The anatomy of a cover charge

@SL_body_copy_ragged:People pay to play in so many cases for so many things. So why does the mention of a cover charge at the door to a bar send people tramping back out onto Main Street like a fire drill?

I see it almost every weekend. A group of people walk up to a bar. The first person, maybe even the second one, gets in the door and then pushes the group right back out into the night. They stand and argue. One might walk away. There's usually one who just wants to pay and go in. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

I don't get it.

People will pay $4.05 for a coffee drink that lasts maybe an hour, but they cry and moan and fight over a $5 cover for a few hours with a band in a bar on a Friday night. You pay for almost all other forms of entertainment: $8 for a movie, no less than $30 for a full-fledged concert, $15 for chamber music, $17 to $62 for wrestling.

But ask $3 to $5 for a band and people look at you like you just asked them for their car keys.

Lighten up and loosen the purse strings, Uncle Scrooge. The money usually goes to pay the band anyhow.

If you don't want to pay to hear the band, go somewhere without one.

Almost every other bar in every other city charges a cover on the weekends. It's twofold: partly to pay for the band, partly to keep customers inside the bar.

If you pay a cover, you're more likely to stay in one spot, lest ye risk getting charged somewhere else.

Moreover, some suggest that it's a matter of conditioning. The idea is if you know that all the bars are going to charge a few dollars to see what they've got, you'll be prepared and choose a destination wisely.

You'll be happier because you want to be there and so do your neighbors. And you might pay more attention to the band because you paid to hear them.