Are you trying to suggest that £50 Elvis CD sets fall into the category of "essential purchases" then.On Tape 1972 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2024 7:14 amYeah it is.pmp wrote: ↑Thu Apr 18, 2024 8:09 pmIntroducing 3cd sets of repetitive concerts for £50 is NOT a response to changing economic realities.- unless that response was made by someone out of their mind.On Tape 1972 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 18, 2024 5:58 amThe 3CD soundboard series is FTD's answer to continuous demands and changing economic realities.midnightx wrote: ↑Thu Apr 18, 2024 3:18 amHundreds of mediocre-to-substandard soundboard recordings from the summer of 1974 - 1977? Who would want to sit through such dreck? A few choice soundboard recordings, carefully chosen, as well as tour compilations would have been the most sensible approach. But FTD deviated from any such attempts long ago, and the early years of FTD's selections were uneven at best. That said, the Summer Of '76 is the perfect example of how the soundboard series has veered terribly off course.
People close to the label didn't deny possible controversies around the release of "Summer Of '76". Frankly this release is an easy target to point out the label's missteps. There are enough fans and collectors out there, who'd prefer complete performances over tour compilations and bonus songs any day of the week (this fan included).
Yeah and a lot of that has to do with crappy economic decisions that people make all the time. On both personal and national levels. If you can't pay your energy bills, maybe you shouldn't spend whatever money still happens to be in your wallet on things you don't really need.
People spend their money on cars, pets, trips, vacations, drugs and other non-essentials. If you don't do any of that, you sure got a few bucks left to spend on something you really want to spend it on. Like on a 3CD set of repetitive concerts.
Your argument and lesson on home economics is really quite weak in relation to buying expensive Elvis soundboard CDs against the point that PMP is making.
To start with, people who are struggling to pay their energy bills are extremely unlikely to go out buying cars which is not the kind of thing someone does on some kind of regular basis and which people can cut back on and if people are blowing their money on the other kind of things you suggest, the thought that they would change their spending habits to buy a £50 Elvis soundboard set is highly remote. They’d just buy the release anyway. And when you suggest that some people could cut out buying drugs, it could be argued that for some, buying Elvis FTD releases and even other Elvis releases is just like a drug in itself.
PMP is talking about those who do take economic decisions seriously and have already taken action to try and cut back on expensive non essentials, in other words, they could probably afford a single CD soundboard set at £20, but a 3 CD set at £50 which basically contains shows that are repetitive can make things difficult for them and are therefore unlikely to buy.
This in turn means less sales for FTD and if FTD then decide to cut back on the pressing numbers of each release to reduce costs, yet make a profit, eventually the economy of scale will kick in meaning that for FTD to make a reasonable profit on each release, they will have to raise their prices again.
When financial times are hard for people and a business wants to attract sales, a business should try to offer things at reasonable prices to attract sales and at best keep sales steady. FTD seem to have gone in the opposite direction of going from more affordable single or double CD soundboard sets to more expensive 3 or 4 CD sets that contain shows that are just repetitive with Elvis in autopilot mode and that only the real die hard collectors who must own everything feel they need.
A few decades ago, Ernst was of the opinion that he was not interested in fleecing customers by putting out releases where fans had to buy a new album just to get one unreleased song because he felt it was not the right thing to do. Now he seems to have gone into reverse mode and not only are we getting expensive CD sets that contain repetitive shows, we are also seeing limited numbered edition vinyl albums coming out in fancy coloured pressings that have already been released on regular black vinyl. Yes, it could be argued that it is good business practice for FTD to do that to improve its revenue stream, but as I wrote, it goes against what Ernst firmly believed in years ago and for some fans who have taken the decision to buy every FTD release for their collection , but who are now struggling financially, it seems he is putting a bit of a financial burden on those fans and collectors.