Surely plenty of events have "concessions"? I don't see anything poly-specific about it, nor is there any implication that people are unemployed.
Also, it's not necessarily as simple as paying for other people. I imagine the variable costs for this event are fairly small, and it's mainly fixed costs (the venue, etc). In which case, you're not paying for that person to come along, rather you're all paying towards the fixed costs. Consider that the price that maximises the amount of revenue from employed people will be higher than the price that maximises revenue from unemployed people (since the latter are less willing or able to pay a higher amount). Therefore having a single "average" price would mean the revenue would lower, so to compensate the price would have to be greater than whatever the average price is. In an extreme case (if most unemployed people couldn't afford more than 5 pounds), you could end up with the single price figure being above 10 pounds due to the lower numbers.
So rather than looking at it that you're paying for other people, look at it that this means they can get a load of revenue off of unemployed people who otherwise might not have been able to come.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-19 11:57 pm (UTC)Also, it's not necessarily as simple as paying for other people. I imagine the variable costs for this event are fairly small, and it's mainly fixed costs (the venue, etc). In which case, you're not paying for that person to come along, rather you're all paying towards the fixed costs. Consider that the price that maximises the amount of revenue from employed people will be higher than the price that maximises revenue from unemployed people (since the latter are less willing or able to pay a higher amount). Therefore having a single "average" price would mean the revenue would lower, so to compensate the price would have to be greater than whatever the average price is. In an extreme case (if most unemployed people couldn't afford more than 5 pounds), you could end up with the single price figure being above 10 pounds due to the lower numbers.
So rather than looking at it that you're paying for other people, look at it that this means they can get a load of revenue off of unemployed people who otherwise might not have been able to come.