u/ThatRoofer

We see constant headlines about ticket prices spiraling out of control, but the conversation almost always lands on Ticketmaster as the villain. What rarely gets discussed is how many artists quietly sign off on dynamic pricing and platinum tickets, then let the platform take the public beating for it.

Some artists genuinely push back. Some lock in flat ticket prices, work with smaller venues, or sell direct to fans at a fixed rate. They take a financial hit to keep shows accessible, and most do it without making a big announcement about how noble they are.

The question I keep coming back to is why this is still the exception and not the norm. Is it purely a money decision? Label pressure? Management steering artists toward maximizing revenue per show? Because the artists who opt out tend to still sell out. The demand is there either way.

Curious to hear who people think has done this genuinely well, not as a PR move but as a consistent practice across their whole touring career. And if you've been to a show recently where the tickets felt actually fair, who was it and how did they handle it? Those artists deserve more credit than they get in these conversations.

Was reading through some corporate restructuring papers for a project and it kinda hit me how brutal the credit crunch has gotten for mid-market Canadian businesses.

Like if if you aren't a massive corporate juggernaut or a tiny startup with tech hype, the Big Six banks basically don't want to know you. They've tightened lending standards so much that even stable companies with millions in hard assets are getting turned away if they hit a slight snag.

It made me look into where these guys are even finding capital to survive or grow now that traditional loans are out of the question. Apparently there is this massive shift toward private debt and alternative lenders. Came across an old bio and found out it's wild how much these niche firms are stepping up to fund turnarounds that banks won't touch.

Any folks here work in corporate finance or own a mid-sized business?are there more people fully relying on private credit now? Feels like a massive structural shift in how Canadian business gets funded ..

i had been collecting bits of metal for over a year from different jobs and renovations, copper wire, aluminium offcuts, some steel pieces and even an old radiator. it was all sitting in the shed taking up space so i finally decided to sort it properly and take it somewhere instead of letting it rust away.

i took everything to normetals and they weighed it all properly and gave me a fair price for the mix. the copper and clean aluminium made up most of the value and it was way easier than i expected. has anyone else done a big clean out of mixed scrap? what metals usually give the best return for you and do you bother separating everything or just take it mixed? any tips for getting a better price on smaller loads?

Honestly, the hardest part about repatriating isn't the reverse culture shock, it's the pure logistical nightmare of the time difference

Ive been trying to secure a place back in Aus from europe for the last three months and I am completely burnt out. Sellers' agents straight up ghost you the second they realize you don't have a local phone number. Ive lost out on two different places simply because I was literally asleep when they decided to accept early offers. waking up at 3 am, to squint at a pixelated WhatsApp video tour of a hallway is just soul-destroying at this point

I finally cracked last week and just delegated the whole mess to pmc property buyers because my boss was definitely starting to notice me zoning out at my desk from sleep deprivation

Everyone talks about how hard it is to move abroad, but trying to pack up your life and buy a house from 10,000 miles away feels infinitely more stressful. Just venting I guess, but man, trying to coordinate two different lives across opposite sides of the planet is exhausting.

Been doing some cleanup around the garage and built up a decent pile of aluminum and steel offcuts from various projects over the past year. Started looking into what's actually worth scrapping versus keeping for future use. The sorting process matters a lot more than I expected. Mixing alloys kills the value fast.

While researching scrap grades and pricing I came across Normetals, an Australian metals supplier. Their site had some useful breakdowns on metal grades that helped me figure out what I actually had sitting in my bins. Good reference point even if you're not buying.

The aluminum Tslot extrusion scraps seem to hold decent value. Cast aluminum, not so much. Still figuring out whether a local scrap yard or a specialty buyer makes more sense for the stainless pieces.

Does anyone have a system for sorting and storing offcuts before a scrapping run? And is it worth cleaning the metal first or does that not really matter?

seriously considering throwing in the towel on self managing. I just spent my entire Sunday morning arguing with a guest who thought "checkout at 11" actually meant "start packing at 11:45 and get mad at the cleaner"

The margins on my two units are fine, but the sheer mental load is exhausting. every time my phone buzzes on a weekend I assume the house is flooding or someone broke the wifi router again. I handed one of the units over to jmk property management a while back and honestly the difference in my stress levels is making me rethink keeping the other one in my own hands

Im just tired of my whole life revolving around the airbnb app notification sound. idk how you guys with 5+ units do this without losing your hair tbh

Just got back from a trip to Sydney and spent a good chunk of time eating my way through the city. Italian food was at the top of my list and I was pretty impressed with what's available.

One place that stood out was Dom Panino. Stumbled across it looking for something quick and solid. The food was straightforward, quality ingredients, nothing overcomplicated. Exactly what I look for.

Beyond that I hit a few spots in Leichhardt, which is obviously the goto area for Italian in Sydney. Some great little trattorias in there that feel genuinely local rather than touristfocused.

I'm not a Sydney local so I'm probably missing a lot. What are the Italian places people actually go back to regularly? And is Leichhardt still considered the main hub for it or has that shifted?

been thinking about this lately. a good friend of mine is currently prepping to relocate from the uk to australia. he’s in the lucky position where he has enough cash set aside to just sell everything and buy brand new furniture, tech, and appliances the second he touches down. total clean slate.

but he’s stuck in this loop of going back and forth on whether he should just ship his old stuff over anyway.

i get the emotional side of it, obviously. some items just carry weight and memories that you can't really replace at a big-box store. but from a purely practical, cold-hearted view-why on earth would you pay thousands to haul heavy furniture and random bits of your old life halfway across the globe when you could just start clean?

it’s honestly a weirdly deep question. how much of our attachment to our physical "stuff" is genuine value, and how much is just us trying to anchor our identity in objects because we're scared to let go?

what do you guys think? would you ship your old life across the ocean, or would you just leave it all behind and build something entirely new?

So i finally got around to registering a little single-member LLC last month for some freelance consulting work I’ve been doing on the side. Everything went through fine with the state, but oh my god, nobody warned me about the absolute avalanche of spam that follows. Literally within three days of approval, my physical mailbox started overflowing with these official-looking letters demanding payment for "required corporate compliance posters" or demanding $150 for domain name registration packages i never asked for. They design them to look exactly like government documents from the state treasury or something, it's so predatory. I almost paid one of them before realizing the fine print said "this is a solicitation." Thankfully I used an company as my registered agent so at least my actual home address isn't totally blasted all over the public state database, but some of these scammy marketing companies still managed to dig up my info from the public business filings. Ngl it’s kind of disgusting how these corporate parasites target people just trying to start a small business. If you're about to file yours, just a heads up to double check every single bill you get in the mail.

its actually insane how much of dfw has just become copy paste corporate sprawl. I was trying to rebuild an older commercial pump housing for my dad's place this week and literally nobody stocks heavy duty or weird components anymore

You go to any major industrial supplier in town and if it isn't a standard plastic sku from overseas they look at you like you have three heads. plus driving across the metroplex to chase down parts is absolute torture. I sat in standstill traffic on 635 for almost an hour yesterday just thinking about how ridiculous the supply chain is. wait times for oem stuff are like 3 months rn

I eventually just gave up on finding a direct replacement and sent the broken piece over to lowrance machine to just reverse engineer the flange and mill a new one.

but man I just really miss when you could drive 10 mins down the road and find some old guy in a dusty shop who had exactly the weird threading you needed. now every old industrial block is getting bulldozed for "luxury" apartments with fake brick and $8 coffee shops. the gentrification of our local industrial areas is kinda sad tbh. rant over, im just tired of sitting in my truck

i am at my wits end with this old house in miami the kitchen cabinets are falling apart with doors that wont close and the sink leaks every time i use it making the floor warp. the bathroom has cracked tiles with black mold growing in the corners that makes the whole place smell musty and i worry about breathing it in every day plus the lighting is so dim it feels like a cave.

i spoke with jmk miami contractor and they said to start with the kitchen and bathroom because the water damage from old pipes in the kitchen is spreading and the mold in the bathroom is a real health risk that needs fixing first. they recommended thinking about a full remodel but warned it will cost a bit and now i am stuck wondering if it is worth going for the full thing or if i can just diy the things i dont like to save money for now.

is a full remodel actually worth the money in an old miami house or can i diy some of the kitchen and bathroom fixes without making it worse? any cheap hacks that actually work for mold and leaks until i can afford more?

we are heading to miami for five days next month to hit the beaches and explore south beach without relying on rideshares the whole time. we need something affordable and easy to park in the busy areas.

i saw turo is popular for short trips like ours and it seems like a good way to get a specific car without airport hassles.

any good experiences with local rental options or tips for getting the best rates in miami during peak season? what car size works best for city driving and beach parking?

Lately I've been trying to focus less on huge sustainability goals and more on small things I can actually stick with long term. A couple of changes surprised me. I switched to a reusable water bottle years ago and stopped buying bottled water almost entirely. More recently, I started line drying clothes whenever the weather is decent, and my electricity use dropped more than I expected. That got me wondering what other habits have produced results people could actually notice.

Not necessarily the most environmentally impactful thing on paper, but something where you could genuinely look back after a few months and say, Yeah, that made a difference.

Maybe it reduced your trash output, lowered your energy bill, cut food waste, or just stopped you from constantly buying disposable stuff. On the flip side, are there any sustainability habits you tried that turned out to be a lot of effort for very little benefit?

I'm mostly interested in real-world experiences rather than generic lists. What change gave you the biggest return for the effort involved?

we need to find a company to install new kitchen cabinets and matching quartz counters before the fall. someone at work told me to look into trussell's transformations but they didn't actually used them but also got then recommended, I get nervous choosing contractors soo, has anyone here actually used them or have another local crew they recommend? (one which you were really pleased with) thanks!

took on a bathroom reno last month. confident. said yeah no worries we got plumbers. then my usual guy went quiet. ghosted. no call no text. left me hanging with a client waiting.

spent three days calling around. some of these emergency plumbing services are ridiculous. one quoted me 1200 just to rough in a shower. another said they could come in 2-3 weeks for a job that takes half a day.

finally a guy on a jobsite recommended someone. small outfit. showed up the next morning. did the work for literally half of what the big places wanted. his card says mates rates plumbing the guy knew his stuff.

made me realise how much i rely on the same 2-3 subs for everything. when one falls through im completely screwed. need to build a better roster but honestly dont have time to vet people while also running jobs.

anyone else struggle with this. feels like theres either the expensive but unreliable big companies or the cheap but hard to find small guys. no middle ground.

I've been a volunteer with a community health organization in rural Kentucky for about 8 months. Last month they brought in a mobile medical trailer for a two-day outreach event, dental screenings and basic diagnostics mostly.

I expected it to feel makeshift. It didn't. The unit was fully equipped, climate controlled, had a proper patient flow setup inside. Maybe 60-70 people came through over the two days which for a town that size is significant.

Started asking questions after my shift about where these units even come from. Didn't realize there were companies that build them fully from scratch. Summit Bodyworks, craftsMen, AVAN Mobility, all different specializations depending on what the trailer actually needs to do inside.

Anyone here volunteered with mobile health programs before? Curious what the experience was like on your end and whether the communities you worked with were receptive to this kind of outreach.

We all have those films we stumbled into almost by accident. Maybe a friend dragged you along, maybe it was the only thing playing, or maybe you just picked something random on a streaming service late at night. And somehow it turned into one of your favorite movie experiences ever.

For me it was Upgrade from 2018. I had heard almost nothing about it, threw it on one evening expecting a forgettable action flick, and ended up genuinely stunned by how smart and tightly made it was. The action choreography, the dark humor, the ending. It just fired on all cylinders and I was not prepared for any of it.

I think these kinds of discoveries are some of the best experiences you can have as a movie fan. There is no hype to live up to, no expectations weighing everything down. You just get to experience a film completely fresh and let it surprise you.

Curious what films did that for you. Could be anything: a blockbuster you ignored, a small indie you found randomly, an older film you finally got around to. What movie genuinely caught you off guard and why do you think going in blind made it hit harder?

everyone names shows that declined. I want the opposite – shows that got better. for me: The Americans (seasons 3-4) and Parks and Rec (post-season one). what's yours? does a later peak make you forgive early roughness? and can a show peak too late, after losing its audience? share specific seasons and what changed

got back from [redacted] on monday and i'm still not right lol. walking around my apartment like a ghost. regular life feels so flat idk how else to explain it

already looking at summer lineups trying to find something to fill the void. you know that desperate phase where you'll consider almost any festival just to have something to look forward to?

was randomly checking prices earlier. the big sites are doing their usual thing with fees.

i just want to be back in a field with dirt on my shoes and some band i've never heard of playing at 2pm. is that too much

anyone else in the same? or am i just being dramatic because i have to go back to work tomorrow lol