I’ve seen this viewpoint a lot lately, and while I absolutely agree that tickets to her shows are expensive, when my wife bought tickets to the Eras Tour she was able to get them on the primary market for about $300 each for very good seats. The secondary scalping market was selling the same seats for between $2,000-$4,000 depending on the show, and people were buying them at that price. From a supply and demand perspective, Taylor Swift was absolutely selling those tickets below their true market value.
As for paying her crew more, she also paid out $197 million in bonuses to her crew across the tour. That’s about 10% of tour revenue in bonuses. Not profits, revenue. I’ve been tangentially involved in the entertainment industry since college and have multiple friends directly involved, and I’ve never heard of any other performer giving that much in bonuses to their crew.
Additionally, she donated to food pantries in every city she performed in. While the amounts she donated to each food pantry have not been released, people have worked out that it was likely at least $20k/pantry, based on the number of meals the pantries said they would be able to provide with it. That’s at least $1 million across all the cities, which is obviously not enough, but is far more than most other entertainers do.
I know she gets a lot of flack because she’s so visible in our culture, but in terms of how bad billionaires are, she’s significantly better than a lot of others who fly under the radar. There are over 3,000 billionaires today, according to Forbes, and I’m pretty certain most of them made their money through much worse methods than singing songs and selling overpriced merch to fans. 😛
That’s not exactly a good-faith argument. You said she should pay her staff more and charge less for tickets. I provided a counterpoint to that.
Going back to the original question that you were asked, should she have retired when she started to approach $1 billion in net worth?
I will point out that the ownership rights to her music, which she purchased with the money she made from The Eras Tour and now owns completely, is probably worth close to $1 billion in valuation alone. Even if her entire liquid net worth was taxed from her, she’d be a billionaire on paper just by virtue of her music catalog & the value of her name.
I didn’t assume you were saying she was the greediest person in the world. You said she should pay her staff more and charge her customers less, and I pointed out that she pays her staff more than anyone else would, and that the prices people pay for her seats and merch are often highly inflated by scalpers, not by her.
And even if she paid all her cash money to her staff and gave her products away for free, she would still be a billionaire off of her catalog and name.
You responded with a very dismissive comment about rapists, which was both insensitive towards victims of sexual assault and a complete failure to engage with the conversation. That’s why I said it was made in bad faith.
I’ve seen this viewpoint a lot lately, and while I absolutely agree that tickets to her shows are expensive, when my wife bought tickets to the Eras Tour she was able to get them on the primary market for about $300 each for very good seats. The secondary scalping market was selling the same seats for between $2,000-$4,000 depending on the show, and people were buying them at that price. From a supply and demand perspective, Taylor Swift was absolutely selling those tickets below their true market value.
As for paying her crew more, she also paid out $197 million in bonuses to her crew across the tour. That’s about 10% of tour revenue in bonuses. Not profits, revenue. I’ve been tangentially involved in the entertainment industry since college and have multiple friends directly involved, and I’ve never heard of any other performer giving that much in bonuses to their crew.
Additionally, she donated to food pantries in every city she performed in. While the amounts she donated to each food pantry have not been released, people have worked out that it was likely at least $20k/pantry, based on the number of meals the pantries said they would be able to provide with it. That’s at least $1 million across all the cities, which is obviously not enough, but is far more than most other entertainers do.
I know she gets a lot of flack because she’s so visible in our culture, but in terms of how bad billionaires are, she’s significantly better than a lot of others who fly under the radar. There are over 3,000 billionaires today, according to Forbes, and I’m pretty certain most of them made their money through much worse methods than singing songs and selling overpriced merch to fans. 😛
“He was a very gentle rapist”
That’s not exactly a good-faith argument. You said she should pay her staff more and charge less for tickets. I provided a counterpoint to that.
Going back to the original question that you were asked, should she have retired when she started to approach $1 billion in net worth?
I will point out that the ownership rights to her music, which she purchased with the money she made from The Eras Tour and now owns completely, is probably worth close to $1 billion in valuation alone. Even if her entire liquid net worth was taxed from her, she’d be a billionaire on paper just by virtue of her music catalog & the value of her name.
Your own argument wasn’t made in good faith. I didn’t argue that she was the greediest person in the world, which is what you counter-argued.
You’re singing her praises for the $200 million dollar bonus she paid out to her Eras Tour staff, out of her $1.2 billion dollar profit.
She could pay her staff more, and charge her customers less…
I didn’t assume you were saying she was the greediest person in the world. You said she should pay her staff more and charge her customers less, and I pointed out that she pays her staff more than anyone else would, and that the prices people pay for her seats and merch are often highly inflated by scalpers, not by her.
And even if she paid all her cash money to her staff and gave her products away for free, she would still be a billionaire off of her catalog and name.
You responded with a very dismissive comment about rapists, which was both insensitive towards victims of sexual assault and a complete failure to engage with the conversation. That’s why I said it was made in bad faith.