Hands up those who constantly wonder why tickets for many big events are so high? With big events in Sydney costing around the fifty dollar mark on average, examples being Utopia, Transmission, Gatecrasher, Space; I know my hand is up there. The question that begs answering is why is this so?
ITM talks to the people behind Transmission and asks “Wassup!?!”
Firstly, some info on Transmission: It will be a 2,500 capacity dance party held at Manning House in Sydney Uni and will utilize ISDN to connect sounds from four different cities into Manning House. The event costs punters $52.80 (including GST and bf).
InTheMix: Transmission has always had great success at known venues such as The Metro, Palladium and old Sublime, why choose Manning House, an unknown building that (at the time of booking) was not even finished?
Transmission: The Manning was chosen because of many reasons. What with this building being within the historical grounds of Sydney Uni – it’s bound to be a success – all those gothic surroundings – people will love it. We are quite lucky in that Sublime, Home and Gatecrasher will be on prior to Transmission’s 4th Birthday. With that, we can see what works and what doesn’t. As with every new venue, you see what worked previously, then add to it. It’s all a process of elimination and we’ve got the best production team on this, so it’s bound to be run effectively and efficiently for everyone concerned.
InTheMix: The upcoming Transmission will be featuring ISDN connections, won’t they be costing an unnecessary packet?
Transmission: No. The link up itself and the package that we got from Telstra is quite low, we only pay for the music being broadcast down the line for the period that it’s broadcast – which is around 2 and ¾ hours per state – so it’s quite reasonable really.
InTheMix: Speaking of costing a packet, so many events of late are costing a right tone of money with big events averaging around the $50 mark. And with Transmission already having major sponsorship from such companies as Levi’s and General Pants Co., what justifies the high ticket price? Are promoters robbing the general public blind?
Transmission: The ticket price of Transmission’s 4th Birthday is $45.00. Events in Sydney cost what they do because production costs are very high, DJ’s demand a lot more money, venue’s have double their prices, international DJ’s command in between $40 – 60K for a 3 hour set, printing is exorbitant, distribution of flyers is unbelievable, advertising in street press kills you and basically, to put on an event in Sydney costs a lot of money and the demand for new exciting events from the public is high. Believe me, there are a lot of promoters out there who only break even with each event and can’t scrape together enough funds to put on the next party – that’s why sponsorship is so important – it enables the promoter to be able to put on a great party, get the event out there and be able to make just enough money to put aside for the next event. Transmission has always worked with sponsors and the reason for this is because then you can put on a great party. We put a lot into our events because Transmission gives back to the public. You don’t see DJ Nervous running around in a 1987 beat-up old Mazda for no reason – we’re not making money here, we do it for the love of the music and because we want to make a difference in the dance music community and put on great events.
Ok folks, there you have it, we asked some of the questions many of you out there have been pondering, and Transmission gave us their answer. Tell us what you think in the forum
