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Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeart Radio.
Good morning.
This is Laura.
Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is to buy extra tickets for events you are excited about.
If it is financially feasible for you to grab an extra ticket or two, doing so will encourage you to invite others, even if those people don't like to plan too far ahead.
So some events are quite pricey.
We don't need to talk about how much my family spent on tickets to Taylor Swift concerts during the Eros tour.
But many events are not.
A lot of local performing arts events or art exhibits or fundraisers or sports games are relatively accessible in the grand scheme of things.
If you enjoy one of those things, and you have some extra money in your budget, consider buying an extra ticket or two.
If you would go by yourself, buy two tickets.
If you would go with your partner, buy four.
With the extra tickets in hand, you will get the event on the calendar and then, when the date gets closer, you can invite friends to join you.
Now obviously you could try to rally friends before you buy the tickets, but I think this approach has some merits.
First, coordinating people far ahead of time is often logistically complex.
You may spend a lot of time waiting to hear back from people.
And not everyone likes to plan that far in advance, particularly for things that they are not personally that familiar with.
So the benefit of this approach is that you can plan as early as you want to, but you don't have to extend an invitation awkwardly early.
For instance, as soon as the calendar for the symphony comes out,
You may know that you want to hear the concert featuring Debussy's works.
Even if it is four or five months away, you are ready to commit.
Your friends, on the other hand, may not be quite so enthusiastic about Debussy as you are.
So it might feel weird to ask if they want to go half a year in advance.
So just buy the tickets.
And in a few months, extend an invitation to people who you think might want to join you.
Maybe the people at the top of your list aren't available.
But that is an occasion to branch out and deepen your relationship with others.
Another benefit of buying extra tickets is that it lets you introduce friends to sports teams or performing arts groups or nonprofits that you love, but they might not know about.
Maybe professional soccer is new to your area.
Or maybe your city has a new community theater that you love but hasn't gotten a huge fan base yet.
Buying tickets and inviting others to go as your guests creates an occasion to expand the audience and introduce your friends to something new.
If you have friends for whom money is tight...
Buying extra tickets and then inviting them creates a not-awkward way for you to pay for their tickets.
You might not feel comfortable inviting someone to go to an event and then offering to buy their ticket, but it feels perfectly natural to invite someone to go as your guest when you already have the tickets.
The other person may even feel like they are doing you a favor, like, oh, please take these tickets.
They will go to waste otherwise.
It's all part of your plan.
An added benefit of buying extra tickets is that your friends may reciprocate and invite you to join them for a game, performance, or event.
So get time with them and we'll get introduced to a new team or organization as well.
I was thinking about the benefits of extra tickets recently when I was looking forward to the Sarah McLachlan concert.
I had bought four tickets thinking maybe some friends from out of town would be around.
And as it happened, they weren't.
But I convinced my two teenage boys to come with me.
I can tell you that they were just about the only teen boys in the audience for a Sarah McLachlan concert.
I believe the quote from my oldest was that every woman in the audience was my age.
But they enjoyed the music, because it's really good music, and we all had a good time together.
So I was glad I'd gotten the tickets because they certainly would not have asked me to buy them.
Now, if you are hearing all this talk of buying extra tickets ahead of time, and you're thinking it doesn't apply to you because you never buy tickets in advance even for yourself, I'd invite you to reconsider that approach.
Buying tickets in advance is a commitment device to ensure you actually attend the cool stuff you hear about and contemplate doing.
If you delay, tickets may sell out or life might get busy with less special stuff.
So buy the tickets, get the event on your calendar, and start looking forward to it.
In the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening.
And here's to making the most of our time.
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeart Media.
For more podcasts from iHeart Media, please visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, Portlandia fans.
Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here.
The dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form.
We're launching Podlandia AO Rewatch, our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made.
And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life.
Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more.
Kyle is going for it here.
You fully improvised, not just words, but a song.
Well, I thought you were all going to write a song.
I remember you thinking that.
Yeah.
Listen to Podlandia AO Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Naomi Osaka showing out.
Shout out to you, Naomi.
The viral moments.
I've been obsessed with Kashawn Rock's boxing journey.
She looks good.
Her combos are swift.
And the stories everyone's talking about across women's sports.
Because everyone watches women's sports.
Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human.
