Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is to buy extra tickets for events you are
Speaker 1: excited about. If it is financially feasible for you to
Speaker 1: grab an extra ticket or two, doing so will encourage
Speaker 1: you to invite others, even if those people don't like
Speaker 1: to plan too far ahead. So some events are quite pricey.
Speaker 1: We don't need to talk about how much my family
Speaker 1: spent on tickets to Taylor Swift concerts during the Eras tour,
Speaker 1: but many events are not. A lot of local performing
Speaker 1: arts events or art exhibits, or fundraisers or sports games
Speaker 1: are relatively accessible in the grand scheme of things. You
Speaker 1: enjoy one of those things, and you have some extra
Speaker 1: money in your budget, consider buying an extra ticket or too.
Speaker 1: If you would go by yourself, buy two tickets. If
Speaker 1: you would go with your partner, buy four. With the
Speaker 1: extra tickets in hand, you will get the event on
Speaker 1: the calendar, and then when the date gets closer, you
Speaker 1: can invite friends to join you. Now, obviously you could
Speaker 1: try to rally friends before you buy the tickets, but
Speaker 1: I think this approach has some merits first. Coordinating people
Speaker 1: far ahead of time is often logistically complex. You may
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time waiting to hear back from people,
Speaker 1: and not everyone likes to plan that far in advance,
Speaker 1: particularly for things that they are not personally that familiar with.
Speaker 1: So the benefit of this approach is that you can
Speaker 1: plan as early as you want to, but you don't
Speaker 1: have to extend an invitation awkwardly early. For instance, as
Speaker 1: soon as the calendar for the symphony comes out, you
Speaker 1: may know that you want to hear the concert featuring
Speaker 1: Debusys Works, even if it is four or five months away.
Speaker 1: You are ready to commit. Your friends, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: may not be quite so enthusiastic about Debusy as you are,
Speaker 1: so it might feel weird to ask if they want
Speaker 1: to go half a year in advance. So just buy
Speaker 1: the tickets and in a few months extend an invitation
Speaker 1: to people who you think might want to join you.
Speaker 1: Maybe the people at the top of your list aren't available,
Speaker 1: but that is an occasion to branch out and deepen
Speaker 1: your relationship with others. Another benefit of buying extra tickets
Speaker 1: is that it lets you introduce friends to sports teams
Speaker 1: or performing arts groups or nonprofits that you love but
Speaker 1: they might not know about. Maybe professional soccer is new
Speaker 1: to me your area, or maybe your city has a
Speaker 1: new community theater that you love but hasn't gotten a
Speaker 1: huge fan base yet. Buying tickets and inviting others to
Speaker 1: go as your guests creates an occasion to expand the
Speaker 1: audience and introduce your friends to something new. If you
Speaker 1: have friends for whom money is tight, buying extra tickets
Speaker 1: and then inviting them creates a not awkward way for
Speaker 1: you to pay for their tickets. You might not feel
Speaker 1: comfortable inviting someone to go to an event and then
Speaker 1: offering to buy their ticket, but it feels perfectly natural
Speaker 1: to invite someone to go as your guest when you
Speaker 1: already have the tickets. The other person may even feel
Speaker 1: like they are doing you a favor, like, oh, please
Speaker 1: take these tickets. They will go to waste. Otherwise, it's
Speaker 1: all part of your plan. An added benefit of buying
Speaker 1: extra tickets is that your friends may reciprocate and invite
Speaker 1: you to join them for a game, performance, or event.
Speaker 1: So get time with them, Anne, we'll get introduced to
Speaker 1: a new team or organization as well. I was thinking
Speaker 1: about the benefits of extra tickets. Recently, when I was
Speaker 1: looking forward to the Sarah MacLaughlin concert, I had bought
Speaker 1: four tickets, thinking maybe some friends from out of town
Speaker 1: would be around, and as it happened, they weren't. But
Speaker 1: I convinced my two teenage boys to come with me.
Speaker 1: I can tell you that they were just about the
Speaker 1: only teen boys in the audience Pray Sarah MacLaughlin concert.
Speaker 1: I believe the quote from my oldest was that every
Speaker 1: woman in the audience was my age, but they enjoyed
Speaker 1: the music cause it's really good music, and we all
Speaker 1: had a good time to gather. So I was glad
Speaker 1: i'd gotten the tickets, because they certainly would not have
Speaker 1: asked me to buy them. Now, if you are hearing
Speaker 1: all this talk of buying extra tickets ahead of time
Speaker 1: and you're thinking it doesn't apply to you because you
Speaker 1: never buy tickets in advance, even for yourself, I did
Speaker 1: invite you to reconsider that approach. Buying tickets in advance
Speaker 1: is a commitment device to ensure you actually attend the
Speaker 1: cool stuff you hear about and contemplate doing. If you delay,
Speaker 1: tickets may sell out or life might get busy. With
Speaker 1: less special stuff. So buy the tickets, get the event
Speaker 1: on your calendar, and start looking forward to it. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's
Speaker 1: to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
Speaker 1: you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
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