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Take a guess which city in the world is the most expensive place to catch a performance by the Berlin Philharmonic. No surprise -- the answer is Seoul. The Chosun Ilbo surveyed ticket prices in eight cities where the Berlin Philharmonic is booked to perform from late 2007 until late 2008. It turns out the price of a VIP ticket in Seoul is W450,000 (US$1=W1,030), nearly double the VIP ticket price in New York and almost quadruple that in Berlin.
The Berlin Philharmonic will perform in Korea under the baton of conductor Simon Rattle on Nov. 20-21. But to book yourself a VIP seat you'll need to shell out W450,000, the same price as in 2005. But VIP tickets in Japan, where the orchestra will perform from Nov. 23, cost 40,000 yen (W380,000), and cheaper seats can be had for as low as 16,000 yen (W150,000). That means Korean music fans will have to pay about W70,000 more per seat than their Japanese counterparts to attend the same concert.
So which is the cheapest city to see the Berlin Philharmonic? It is, of course, Berlin. The most expensive tickets there go for around 58 to 78 euros (W92,000 to W120,000), depending upon the program and players. That's because the ensemble receives subsidies from the central and local governments.
During the two-week "Berlin in Lights" Festival in New York last November, VIP tickets for the Berlin Philharmonic cost US$210 (W210,000), which was possible because of the greater number of performances offered.
Tickets for the Berlin Philharmonic's performances at the annual Festival d'Aix-en-Provence in France and the Salzburg Festival in Austria, which the orchestra visits every summer, are also cheaper than in Seoul.
For the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, where the Philharmonic will give three performances from June 30, a VIP ticket costs 130 euros (W206,000) and students can attend for just 10 euros (W15,000) per seat. For the Salzburg Festival, where the Philharmonic is scheduled to perform in late August, the average ticket price is about 85-200 euros (W130,000-W320,000).
For the orchestra's concert tour in Boston last November, tickets cost between $47 and $187 (between W48,000 and W190,000). For its performance in Stockholm, Sweden in May, tickets cost between 595 and 1,550 krona (between W100,000 and W260,000).
So why are tickets for the Berlin Philharmonic so costly in Korea? Music industry insiders cite three reasons. First, the Philharmonic only plays one or two performances in Korea, given the small number of ticket-paying concertgoers and the small market here. This naturally increases the auxiliary costs, such as airfare and hotel expenses, per performance. By comparison, in Japan, foreign orchestras normally give seven to 10 performances during a visit.
Due to the small number of performances, Korean program agencies are at a disadvantage when it comes to negotiating performance fees with world-renowned orchestras. And on top of that, program agencies in Korea sometimes compete with each other.
"In a sense, it's inevitable that ticket prices are soaring here," says Chung Joon-ho, a music columnist. "But the problem is the way that people only regard performances by world-renowned orchestras as 'high-profile,' and the way they pay attention to ticket prices rather than to the music itself (as a way to gauge the quality of orchestras)."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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