Whenever a popular show is in town, music promoters say, someone always takes advantage by selling tickets for more than face value.
That’s what’s happening with Monday’s sold-out performance by indie band Vampire Weekend at The Cellar Door.

The Visalia show is promoted by the local nonprofit Sound N Vision Foundation, whose goal is to bring top-notch musical groups to Visalia. Tickets are $20 — significantly less than they might have cost through a for-profit promoter.

But the tickets now are listed for as much as $150 each on Web sites such as Craigslist.org.

“There’s really no way to battle the scalpers,” said Aaron Gomes, president of Sound N Vision.

Tickets scalpers are making profit off Vampire Weekend concert at The Cellar Door in Visalia

Well, in an economic sense, this is what happens when a promoter “leaves money on the table”. Someone else will sniff the opportunity to pick it up.

I understand the motivation to keep prices low, but at the same time, there is nothing other than habit that keeps prices based uniformly, either over time, or acoss other variables, or even across shows. Locally, nearby Orange Blossom in Exeter understands this pricing dilemma.

I once worked with a similar club in another city that wrestled with similar issues. In time, they realized, and accepted, that for some shows, they could charge more, and no one would object.

I remember it took quite a leap of faith personally for the club owner to invest in expensive acts and then announce the shows would cost double or even triple the going rate. He was takng a real risk that few tickets would be sold and he was very anxious for many weeks, right up until show time. Then he was a changed man when the crowds showed up anyway.

In the end, theplace was packed, it turned out most of the regulars were able and willing to afford a higher price point, and there were plenty of new folks who would also.

Plus, scalping was reduced because the gap between what the few  people who might pay more and the original price was smaller, and there were fewer willing buyers at that price point, many having bought the original tickets for the first time.

I just attended my first show at the Cellar door last week, it is a very nice venue. Very nice! I was impressed, and I have been to a lot of similar places. Based on the marketing I have seen from them, I was expecting a dive-y place. Which would have been fine by me, but maybe pricing policies need to account for the value of the venue to the audience too.

I am not sure why the promoter is organized as a non-profit, it strikes me as a signal of under-capitalization. Not uncommon in that business, but still.

The truth is, Mr. Gomes,  non-profit or not, you should take the money that is on the table when it is there, and then this won’t happen. You need to learn to judge the demand  for the tickets and price accordingly.  Experiment – hold some tickets back until day of show, vary prices across shows and times, whatever it takes.

Especially for big shows like this, where capacity is going to be reached, supply and demand come into play. Find the price point where supply and demand are close, and everyone will be happy.

And if the bands are so egalitarian that they want lower ticket prices and bigger crowds, and they can deliver the crowds, then maybe the Cellar Door is too small a venue for them anyway.

And by the way, I was eager to see the show last week, and when I stopped in a few days early to buy tickets while I was in Visalia, you told me I didn’t need them because the show wouldn’t sell out. Which it didn’t and so I didn’t, but my remark to my girlfriend immediately was “What is wrong wit that guy? I am trying to hand him money for tickets, and he doesn’t know if I will find something else to do day of show and not come back. Why wouldn’t he rather have the money now than risk two people not coming back?”

This was one of your higher priced shows, so it makes me wonder – how much money are you losing by not being able or willing to take it when someone is literally trying it give it to you? How many of those folks decide to not come back day of show?

My advice to you  is take the money. Take the money take the money. Don;t be afraid to have creative deals with the band or the venue for shows, to share and raise the revenue for each.

E.g.  at the show I went to the band was selling TShirts for 2x the ticket price.  That is steep. But they sold some, and that probably helped reduce their cost to you.

But maybe if you take a risk,you all come out ahead. Maybe you offer a tier of prices that includes a t-shirt – but only for the original buyer. Band will be happy, you will  be happy, viewers will be happy, scalpers, well, they will be frustrated.

Think outside the box, and you will be fine!

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Roger was responsible for the science operations of the Telescope both prior to and during its entire productive lifetime. As a young pup, I was involved in creating the earliest software in support of many aspects of the plan he developed.

Along with Barry Lasker, who was my direct supervisor for most of that period, Roger is now another star to be cataloged and studied and memorialized in NASA history.

The Hubble Space Telescope’s science team in Baltimore has lost one of its original leaders, a physicist whose comprehensive knowledge of the complex observatory helped keep its science operations running smoothly, and astronomers’ discoveries rolling in.

Rodger Doxsey, head of the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Hubble Mission Office, died of cancer Tuesday after entering an area hospice over the weekend. The Towson resident was 62.

“Rodger was the heart and soul of Hubble here at the Institute,” said STScI’s director, Matt Mountain. “He … knew everything about the space telescope, from the smallest anomaly to the breadth of the extraordinary science delivered by the telescope he had worked with for over 28 years.”

via Rodger Doxsey, one of space telescope team’s first leaders, dies at 62 — baltimoresun.com.

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“I have been in Jewish cemeteries,” Eliasberg continued. “There is never a cross on a tombstone of a Jew.”

From: Sharp debate at high court over cross on US land – Yahoo! News.

This case mirrors a  current situation in Porterville,  one of many that our City has managed to generate in attempts to skirt the First Amendment’s Establishment clause.

Here in Murray Park, we have a Christian Cross, where Easter Sunrise Services are annually helped on City-owned and run parkland.

If only our City could devote as much energy to innovative thoughts and solutions to real civic issues, such as:

1. Poor use of information technology (IT) by City Hall
2. Abysmal education rate
3. The lack of a strategy for marketing Porterville as part of an economic development plan
4. The lack of a sense of place and purpose in the new General Plan

Perhaps if we are all lucky, the Supreme Court will rule sensibly in this case and it will serve as a wakeup call to City leaders to find what makes Porterville best and competitive and to nurture that instead of the anti-First Amendment, anti-science, anti-equality hate they focus on so much.

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Bureau of Labor Statistics releases monthly metropolitan-area data,

via 13 Cities Post Unemployment Above 15 Percent – Yahoo! Real Estate.

First, a little explanation of the chart in the link, then a comment or two.

Although the chart says “Visalia, CA” at 15.4, it actually means VISALIA-PORTERVILLE METROPOLITAN STATISTICAL AREA (MSA).

I wondered, with so many nearby locations on the list (in particular Hanford, but also Fresno, Modesto, and Stockton, how did Porterville manage to escape? Could it be just below the Top 13?

The answer turns out to be yes and no. I went in search of the raw data to see what it said for Porterville. First I found City Specific data for Tulare County in the form of a spreadsheet.

From that we learn that the data for Porterville and East Porterville (listed separately for some reason I don’t know, the areas are contiguous):

So, depending on if we average E. Porteville in or not, Porterville would indeed be on the list. If we don’t average it in, Porterville would in fact be just below the Top 13, probably easily making the Top 20 in the Nation.

But I noticed in the same spreadsheet that the data for Visalia did not match the article above:

So this must not be the same source of data.

Further searching led to this file (pdf) which does match the 15.4 for Visalia-Porterville.

VISALIA-PORTERVILLE METROPOLITAN STATISTICAL AREA (MSA)
(Tulare County)
The unemployment rate in the Tulare County was 15.4 percent in April 2009

So there you have it. Maybe it is a blessing or a curse, but Porterville’s name seems destined to be forever dropped from these charts as published in the media each month even though it is in fact included in the data.

A blessing in that no one hears of our troubles, but a curse in that our Economic Development City Staff and local private sector entrepreneurs (Including yours truly) can not grab the public’s attention if there is little evidence we exist in a short attention span world.

Even Hanford, which is both closer to Visalia than Porterville and smaller than it is at least in theory able to reap the benefits of “any publicity is good publicity”. It is not clear why they represent a separate Census Designated Place other than that they are in Kings County rather than Tulare, but they do get their names in their news to be noticed by outsiders looking to help, and that can only be a benefit.

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It’s the best years of your life they want to steal

No man born with a living soul
Can be working for the clampdown

I will have more to say in this space soon regarding yesterday’s Prop H8 decision, I am still gathering my thoughts.

But these lyric from a song I know have been blasting in my head since the news broke (very slightly paraphrased):

What are we gonna do now?
Taking off his turban, they said, is this man a Jew?
’Cos working for the clampdown

They put up a poster saying:
We pray more than you!
When we’re working for the clampdown

We will teach our twisted speech
To the young believers
We will train our blue-eyed men
To be young believers

The judge said five to ten but I say double that again
I’m not working for the clampdown

No man born with a living soul
Can be working for the clampdown

Kick over the wall ’cause government’s to fall
How can you refuse it?

Let fury have the hour, anger can be power
D’you know that you can use it?

The voices in your head are calling
Stop wasting your time, there’s nothing coming
Only a fool would think someone could save you
The men at the factory are old and cunning
You don’t owe nothing, so boy get runnin’
It’s the best years of your life they want to steal

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Post tags: California Supreme Court, Clash, Joe Strummer, Prop 8, protest

No one can see her before Tuesday, a full 6 days from now, and some not until Thursday, one week from today.

This has happened before when we try to schedule an appointment when one of our dogs falls ill, but I hoped it was an aberration last time. Apparently it was not. We should have a magic ball to know when our dog will take ill so we can schedule well in advance I guess.

There are 4 vets in town, and they all work bankers hours. No service in the evenings, little to no service on weekends, for emergencies during that time, Visalia 30 miles away is the closest possibility.

I am sure the doctors are doing yeoman work, and I also know as a volunteer for the new Porterville Animal Shelter, we are asking them to make time in their busy schedule to spay and neuter the strays we take in.

Still, it must be nice to be so busy that all of the vets in town can afford to project an uncaring image to responsible and loving pet owners who come in with an ill pet and are regular customers, and to give priority to abandoned dogs instead.

No advice is offered for keeping the pet comfortable during the delay, no explanation about why time can’t be made available in the evenings or weekends to meet demand, just sheer callousness on the part of front office staffs, the very staffs we trust with our pet’s health and lives. This is not the kind of image a health service should be projecting.

Now, I don’t want to offer criticism without turning it into a critique, offering practical solutions to this problem.

Recently, we were at the “Super Pet Adoption Day” with the Porterville Animal Shelter in Fresno. One of the local vet schools had a booth they were manning. Maybe it is time for a new vet to consider Porterville, as the business seems to be there, and there will be steady business spaying and neutering as many as 6 strays per day on behalf of the Shelter, many of which will find families who will make the vet their own.

Either that, or one of the existing vets ought hire some help, maybe a new vet, to assist with overflow business. This could be a very sound business decision for the vet, because it is very likely the hired vet may one day wish to buy the practice, which makes retirement that much more likely.

PS – I don’t know if it is funny or sad that one of the vets in town, not staff but the actual doctor, told me he does not believe in evolution while standing in front of a poster of 75 or so breeds of dogs.

Just how does this doctor think dogs and other animals get their distinctive features? And do we really want to place our trust in such a medical doctor who claims to not “believe” in the very science that is at the foundation of everything he does?

UPDATE: Thurs. Evening

It looks like Thunder is going to be OK. We found a vet in Tulare who is actually willing to see sick animaks and to make sure their capacity is sufficient to account for the demand for their services.

Seems a foxtail had gotten under Thunder’s tongue, and worked its way down to the front of her neck where it had become  trapped and seriously infected. We were told that had we waited until Tuesday to Thursday of next week, the infection, which was filled already with a large amount of pus, could have burst and made matters much worse. Apparently every single vet in Porterville is too concerned about something other than their own customers to explain this to us.

We were also told that we are far from the first from Porterville to make the trek – and make no mistake about it, it is a 60 mmile roundtrip trek – to Tulare while muttering about the lack of compassion of the local vets.

How sad indeed for Porterville’s pet owners that the local vets, each and every one of them,  only do procedures that can be scheduled far in advance, and that the pets have to either suffer while they wait, or the owners are forced to make a 60+ mile round trip for primary and followup visits to receive timely medical care for their loved ones.

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Steam tales are in place, and it looks like the change is set to occur next week sometime.

Why are the Flaming  Kabob and Vientianne (on Olive across from Porterville High School)  my two favorite places to eat in Porterville?

1. Both have friendly staff and owners who will ask you sincerely if you are enjoying the food and go out of their way to make sure you do.
2. Both offer excellent and authentic regional cuisine using fresh ingredients, and do not shy away from using the correct amounts of spices. Most restaurants in Porterville, even the Mexican ones, avoid spice like the plague.  I don’t know why, but Porterville restaurants uniformly  serve the blandest food on earth. On this score alone, any restaurant using spices could make it into my top 5. So far there are only 2, maybe 3 candidates I am aware of. I don’t mention the third here, because I am not sure they pass the next point.
3. Both serve food that is not a slopped-together combination of stuff you can buy in giant cans at Smart and Final.
4. The prices at both are extremely reasonable, you can eat well and still have food to go for the price of a single meal.

Please patronize both Flaming Kabob and Vientianne and also please  encourage the folks at your favorite restaurant to step it up and stop skimping on spices in their recipes.

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13 of the top 18   areas are in California, including a nearly unbroken chain of population centers between north of the  Grapevine  to Sacramento,  and then north of Sacramento well into Oregon.

More-Cities-Seeing-at-Least-15-Percent-Unemployment: Personal Finance News from Yahoo Finance.

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Post tags: unemployment rates

Chris Landers writes lovingly of the remnants of a family owned Baltimore press that became a national institution and veritable museum of 80 years of printing technology, popular entertainment trends and graphic design standards.

Be sure to look a the photo tours and poster gallery as well. Well worth it for nostaligia, education amd even for budding graphic designers…

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Post tags: Baltimore, Bob Cicero, city Paper, Fank Cicero, Globe Popster Company, Joe Cicero, Joe Galbreath, Maryland Institute College of Art

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