The Well-Tempered Ear
Are high ‘handling fees’ scams or fair?
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear is beginning to wonder whether handling fees are sometimes scams and ripoffs in disguise.
A friend recently wanted to buy a good seat to see the Madison Opera’s upcoming production of Richard Strauss’ opera “Salome” in the Overture Center on Nov. 4 and 6.
The ticket ran $141, no small amount to see an opera that lasts only 110 minutes with no intermission.
But in addition, the friend had to pay an additional “handling fee” of $21.
That comes out to about 15 percent (rounded off from 14.89).
Too high to be accounted for just by inflation.
The friend was puzzled since the ticket was booked completely online through a computer. How much handling could there possibly be?
It is enough to make you wonder: Is the percentage indeed fair and a standard business practice
But the so-called handling fee seemed excessive to the friend.
Such an expensive handling fee seemed more and more like fiscal padding.
Maybe it is little more than camouflage to increase profits while making tickets look less expensive than they would be otherwise.
Maybe it is to make up for production costs, not just buying a ticket.
Maybe it is indeed the industry standard.
Bug it seems more and more likely that exorbitant handling fees in arts organizations are similar to what airlines do with baggage fees, leg-room fees, and seating-placement fees.
Similar to what sports teams and athletic organizations do to pressure fans into so-called donations.
To increase the bottom line. Money, money!
Maybe the organizations and offices could simply be open and honest, and tell consumers more about what the “handling fees” actually pay for. Buyers deserve transparency and accountability.
Otherwise handling fees start to seem like more of a scam or a ripoff than a fair price for a necessary service.
What do you think?
Have you had experiences with handling fees that you considered excessive from an arts organization or another business?
How did it make you feel?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Broadcasts of operas from the Met and string quartets by the UW-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet are featured on old media and new media this Saturday and Sunday. Plus, the 89th Edgewood college Christmas Concert is tonight and tomorrow afternoon.
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ALERT: Edgewood College will present its 89th Annual Christmas Concerts tonight at 7 p.m. and Saturday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. in the St. Joseph Chapel, 1000 Edgewood College Drive.
Now expanded to two performances, the holiday concert features the Edgewood College choirs and Concert Band, along with audience sing-alongs, prelude music by the Guitar Ensemble, and a post-concert reception featuring the Jazz Ensemble.
By Jacob Stockinger
Classical music meets old media and new media this weekend through opera and chamber music.
SATURDAY
This Saturday marks the beginning of the LIVE RADIO broadcasts of operas from the Metropolitan Opera (below) in New York City. This will be the 86th season for the radio broadcasts, which educated and entertained generations of opera lovers before there were DVDs, streaming and the “Live in HD From the Met” broadcasts to movie theaters.
The performances will be carried locally on Wisconsin Public Radio, WERN-FM 88.7. This Saturday, the starting time for Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut” with Russian superstar soprano Anna Netrebko (below, in a photo by Richard Termine for The New York Times), is 11:30 CST. Other operas will have different starting times, depending their length.
This season runs from Dec. 3-May 15.
Radio has certain strengths, The Ear thinks. For one, it allows the listeners to focus on the music, to be less distracted or less enriched – depending on your point of view – by sets, costumes, lighting, the physicality of the acting and other stagecraft that is left to the imagination.
This season, there will be lots of standard fare including: Verdi’s “La Traviata” and “Aida”; Puccini’s “La Boheme”; Bizet’s “Carmen”; Beethoven’s “Fidelio”; Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” and “The Flying Dutchman”; Richard Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier” and “Salome”; and Mozart’s “Idomeneo.”
But you can also hear the new music and less frequently staged operas. They include the 2000 opera “L’amour de loin” (Love From Afar) by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, which will receive its Metropolitan Opera premiere next week, on Dec. 10.
Here is a link to the complete season along with links to information about the various productions. Starting times are Eastern Standard Time, so deduct an hour for Central Standard Time or a different amount for your time zone:
http://www.metopera.org/Season/Radio/Saturday-Matinee-Broadcasts/
SUNDAY
On this Sunday afternoon, the Pro Arte Quartet (below, in a photo by Rick Langer), longtime artists-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, will wrap up the first semester of “Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen,” which used to air weekly on Wisconsin Public Radio but now is presented once a month, on the first Sunday of the month, directly by the museum.
The program this Sunday features the “Italian Serenade” by Hugo Wolf; the String Quartet No. 3 in F Major by Dmitri Shostakovich; and the String Quartet in A-Flat Major, Op. 105, by Antonin Dvorak.
The FREE concert takes place from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Brittingham Gallery No. 3 of the Chazen Museum of Art and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Donors to the museum can reserve seats. Concerts by the Pro Arte Quartet, kind of the house quartet of the museum, are usually “sold out.”
But the concert can also be streamed live via computer or smart phone by clicking on the arrow in the photo and using the portal on the following website:
You might also want to arrive early or stay late to see the historic and rare First Folio edition (below) of the plays by William Shakespeare that is on display at the Chazen Museum through Dec. 11 to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of the Bard.
Tags: acting, Aida, Anna Netrebko, Arts, band, Beethoven, Bizet, Carmen, Cello, Chamber music, chapel, Chazen Museum of Art, Choir, choral music, Christmas, Classical music, computer, Concert, costume, DVD, Dvorak, Edgewood College, Finland, First Folio, guitar, Holiday, Hugo Wolf, Italian Serenade, Jacob Stockinger, Jazz, Kaija Saariaho, La bohème, La Traviata, lighting, Live From The Met in HD, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Met, Metropolitan Opera, Metropolitan Opera Live in HD, movie, Mozart, Music, new media, New Music, New York City, New York Times, old media, opera, Orchestra, Prelude, premiere, Pro Arte Quartet, Puccini, Radio, Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Russia, Salome, sets, Shakespeare, Shostakovich, sing-along, smart phone, soprano, St. Joseph, stagecraft, streaming, String quartet, Sunday Afternoon Live From the Chazen, theater, Tristan und Isolde, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Verdi, Viola, Violin, vocal music, Wisconsin, wisconsin public radio, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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