A letter from Mr Louis Holder in our edition on Friday criticized the issuing of free tickets for Carifesta events. It is a position not without merit, despite the fact that the decision to allow free access to all performances was inspired by the very best of motives. Using the economic argument, Mr Holder categorized tickets as a scarce commodity going on to say that price was “the tool used by society to allocate its scarce resources.” Correct pricing, therefore, could equate to efficient allocation. “Those who don’t value the commodity at its price level would not use it,” he wrote, “resulting in adequate supplies for those who place an equal or higher value on it. Under these conditions, there are no shortages. However, when priced below that equilibrium level, shortages occur as consumers willing to pay more because they value it more than the price, cannot satisfy their wants.”
He then went on to argue that not only would there be a shortage of tickets available using the method of free distribution, but paradoxically, there would also be empty seats when it came to the actual performances, because the tickets had no monetary value and no consequences would attend not turning up. The validity of his position, he thought, was demonstrated (among other things) by the chaos which reigned for a time outside some ticket centres on Wednesday. As we reported, the initial delay in distribution resulted in a measure of confusion as hundreds of patrons – some of whom had been waiting for hours – milled around, and those with disorderly inclinations attempted to force their way into the queues.
In fairness, the organizers clearly anticipated that there would be a rush for tickets, because they insisted that seminars and the like excepted, no one would be admitted to a venue who did not have a ticket. That at least eliminated the possibility of any chaos outside theatres, etc, on the night of a show. However, what it will mean is that even if there are empty seats on a particular occasion because patrons do not turn up, there will be no possibility of filling them.
The tickets for several events disappeared within hours, something appearing to confirm one part of Mr Holder’s thesis, although it must be said that where shows like the opening ceremony were concerned, a lack of correspondence between demand and supply might have obtained even if the tickets had been sold. However, there are probably other instances where Mr Holder’s point might well have some foundation. In a country like Guyana there are all kinds of factors which could potentially affect attendance, not the least of them being rain. Those who have paid for tickets are likely to make more effort to go out on a wet night to attend an event than those who have not. Having said that, however, Guyanese are so rarely treated to this kind of smorgasbord of local and international culture, that all things being equal, there might be fewer empty seats than Mr Holder fears.
He also raised one related point which a correspondent writing in our edition yesterday took up, and that is the difficulty faced by overseas visitors to obtain tickets. Since most of the tickets for the major performances had been exhausted within a matter of hours of becoming available, anyone arriving in the country on Thursday, or even Wednesday for that matter, probably had little hope of getting their hands on anything much. While it is good that Guyanese are anxious to patronize the events in such numbers, one cannot have a situation whereby visitors flying into the country especially for the occasion cannot attend any of the shows. If the tickets had carried a price, of course, they would – as Mr Holder’s thesis states – have gone at a more leisurely pace, and it would have been possible to continue selling them right up to the time of a given performance. Once they are issued free in a country like Guyana, however, then it militates against outsiders getting hold of them.
Yesterday’s letter writer suggested that a solution could have been to make a certain number of tickets available to foreigners at the airport, although whether in fact that was a practicable suggestion is perhaps a moot point. However, in a letter in the Kaieteur News yesterday, Head of the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana (THAG), Ms Renata Chuck-A-Sang, complained that no ticket quota had been made available to her members, especially hotel owners, to distribute to overseas guests who had come in for the event. As it was, she wrote, hotel owners had been inundated by requests for tickets, and had been forced to tell visitors that they would have to join the long queues. She listed the agencies which she had contacted about a ticket allocation, none of which had replied.
She went on to write: “THAG has noted that only certain special interest groups were issued tickets and those whose prime responsibility it is to sell the tourism product were left out in the cold unable to fulfil their mandate.” In the first place it is unacceptable for the authorities responsible for the festival not to have given an official reply to the country’s tourist organization, and in the second place it was a mistake not to have acceded to its request. It all says nothing for the administration’s commitment to the development of tourism if tourists are the last people to be considered on occasions such as this.
No doubt the organizers were anxious to keep a tight rein on distribution, naturally fearing that if too many ticket centres were set up beyond their immediate control, then the possibilities for touting would increase. The cynical Guyanese citizenry, of course, probably believes that there will be touting anyway, particularly if word gets around that a given event is ‘hot.’ Selling tickets, rather than issuing them free, of course, would not necessarily eliminate touting, although in a low-wage economy such as this one, it might reduce it considerably.
As it is we shall have to wait and see exactly what happens, and whether decisions taken with good intentions in mind have unintended consequences. The only unfortunate thing is that the lessons learned from this will probably not be needed for another decade or so.