Opinion: 1D does Aussie fans a favour
A ticket to One Direction's 2013 concert has become a prized possession for the thousands of Perth teenagers lucky enough to score one. However, fans should offload their tickets before the boy band arrives on Australian soil, writes Neale Prior.
Get over it girls and boy, One Direction is doing you a mighty big favour moving their eastern seaboard concerts into the middle of Year 12 exams in late October next year.
It was one of the great rock and roll swindles, flogging tickets to a tour more than a year in advance when there was every risk that One Direction would be just another boy band flash in the pan.
Even if One Direction defy history and stay popular for the better part of another year, you should be well and truly over them by the time you are in Year 12 and approaching legal if not actual adulthood.
This is a lesson in market forces – sell when the demand is high and before some mug realises the game is up.
My advice now is to sell the One Direction tickets to an unsuspecting 12-year-old on the basis you will be focusing on your Year 12 exams, and don’t let on that you now know buying the ticket was one of the dumbest adolescent, peer-pressured purchases you every made.
Amid all the outpourings of grief, even the Year 11 girls and boy in WA who fell for One Direction might have an opportunity to offload their tickets on the basis that they will be knuckling down to study when the pretty pop stars are due to grace Perth Arena on September 28 and September 29 next year.
The WA Curriculum Council website tells us that practical WACE exams in aviation, dance, drama, music and physical education studies, as well as English as an additional language/dialect all kick off as OD hits town on September 28.
Surely you can pretend you are doing one of those subjects, then tearfully hand over your beloved ticket in return for a handful of Edith Cowans ($50 notes that is, not the university).
Then you should deposit the precious folding stuff in your bank account and save it for Leaver/Schoolies 2013, when you will really be needing the cash.
Neale Prior is The West Australian’s personal finance editor (and a father of teenage girls)
