Sweet Relief Musicians Fund is a great organization which provides financial assistance to struggling musicians facing disease, disability or age-related problems. And if you look at their charity buzz page, you can score some sweet deals and basically have a good idea of who is hot and who is not that hot.
The page offers auctions to attend concerts in very interesting conditions. Think about this, would you want to watch Arcade Fire from the side stage when they perform in Coachella this April? At the top of this you will get 2 VIP tickets for the festival, which give you access to parking lots and two venue VIP areas all 3 days. Of course, it’s not cheap, the current bid is $2,259 and the estimated value is $10,000!! Ouch, Arcade Fire is definitively big these days, but there’s the same deal for Muse with a current bid at $2,900 and an estimated value of $5,000.
This is expected, these bands are very popular bands and the hype for Coachella has never been so high. But who else is hot? I couldn’t believe it but Foster the People are as hot as the previous ones with a current bid of $2,250 (estimated value $10,000 for the same deal at Coachella),… really these pumped up kids are this big? Equally surprising to me, Lorde at Coachella for $1,251 (estimated value $10,000), but since Springsteen has covered her, I guess she is allowed to these high expectations.
But there are artists that transcend the prediction: There is a current bid for 2 guest list tickets for Billy Joel (plus a signed album collection) for $4,000 whereas the estimated value was only $2,000. Then they are the ‘meet the artists’ bids and it seems to me that they are sort of taking a popularity contest: meet Smokey Robinson for $1,050, meet Childish Gambino for $950, meet Melissa Etheridge for $650, meet Aimee Mann and Ted Leo for $450, meet the Black Lips or Demi Lovato for $350, meet Bill Engvall for a bargain, $200! And I feel a little bad for him. However, this is not over and you can go to their page to check if there is something to your liking. It’s a good thing to do if you have that kind of money.
