in the end?

AND the MASTER is the MASTER for a reason, cuz she’s damn good at what she does. She is a corporation out to make a buck by doing what she does better than anyone else has found a way yet, and way better than you could do it by yourself. And just for the record, they are REALLY great people. I’ve met them and worked with them and they not just pros, they’re friendly, love their work, and love to help me do mine.

So the next time you find yourself looking at a list of fees you’ve paid to see your favorite act, consider the Can of Soup. That list exists in your air fare your martini your box of screws – it’s just not broken out for you as honestly as your ticket purchase is.

Oh and guess what part ISN’T broken out separately? You SHOULD know it, the tax.