Airfare and arts: What are you paying for?

I travel around a bit, so I'm on the constant search for cheap flights. I flew over the weekend to Omaha to be with my family for Christmas. I went Southwest, one of my favorites, due to their low and predictable prices. Spirit is also incredibly cheap, offering fares often under $50. Explaining my flight options to my family, someone said, "how can some airlines offer fares so cheap, when others are so expensive?"

I thought for a moment, and knew the answer. Fares are cheap when there is less variety or choice in where and when you fly. You can only fly to a limited number of cities, and/or fly on very specific days. They keep prices low because they ONLY offer what is most cost-efficient for their company to produce, which may mean flights close to their headquarters, or flights between popular cities.

This reminded me of Rushton's explanation about the cost of books (the literary art form). Why are books cheaper in grocery stores or big-lots stores than they are in bookstores? Because the grocery stores only offers the absolute best sellers, a small variety, only what they know will sell and cover its own cost (John Grisham, Mary Higgins Clark, etc). Bookstores, whether small/independent or Barnes & Noble, offer more variety, so prices are higher to cover the cost of stocking lesser-bought books like poetry (they're a bookstore; it's their job to have variety, but they still have to pay for it somehow).

This also applies to performing arts, as explained by Doug Booher. Shows can be more expensive at performing arts centers that have more variety, because the blockbuster shows are underwriting the more experimental shows that don't cover their costs. The same with museums - they bring in the blockbuster special exhibitions that will bring in enough admission fees/sponsorships to cover other smaller or lesser-known but equally artistically important endeavors.

The arts are considered a “mixed commodity” because they are in part a private good – they can be sold to an individual purchaser and their benefits are enjoyed specifically by him (the ticket to a concert, for example). They are also in part a public good, because their presence enriches society as a whole (preservation of collective cultural heritage, prestige and identity conferred upon a body of people, developing aesthetic public tastes, etc, suggested by economists Baumol and Bowen). I might argue many other services are like this that we don't realize; enriching society in the form of options from which we may not individually benefit, but rather benefit indirectly, collectively, simply from their presence. (Example: Do we perceive our country to be more free, mobile, and well-off, if we have seemingly infinite commercial flight options, even if we ourselves do not take advantage of them? And are we as a whole benefited by this mindset? Do we take pride and comfort in knowing we COULD go somewhere if we need or want to, or that our children will have the opportunity to take advantage of these options in the future, contributing to more peace of mind? It may not be tangible, exactly, but the spillover externalities could be far-reaching.)

Point is, in many situations, when you're wondering about the price of something, consider if you're paying ONLY for what you yourself get (private good), or if you're paying for the options you have, or for the availability of lesser-popular offerings, the mere presence of which, it might be argued, enrich society as a whole.

Mary & Max

Mary & Max is our opening film at Sundance on January 15; it's an animated claymation film for adults about a reclusive middle-aged man in New York and his penpal, a little girl in Australia.

A couple interesting things here:

First, the filmmakers used Skype to collaborate on the film, over the course of 13 months. This is an example of technology advancement enabling the arts, rather than providing competition, as we often think of it.

Second, the style of photographer Diane Arbus inspired the visual thematics; evidence intellectual property law shouldn't be too strict, because good new art comes from old art, and makes the world better (uses old ideas in new ways, connects ideas, etc.)

read it all here:
http://festival.sundance.org/2009/news/article/the_odd_couple/

first week at Sundance

My arts admin classmates and I have started a blog to keep in touch, and so it is there that I wrote the update of my first week at Sundance. You can read it here.


I will add this here:
On my first day, orientation was supposed to start at 9 AM, and we were pushed back an hour, while the big wigs had a emergency budget meeting. I heard later the result of this meeting was a 20% budget cut. The festival usually runs on about $10 million a year. They just cut it to $8 million (4 weeks before the festival); not because they don't HAVE the money, but because they're conservatively trying to SAVE the money, as the future is uncertain with the economy.
It was also noted that, on the other hand, they feel an obligation to spend it, because that's why donors give it - they want to see their money go toward the mission of the organization, not sit in a bank account somewhere. This year, however, safety wins.

Commiskey Communication

Today, I'm proud of my friend, Patrick, who just launched his own marketing firm in Salt Lake City. Undoubtedly, he embodies the entrepreneurial spirit. His ambition speaks well to our generation of innovative, creative thinkers, who want control over our careers and ownership over our work (Martin's RenGen).

This is the grass roots heart of newer-wave theories on economic development - the development of small, local, dynamic firms, rather than the attraction of big firms. They create new jobs with better results, which is exactly what Commiskey plans to do. He told me he has plans to share his work load with other young and talented designers and marketers who are out of work. Further, he anticipates his clientele may be smaller businesses or non-profit organizations that need marketing or design services, that can't afford bigger, more established firms in the area. By being able to afford Commiskey, these local organizations get a boost to develop as stronger competitors in their markets, too.

I am so excited to see his agency develop.