Once upon a time, the economy broke and a whole lot of other awful stuff happened…
…but art cheered me up.
From my past posts, you can probably gather I’m a big fan of seeing lots of live performances, as cheaply as possible. Actually, every performance I’ve written up on this blog has cost less than 15 pounds – all of the Edinburgh festival events, and all the stand-alone performances at day ticket prices. It helps to have a student card and a flexible morning schedule to scope out tickets, but even for posh places like the ROH you can try your luck at the ticket office just before the performance.
Back when I was in Sydney I liked going to the Belvoir St box office on Tuesdays to get pay-as-you-can-afford tickets (or a minimum of 10 dollars) for shows at the downstairs theatre – if you’re there about forty minutes early you’re pretty much guaranteed a seat, depending on the popularity of the show.
According to this article in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian arts sector is starting to suffer from the economic downturn, and companies are starting to look at discounting tickets across the board.
ETA: Here’s another one today.
Last night I went to a great Balkan club night here in Edinburgh – seven pounds for a couple of hours of crazy folk-ish/gypsy/klezmer music, plus belly dancing, and an impromptu farandole-mosh-pit.
Tonight I went to local arts co-op Forest to see a performance from Anti-folk-ish harpist Erica Holcomb. It was great. The harp pieces were better than those on the guitar, and the crowd was a little distracted and noisy at times, but free concerts are awesome.
Moral of the story:
Take advantage of cheap tickets if you can get them – show everyone there is a demand for good quality, affordable theatre and music. Go see new things. Be nice to box-office staff. Student performances and emerging new acts are cheap, and sometimes free. Free/inexpensive shows can be bad. So can expensive ones. Arts companies like loyal audiences. Support them.
Art is (sometimes) free!
Between Castles 
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November 30, 2008 at 8:58 pm
bluedog1257
Free also is an interesting exhibition at the Fruitmarket called Close Up.
Simon Starling (he of Turner Prize ‘Shed Boat Shed’ fame) has a piece looking at a Man Ray photograph from 4m to 400nm.
And upstairs there is a huge video of someone squeezing their spots in slow motion – there is an awful fascination about it. And some nudity too, although there is no opera here to go with it!
And we liked the new statue of James Clerk Maxwell on George Street.