Posts Tagged ‘rock’
Now Fly To The Sasquatch Music Festival
Sasquatch! Music Festival is a music festival held annually at the Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Washington. It is presented by the House of Blues. There is an emphasis on indie rock bands and singer-songwriters, although there are also alternative rock, hip hop and comedy acts. The festival features four separate stages (Sasquatch! Main Stage, Bigfoot Stage, Rumpus Room, & Yeti Stage). (Wikipedia). The 2012 event will be held on Memorial day weekend: May 25-May 29. The line up will be announced February 2, 2012
The Gorge Amphitheatre is a 20,000+ seat concert venue, located above the Columbia River in George, Washington. It offers lawn-terrace seating and concert-friendly weather.
Administered by Live Nation, it is considered one of the premier and most scenic concert locations not just in North America, but the world. The venue has been a host to big name performers like The Who, David Bowie, Coldplay, Tom Petty, Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band and Phish. The venue offers sweeping and majestic views of the Columbia River, as well as extreme eastern Kittitas County and extreme western Grant County. It is also known for its spectacular views of the Columbia gorge canyon.
The Gorge is well over 3 hours away from Seattle or Spokane by car and absolutely no non-stop commercial service anywhere closer. In order to attend a concert at the Gorge from anywhere, outside of driving distance, would cost quadruple the airfare because you will need to rent a car for a week, you will need to stay at a hotel for two extra nights and you will lose one or two days of work traveling. This place is seriously hard to get to.
Social Flights can deliver you and your friends within miles of The Gorge for your concert. Our private jets can pick you and your group up wherever you live in North America, and then wisk you back to your home on any day you choose. The flight itself will be beautiful as you pass over the Rockies or the Cascade Mountain Ranges. Or, you’ll follow the Pacific Coastline then cross the amazing colors through South Eastern Washington. Add to the the spectacular sunset and lightshow and you are in for an unforgettable event.
General admission tickets are about $250.00 for the 4 day event. However VIP accommodations can range from $1000.00 up to $5000.000 per pair with pristine views and luxury tent. Let Social Flights help you celebrate the music event of a lifetime in one of the most beautiful venues in the world.
Should the Government Reregulate the Airline Industry?
After the justice department approved the merger of Continental Airlines and United Airlines last Friday, Congressman James Oberstar (D-Minn) voiced his displeasure again with the merger and suggested that Congress might just need to reconsider the deregulation of airlines that happened in 1978.
The airlines have been stuck between a rock and a hard place for years. Combined profits of the industry are non-existent and customer satisfaction with airline service is somewhere down there in the range of our approval ratings of congress’s performance.
What we have received from deregulation are cheap air fares. Most people don’t remember what it cost to fly on the airlines prior to 1978 because they were either not old enough or did not fly on the airlines back then due to the costs. Real costs for flying via commercial airlines have come down over the past 30 years but the by-product of lower fares has been a reduction in what we consider to be service and the amenities of air travel. In some ways, airline travel has become just another form of mass transit much like rail service.
What we want we can’t have, and the government stepping in will not solve the problem.
We want our cheap $99 return fares, anywhere, anytime, and we want great service and convenient on-time departure schedules to go with the low price.
Deregulation brought on the competition with low cost carriers, which brought down the fares that we all enjoy.
Low fares combined with volatile fuel prices, worldwide competition with lower labor costs and airlines irrationally putting too much inventory of seats in the market took the profits out of the airline industry.
So now we have to adjust to some new fare structure and service level that the free market should work out. Mergers of air carriers are a part of this evolutionary process.
The airlines and their shareholders deserve to make a profit, or at least attempt to do so, while providing air transportation to the consumer. Unlike a utility where we have no choice, we don’t have to fly if we don’t like the combination of price, service and time efficiency of air travel.
As my Southwest flight pulled into the gate Sunday afternoon at Nashville, the flight attendant reminded us that we have many choices about who we fly with and he thanked us for choosing Southwest Airlines. In reality, we have choices beyond whom we fly with because we can drive and, in some cases, take the train. We can also choose not to go at all.
Regulation of air travel from the federal government should be limited to matters of safety. Congress should not venture anymore than they already have into the regulation of customer service, pricing and competition.
Government intervention has not brought much value to anything lately and I can’t imagine a scenario where reregulation of the airline industry will ultimately benefit the US economy and the consumer of air travel.
