Black Friday - support the arts - options?

[Dave2002]

Today is Black Friday and there are some quite good deals, and as usual some really bad ones. i wonder if there are any deals which could have an impact on arts (including music) organisations. One I noticed is - as usual medici.tv - now under £30. I don't think it's the greatest way to watch music and opera, but if there's some useful trickle down effect by subscribing I'll probably lob in a gift subscription to someone who might benefit.

Are there any other ways of helping arts organisations by such spending today?

I notice also that today might be a good day to start a web site or a wordpress page, or a wiki page, as there are some really low priced deals for anyone who wants to try.

Any other suggestions?

[Serial_Apologist]

Before proceeding constructively, it seems from reports that the majority of supposed retail price reductions on Black Friday are lies, quite frankly.

[french frank]

I'm never tempted by Black Friday offers. I believe in paying an honest price for an honest product or service. And as I mentioned on the Coronavirus thread, we can help the arts if we're stuck at home by supporting streamed performances where possible. As with Black Friday offers, it's a matter of what happens to be available, and if there's no obvious way to donate or support smaller organisations, or even individuals, then there isn't much else we can do for them.

Coincidence: As far as the Biggies are concerned I can see I've just this second had a reminder notification of ROH's Don Giovanni 'streamed tonight for just £3 and will be available on-demand until 27 December'. If ROH wouldn't be your number one choice, there must be others that suit you better.

[Bryn]

Please bear in mind that there is no Bandcamp Friday today. The next one is on December 4th. Bandcamp Friday? It's when Bandcamp does not take its cut from the price of downloads from its site, the whole of the pre-tax payment going to the musicians whose music you download from the site.

https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/bandcamp-covid-19-fundraiser

https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/update-on-bandcamp-fridays

[Dave2002]

Before proceeding constructively, it seems from reports that the majority of supposed retail price reductions on Black Friday are lies, quite frankly.

That is largely true, but there are some deals which do seem good. Fewer these days than in the past, perhaps.

[Dave2002]

I'm never tempted by Black Friday offers. I believe in paying an honest price for an honest product or service. And as I mentioned on the Coronavirus thread, we can help the arts if we're stuck at home by supporting streamed performances where possible. As with Black Friday offers, it's a matter of what happens to be available, and if there's no obvious way to donate or support smaller organisations, or even individuals, then there isn't much else we can do for them.

Coincidence: As far as the Biggies are concerned I can see I've just this second had a reminder notification of ROH's Don Giovanni 'streamed tonight for just £3 and will be available on-demand until 27 December'. If ROH wouldn't be your number one choice, there must be others that suit you better.

I agree in principle, but what is an "honest price"? Many services are over priced, at least in the sense that people don't want to pay the suggested price for them. I have been on both sides of this. In one music society we offered incentives for subscriptions, including free tickets. The intention was to try to convert newcomers to become subscribers. It was thought to be a cheap option, but it turned out to create extra work, yet as far as we could tell, no new members.

The medici.tv deal I mentioned before I'd rate as marginal, but at today's price of around £30 for a year that's OK. My complaint about medici.tv in the past has been that technically it wasn't always very good with lip sync problems, and also drop outs and service interruptions while streaming, but if the company is supporting some musicians slightly, then tossing some funds in that direction might not be a bad thing to do.

I agree about some of the RoH streaming offers, and there are also some other companies offering similar streaming.

I'm surprised that some arts organisations aren't offering any form of promotions, though it is possible to get streaming from the Met opera for a year with a donation for streaming.[must check the price ....] Actually looks like $150 which should be close to £115 today. https://www.metopera.org/season/on-demand/

Other offers I noticed recently, which were perhaps not to do with Black Friday, were of US newspapers, such as the Washington Post. Very good value, and some of them give very good coverage of US affairs. Now I don't have enough time to deal with the masses of text I have access to while my subscriptions run.

[Dave2002]

Another possibly good deal is for web hosting and services. I'm not sure exactly how good these deals are, but it should be possible to get a domain name and up to 3 years web hosting for under £50, with firms like GoDaddy (£1 per month for 36 weeks + 20% VAT, is under £45) which might be helpful for anyone wanting to do a blog (e.g. Wordpress) or host a message board or wiki for use with/by a small group. There might be additional charges at the end of one year for continuing to support the domain name, but that seems quite cheap for anyone who wants to try to make up a small site for collaboration purporses.

Some technical expertise would be required, but it would avoid having to provide one's own dedicated server hardware.