Update- So What IS Live 8 About?
Here's abit of an update to my first Live8 rant...So What IS Live 8 About?
First, apparently there were 1 million attendees at the 10 (?) concerts. I don't know where the 10 concerts were, cause they only talked about 7 concerts before the official date. I believe they are trying to inflate the figures by adding things like a small concert in Africa which was really more of a gathering for Nelson Mandela. In Japan only 10,000 people showed up leaving the stadium more than 1/2 empty.
The big "LIVE 8 LIST" which they hoped to take to the world's G8 leaders only got 26 million text messages in support yesterday. Geldof had been claiming it would hit a billion signatures, but even with people signing several times under different names etc it only reached 26 million.
Then there were Bob's claims that 5.5 billion people would be watching... so far even the most inflated figures fall billions short of this.
All of this goes back to my original thought, use your fame to raise money dummies. More on this in a minute...
The day before the Associated Press broke a story, (that was confirmed and then buried) that all performers were going to receive "Gift Packs" from the organizers for their performances. Isn't that nice. The catch... the gift packs were worth Worth $12,000 EACH. Think about over a hundred acts with an average of 5 members per act and suddenly you are talking about 500 gifts packs at $12,000 each or roughly $6 million!!!! (The gift packs included things like Hugo Boss suits, Gibson guitars, satellite radios with free subscriptions) Where did the organizers get $6 million for these gift packs?
I remember watching Live Aid and really don't remember any TV commercials. I remember them switching to pleas for donations but not commercials for cell phones, pop and MacDonald's. So if Live8 wasn't collecting any money all the major television stations got an entire day of free programing and still charged major corporations for advertising time. The number of TV stations around the world and the amount of advertising time for that one day would be billions.
So why didn't they raise money? 1 million people actually at the concerts. People pay $100+ to see just U2 these days, to why not charge $50, $50 to see some great acts and to help change the world... suddenly that's $50,000,000.00. Lets say a billion actually watched it on TV (that's stretching it but lets use that for a figure) lets say an average of a $5 donation. Suddenly that $5,050,000,000.00. Then lets charge the TV stations to cover the event. "Friends" got over a million per episode for 30 minutes, so lets say $250,000 an hour. (With advertising rates TV stations would make this up in one set of commercials) times 8 hours is $1,600,000.00 PER COUNTRY. On the low side lets say 1/2 the counties in the world (90) and we're at $144,000,000.00. So we're at $5.2 billion with conservative estimates as to watch could have been raised. And I know that would have been enough to clear all debt owed to Canada and at least one more of the smaller lenders.
But instead they raised $0 and spent a ton on gift packs, stages, sound etc. and instead of clearing any debts first thing this morning they are standing around patting themselves on their backs.
I know, I'm ranting....... So much could have been done for a good cause... Maybe they'll get it right next time...
Gratuitous hot chick of the day
First, apparently there were 1 million attendees at the 10 (?) concerts. I don't know where the 10 concerts were, cause they only talked about 7 concerts before the official date. I believe they are trying to inflate the figures by adding things like a small concert in Africa which was really more of a gathering for Nelson Mandela. In Japan only 10,000 people showed up leaving the stadium more than 1/2 empty.
The big "LIVE 8 LIST" which they hoped to take to the world's G8 leaders only got 26 million text messages in support yesterday. Geldof had been claiming it would hit a billion signatures, but even with people signing several times under different names etc it only reached 26 million.
Then there were Bob's claims that 5.5 billion people would be watching... so far even the most inflated figures fall billions short of this.
All of this goes back to my original thought, use your fame to raise money dummies. More on this in a minute...
The day before the Associated Press broke a story, (that was confirmed and then buried) that all performers were going to receive "Gift Packs" from the organizers for their performances. Isn't that nice. The catch... the gift packs were worth Worth $12,000 EACH. Think about over a hundred acts with an average of 5 members per act and suddenly you are talking about 500 gifts packs at $12,000 each or roughly $6 million!!!! (The gift packs included things like Hugo Boss suits, Gibson guitars, satellite radios with free subscriptions) Where did the organizers get $6 million for these gift packs?
I remember watching Live Aid and really don't remember any TV commercials. I remember them switching to pleas for donations but not commercials for cell phones, pop and MacDonald's. So if Live8 wasn't collecting any money all the major television stations got an entire day of free programing and still charged major corporations for advertising time. The number of TV stations around the world and the amount of advertising time for that one day would be billions.
So why didn't they raise money? 1 million people actually at the concerts. People pay $100+ to see just U2 these days, to why not charge $50, $50 to see some great acts and to help change the world... suddenly that's $50,000,000.00. Lets say a billion actually watched it on TV (that's stretching it but lets use that for a figure) lets say an average of a $5 donation. Suddenly that $5,050,000,000.00. Then lets charge the TV stations to cover the event. "Friends" got over a million per episode for 30 minutes, so lets say $250,000 an hour. (With advertising rates TV stations would make this up in one set of commercials) times 8 hours is $1,600,000.00 PER COUNTRY. On the low side lets say 1/2 the counties in the world (90) and we're at $144,000,000.00. So we're at $5.2 billion with conservative estimates as to watch could have been raised. And I know that would have been enough to clear all debt owed to Canada and at least one more of the smaller lenders.
But instead they raised $0 and spent a ton on gift packs, stages, sound etc. and instead of clearing any debts first thing this morning they are standing around patting themselves on their backs.
I know, I'm ranting....... So much could have been done for a good cause... Maybe they'll get it right next time...
Gratuitous hot chick of the day
posted by Geeper at 8:29 a.m.
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