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For What It's Worth

Michael Rushton on pricing the arts

Event planning

June 19, 2013 by Michael Rushton 1 Comment

Zombies!At the Freakonomics blog, thinking about how to generate revenues from creative goods when digital copies are so readily available:

Products – especially digital ones – are often very easy to copy. But experiences can be highly copy-resistant.  Just think of music: it’s easy to pirate a song, but it’s very difficult to effectively pirate a live show.

The Los Angeles Times reports on a package deal to fans waiting for World War Z:

The package will include an advance screening in RealD 3-D of the Brad Pitt movie at select theaters nationwide on June 19 — two days before its worldwide release — along with one HD digital copy of the movie when it becomes available, a pair of custom RealD 3-D glasses, a limited edition full-size movie poster as well as a small popcorn.

Not surprisingly, the Mega Ticket comes with a mega price of $48.

Interesting to me is how profitable this is. If you already own the rights, the cost of holding a showing two days before official release, an HD digital copy, a “limited edition” poster, and a small popcorn (they couldn’t bump this up to a medium?) are all at very low marginal cost.

 

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Comments

  1. Johnson says

    October 28, 2013 at 2:31 am

    Nice post you got here! Keep this post up. Thanks!

    Reply

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Michael Rushton

Michael Rushton taught in the Arts Administration programs at Indiana University, and lives in Bloomington. An economist by training, he has published widely on such topics as public funding of the … MORE

About For What It’s Worth

What’s the price? Everything has one; admission, subscriptions, memberships, special exhibitions, box seats, refreshments, souvenirs, and on and on – a full menu. What the price is matters. Generally, nonprofit arts organizations in the US receive about half of their revenue as “earned income,” and … [Read More...]

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  • Michael Rushton on Equality, the arts, and the problem of expensive tastes: “Thank you David. In terms of costs, the quick, and I think too-easy answer, is cost-disease, which affects any sector,…” Feb 1, 15:04
  • David E. Myers on Equality, the arts, and the problem of expensive tastes: “Hi Michael, Always grateful for your perspectives, though as you know, I do not always agree. At the risk of…” Feb 1, 11:16
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