PLAIN FOLK
by Les Pearson
How to Get the Biggest Bang for Your Entertainment Buck!
People on pensions, students at college, families with car payments, mortgages, or babies, and even Joe Working Stiff all agree. Ask financial planners. Few can afford more than 10% of their income for entertainment.
If you exist on AISH or your annual earnings flutter around the poverty line, entertainment is not in your vocabulary or experience. But if you earn $35,000 or more, you likely spend between $3,500 to $5,000 on holidays, presents, and entertainment.
What is your average entertainment budget? Consider.
Holidays seldom cost less than $1,500. Christmas almost always takes another grand. If you come from a large family or have growing kids, well, good luck! The wad evaporates into a spitball. If you smoke or regularly visit the bar, it will be easy to believe that concerts are only for a well-heeled elite.
For concert promoters like the Folk Music Club, finite fiscal resources for entertainment are an arthritic ache that cripples the number and kind of concerts that can be booked in a season. Paul Heywood, the Esplanade's Director of Theatre Operations, faces this handicap too.
Yes, there are cultural grants that subsidize some concert costs. But think of the competing demands!
Movies are relatively cheap. Tickets range from $6.50, but theatres cost $10.00 or more if you crave popcorn. Monday Night at the Movies and their nine-movie pass was a bargain at $45.00, and still is at $50.00. But movies are not live entertainment! Spontaneity and interaction go only so far. (Yes, people do clap after a barn burner…but feel awkward when the lights come up.)
If you are a sports nut, Tiger season tickets are another local bargain. The pass costs a mere $350 for a whopping 36 home games! That's less than $10 for two to three hours of entertainment. But you can spend a whole lot more. Calgary Flames or Stampeder games are good examples. Two pro games, tops, can be a match for two Tiger passes! And, with souvenirs, lodging, and transportation, there goes another grand.
I have a bias about real entertainment deals. Yes, it involves John Wort Hannam. He is a workingman's musician who understands the value of a buck.
In fact, he offered to lower his rates if we promised to cut admission for his concert at the Moose tomorrow evening! Now, for $10, you can hear the best in Alberta "blue collar" roots music. And there is nothing shabby about it. John is an award winner. You get an evening of live music for $10 as well as the official announcement of this year's Folk Club Concert Series performers!
John entertains better than a football game and dishes up imponderables to match a movie. Give him and folk music an economical test run. Folk music offers more joy for the dollar!
Tickets are available at the door, the Customer Service kiosk at the Medicine Hat Mall, Zucchini Blossom Restaurant, and Mike's Meats.