In his recent opinion piece, Citizen reporter Jason Peters was bellyaching about the apparent high price of tickets to the CWG Opening Ceremonies. I strongly disagree with him. This ceremony was televised live, nationally on TSN2. For TSN to commit, the show must contain serious production value. That production is expensive. Big dollars are needed to pay for lighting, sound, video, costumes, choreography, design, scenic elements and professional production management. This event will derive a significant portion of that money from ticket sales.
Mr. Peters went on to compare this event to Cirque's Dralion and that it doesn't seem like a fair value proposition. He didn't tell us the 20,000 tickets Cirque sold while in Prince George generated millions of dollars for them. Much of which went straight to Cirque's head office. Whereas, Cirque gets thousands of performances to pay off their investment in creating Dralion, our ceremonies were a one and only one chance to pay the bills. None of Cirque's people live and pay bills in Prince George. All of the Ceremonies performers were local, some of them were paid, many of them were volunteering countless hours to rehearse and prepare the show. Some of the professionals are from out of town, but many were also local residents; technicians, riggers, stage managers and other production assistants. Your ticket purchase helped pay for the staging of this event.
The profits, if any, will not be siphoned off to Cirque's head office. Yes, it may be true that only certain people were able to afford to be at CN Centre in person, but isn't that the way it is with practically any product or service? If you've decided to have something, you'll likely move mountains to get it. If you value being in a place for a live event, for a special experience, to witness something that will likely not happen again in the near future, then isn't it worth whatever the price? If your values don't allow you to come watch in person, then you can always turn on your $2,000 TV and watch them using your $150.00/month cable box.
By the way, buying the Citizen at the news stand everyday will cost you $561.60/year. There are some that may not be able to afford that. But, I'm sure you think it's worth every penny.
Bill Russell
Prince George
