What thing was ruined because it turned into a rich person's hobby?

[NewLion]

attending Premier League football

Horse riding

Over the past four years I’ve looked into Frozen, Starlight Express, Matilda, Oliver, and Back to the Future. Always in the Christmas holidays as a Christmas event so maybe that’s why it’s so expensive. Always a matinee as well so the kids would be able to sit through it and not be dropping. Have so far not booked any because of the cost. Last year we went to Harry Potter world instead - £45 per person instead of at least £150

Found a very old concert ticket recently from 1976 for a very well known band, both then and now. The ticket was £1.30.

with inflation you would now pay…. Just under £9.

can you imagine seeing ANY band for £9 a ticket?!

Going out for coffee. When k was at college I had pocket money, and could afford it. Now in Costa (other brands are available and just as bad) 2 small lattes are nearly £8.

used to go a couple of times a week, but no more, our small independent cafe is a quid cheaper but doesn’t open on Sundays, which was our preferred day to go.

Sounds like rich person territory to a lot of us.

Where on earth are you going that costs £200 a ticket for decent seats and £120 a ticket for rubbish seats?

I mean, we go the the theatre quite a bit, so I'm not denying it's expensive - but I generally don't pay more than about £80 a ticket for decent seats at the biggest shows - usually its more like £45-£50 a ticket and always get decent seats!

I have just paid £200 a ticket for two tickets to see Hamilton in July - but that is only because it is Lesley Odam Jr and the cheaper tickets had sold out!

When we went to see Hamilton for the first time in London, I only paid £100 a ticket and that was for front row dress circle which are the best seats in the house!

Bands used to make their money from selling records/CDs. Concerts acted as publicity and often made a loss. Now it's the other way round.

Round here you get outdoor free gyms in the park. (Where someone was murdered)

Theatre was with school only, the museum is free. There's stuff on in town put on by the council for free. The kids school puts on productions we go and see.

Second hand bikes are kept at their dad's as getting a bike up two flights of stairs and storage in a flat is no go.

Eating out was McDonald's hamburger in the car or packed lunch when the kids were small.

I've probably only ever been to the cinema less than ten times. We don't have streaming services.

A lot of the stuff some posters take for granted have always been rich people's luxuries. Ex goes to concerts but they usually get a cheap carer ticket to help with the cost as his mate is disabled.

We are lucky that we went on a seaside holiday once a year (that was our priority luxury) and I agree that has gone up massively. Thankfully my parents paid a lot of the cost for us which was very fortunate in itself.

Ok it's a combination of factors. But expensive housing has to be part of the reasons people have less disposable income.

Not a 'thing' but food. Chicken thighs used to be cheap (no pun intended) but now they're the same price as chicken breasts. Fucking TV chefs 😡🤬

Same as mackerel which used to be incredibly cheap but now priced like bloody salmon

Newish west end shows in the stalls and front row of the dress circle easily knock on the door of £200. ROH in the stalls are closer to £250 a ticket. Sure they will all advertise 'tickets from £22' or whatever but that will be up in the gods on a bench partially behind a pillar and you will probably pass out from lack of oxygen before the break.

My cats would agree 😔

I play in a brass band, the sort you see around at Christmas.

We teach kids for free.
We provide instruments too.

How? That is what we use the money donated to us when we play at Christmas and are paid for bandstands, marching in carnivals etc.
We use it to fund the band, and that includes all the instruments. Band members teach the new beginners until they can join the junior band and then eventually the main band.

And we are not alone, many brass bands do this.
So if you want your child to learn an instrument, please contact your local brass band. And when you see them playing, please drop a couple of quid in the donations box to continue passing th elove of music down the generations

I'm really fussy where i sit as I am short and DH has opposite problem and leg room is a real issue, I have sat in the stalls a lot and never paid £200 a ticket. I paid £80 for Hamilton in preview for row 3 in stalls, then one the lottery a couple of years later and paid £10 for front row and DC bought us box seats for around £40 each.
Went to see Harold Fry (which is amazing) for about £10 in dress circle. Paid £65 for side slip tickets at Sadlers wells for both Red Shoes and Carmen. We got bad seats for Benjamin Button but they upgraded us to stalls as it really was impossible to see.

Yes - but the poster I was responding to was talking about the theatre for a christmas treat for her children.

I mean yes, if the only christmas treat they will countenance is the ROH on Christmas Eve or only the newest west end show and they won't sit anywhere but the first six rows of the stalls or the front row of the dress circle, she might have a point about the price, but then surely the answer would be go to a slightly older show and sit few rows back!

One of the newest shows is Paddington - I've just looked - there are plenty of Christmas tickets available in the centre of the dress circle which have a really decent view for £95!

Have a look at Aldi and Lidl - mackerel is half the price of salmon!

We had a bit of a disaster with Paddington, we had back row of royal circle for £50 for the first Monday bought when first announced I love the Savoy and usually nearly all the seats i have had there are really good. When we arrived it turned out the leg room was 7inches the same size as mobile. We had bought end of row for DH, but even then DH could not sit in the seat. We complained but because of the hype over the weekend it was completely sold out. We left before it started, wrote and complained and they gave us back new tickets back of the front royal circle! The first tickets would have been great for children.

Outdoor swimming. Piss off Dryrobe.

Traditionally working class fast foods- pizza, pies, hot dogs, doner kebabs etc. Even bloody baked potatoes now. All been gentrified with pretentious ingredients and being charged at 20x the price now. In fact fast food in general- nearly £11 for a Burger King Whopper meal or even KFC or McDonalds meals now! And don't get me started on places like Spud Bros and Five Guys. I feel like this is all being done deliberately to enable some sort of social cleansing of the working classes. Everything from food to beer has become so snobby now.

Also, living in some Northern cities in general because f***g southern twats keep moving here for cheaper houses and better schools, pricing out locals. Manchester and Leeds have already been ruined. Don't let this happen to Liverpool or Newcastle (espcially not Liverpool- i know there's a John Lewis and there's a small Waitrose in Formby (which isn't really Liverpool), but if a Waitrose ever appears in the city centre, I'm gone).

Has anyone mentioned food? It’s just the two of us. I can’t think how we could afford food if the kids were still at home.

The government needs to step in and control the prices of traditional working-class things, tax the middle and upper classes to pay for it if necessary.

that's nice to hear - my musician friend does similar community work as he is passionate about trying to help kids access music.

the sad part is the lack of music access in schools now - it used to be common to do an instrument and it's much less so. not their fault as they have a million things to try and cover and bugger all money to do it.

Yeah cos thats exactly what the government is for....

The socialist worker party called, they want their megaphone back. 📣