Today I saw that a company was having an event around here to showcase some new electronic products which I thought sounded kind of interesting. It sounded like it would be kept small as well with groups of people booked for certain time blocks due to distancing guidelines. At first I thought it would be a free event since it is outdoors too. But apparently there is a fee. It wasn’t much but they were saying how the fee was actually a donation to charity and you could request a receipt to write it off at the end of the year as well.
That did make me wonder. If a businesses charged you a ticket fee for an event saying it was for charity would you be more inclined to pay for it and attend versus it just being their own fee to recoup expenses? For example, imagine an outdoor parade of sort that is normally free where people can just stand on the sidewalk and watch it go by. If they charged a fee you wouldn’t bother. However, if they now say they are charging people $5 to be able to go and watch where all proceeds go to charity would you be keen to go?
It genuinely makes me wonder if in those cases companies can actually use that as a way to attract people too where it’s like going there makes it that you are doing a good deed as well.