Racedo - I think this is a bit of thread creep, but needless to say I don't agree with all your points! Figure I've heard from popcorn is the "food" costs about 0.3p, 1-2p for packaging, the rest is margin. No wonder Stelios' "easy" cinema never "took off" - as his "great" idea was keep it clean, no popcorn!
Stelios's idea never took off because the big 6 Hollywood studios not interested in playing ball. Why would they ?
Stelios could not ever compete with the sheer number of screens the UK main players have and any thinking along that lines would be given option of deal with Stelios and no other chain.
As said earlier in week 1 studios take 70-80 % of box office, weeks 2-3 it gets to 50-50, week 4 its 30-70%.
Stelios wanted to do cheap but why would a studio want its movie to be sold at a sellout for £5 a head when it can do it for £8.
Some artists have fancy accounting, many don't - after all most of them espouse left wing principles, only one has been heavily targetted for their tax affairs (U2), and they aren't even British, even if their stage shows are UK designed. Without going through each and every one, I put it to you that the majority live in the UK and pay their fair share of UK taxes.
Espousing something is great when you rich, like the have a Prius but use private jet mantra. Few artists pay big amounts of tax despite espousing beliefs, it sounds great that they are "with it" but most of them are full of the smelly brown stuff.
Artists are money grabbers and do everything to get as much as they can, understandable but lets not put them on a plinth.
U2 copped it because they moved elements from Ireland to Netherlands while telling Irish Govt to increase aid.
The VAT on tickets is levied on the sales price - so all should go to HMRC. Merchandise is also vatable and a very high margin product. There are a whole load of new hotels both next to the O2 and in the Docklands area which benefit from the combined existence of Excel, the O2 and the airport, together with the Docklands business area itself, and as leisure events peak at the weekends, the two uses can have a double peak, similar to the NEC complex adjacent to BHX - or does that suck money from the local economy too? Again, hotels pay business rates and room rates are vatable, although iirc some will be on corporate expenses so reclaimable, but you could say that about any conference or event.
No chance all VAT goes to Govt as services of Artist are charged against ticket receipts and VAT is an element of that plus add in costs of everything else that are offset against it to pay as little VAT and TAX as is possible.
We only talking of O2 not anything around as Airport and Excel not part of the development, were separate so please lets not try and add them in.
The existence of the O2 is not a simple matter of displacement - prior to its opening, the largest venue in the world by revenue was the MEN in Manchester, not another London venue. London's other large venues were seriously out of date - Earl's Court was not a big earner (see local debate there) and Wembley Arena was also much in need of a revamp (now done, but capacity still lags well behind O2). It really isn't a zero sum game - create a 20k capacity venue when shows would have previously gone to a 10k venue and you have the opportunity to double revenue. In fact, the economies of scale here work in reverse - the larger the act, the higher the ticket price!
I don't know average occupancy for the O2, but I guess it would indeed give Ryanair a run for their money. Then you have licencing rights for a huge number of DVDs and TV shows recorded there on top. For the best atmosphere, a live shows wants to be a sell out, or as near as possible. Now by all means have a go at the ticket re-sale racket or whatever else, but the O2 is clearly a moneyspinner in its current form, so much so that O2 have sponsored a number of other similar venues built on a similar scale elsewhere (DUB, PRG, BER?), I believe also commissioned by the same entertainment company.
From a promoter's perspective, this kind of venue is preferable to a stadium show, as there is no risk of inclement weather, and much greater control of lighting and acoustics. Overall, a win-win. If you don't like seeing shows in big sheds like these then fair enough, but I really think the economics should be self explanatory.
Economics are easy as the cost was paid for by someone else so getting it for SFA means you not concerned about building it.
O2 holds 20k, Wembley holds 12.5k................reality was more events now in O2 than Wembley and Earls court but sorry it ain't a big cash generator to HMG.
O2 gets diddly squat from on sale of concerts, DVDs etc as why would any artist / record company give up their money.
O2 get a fee for staging the concert i.e. hire of a venue, promoters hire it, venues don't get the ticket money and pretty much as little else as possible. It will never pay anything like it cost to put it there as frankly expanding other arenas at a fraction of the cost without public money would be a better idea.
Yup it does provide lots of just above minimum wage jobs but ain't no tax in that and with 100 plus nights a year the residents have a preference for less not more.
Its not UK worst waste of cash as there are even worse mostly from a military perspective but the idea that it will ever pay HMG for what was invested is laughable.