Noticing the hordes of folk heading to a Cubs came the other evening, I realized not only would I not pay a cent to go to a major league baseball game, but someone would have to pony up considerable coin for me to agree to go.
So I was wondering, what types of activities that seem to be pretty popular among other folk would you need to be paid to participate in. To the extent possible, try to estimate how much you would need to be paid.
For me, if someone gave me Cubs tickets and covered my transportation costs, I’d probably blow off a day of work and go to a game for $100 or so. Probably $200 for a night game, just because getting home late at night would be a hassle. For me to piss away a major portion of a weekend day at a ballpark would take at least $500. And if the weather was cold or rainy, you have to at least double all of those prices - maybe more.
I’m 25 and I’ve never, ever learned. In fact, you’d have to pay me some pretty serious money to get me to bother with it. Besides paying for my car, my insurance, driving instruction costs, you’d have to pony up at least a grand.
Mine is opera as well. I find it hard to believe that most people aren’t faking it when they claim to enjoy opera. I know some do but it must be pretty rare. I can’t tolerate soprano voices much at all and my attention span isn’t that great. I would go with a fun person for $100 or by myself for $500.
Most run-of-the-mill movies bore me to tears as well and going to one by myself and actually paying attention the whole time will set you back $125.
NASCAR. With Dinsdale’s pricing, plus a set of ear plugs.
Oh, and although I love opera and moderately appreciate Broadway-style musical theater, it would cost a pretty bundle to get me to ever see Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat again.
Sheesh. Not to rain on the OP, I do get the point of it and all, but it wouldn’t take much to get me to a ball game. Buy my ticket, get me to the park, give me about $40 for beer and hot dogs (beer at a ball park is expensive, you know), well, you had me at “ball game.”
It would take a lot to get me to the opera, or to a ballet recital. Or a symphony recital. You’d have to buy me a good suit, for one thing. Maybe take me out for a steak dinner, beforehand, and a drink or two afterward. And buy me an XBox and three or four games and you’ve got yourself a deal.
Oh, the things you do for love! Every couple of years I take my kids to see the Pirates lose. When my 13 year old son was 6 or 7, I took him to see wrestling after he begged/cajoled for a week. I couldn’t believe how many adults were there without their kids!!!
Opera, on the other hand can be great. When someone can sing in a language you cannot understand, yet do it so expressively that you are close to tears, that is awesome.
Any sporting event, or anything involving classical music playing. I can’t even come up with an accpetable price that would put me at either.
I have worked at a company with three radio stations, one of which is classical, for over six years now, and have never listened to it. I produce programs that go on it, but I don’t listen to the music while making the programs. I can’t tell one composer from another, nor one piece from another. If there’s singing, forget it. I get more from 2 1/2 minutes of Little Richard than anything written before 1900.
You guys already nailed all of mine. NASCAR, opera, pro-wrestling, football…I would require about $150 bucks to attend any of these. And I would be thinking the whole time that I am earning every cent, and wondering why I hadn’t demanded more.
Heh, there was a thread a couple of years ago asking a similar question w/o the money aspect and I remember some people getting really upset at some of the generally accepted activities that were mentioned. For the record, I completely get how someone else would enjoy it, its historical significance and its inestimable worth to civilized society. Yet after 5 minutes I’ve had enough.
Now, a wine-and-cheese party, on the other hand, you’d have to pay me a lot. Say $500. I hate cheese and don’t drink alcohol.
Even more so with a cigar party: you couldn’t pay me to go to one. I don’t smoke.
I’ll add any sort of religious proselytising or real-estate boosterism or sports thing anything where they pump up the emotions and switch off the critical mind. The connditions are just too perfect for getting fleeced.
I “went fishing” a couple of weeks ago. A better description would be “I stood on a dock with someone else’s fishing pole in my hand and the hook in the water and was incredibly bored”.
This reminds me of a game I would play with my ex-wife when we were at the movies. After each preview we would rate its movie into one of the following categories: I would see it, I would see it for free, It would only see it if I were paid $X.