Price, Politics, and Great Expectations

Last week I splashed out on a discounted ticket to see Margaret Atwood talk in Auckland. It’s an event that has now been criticised from multiple angles, but I’m not here to add my voice to that. In fact, I rather enjoyed the evening. 

I want to talk about expectations. 

I’ve written before that I believe the main source of our reaction to an event is our expectations that precede it.

If you go into a movie believing it’ll be the best thing since Gone With The Wind, it won’t take much to disappoint you. 

If you go to a tourist site believing the romantic descriptions about it, you’re more likely to feel let down by the reality. 

Ardent fans of Atwood are the ones who suffered most on Tuesday night. Some booked their tickets months in advance, locking it into their calendars as a night to look forward to. Some paid up to $180 for a seat in the crowded theatre. 

Most of these fans were hoping for exclusive insights, pearls of wisdom, or memorable quotes to store in their memories from that one time they saw the prolific writer on stage. 

It’s not surprising they were frustrated by the lack of questions about Atwood’s writing, back catalogue, and recent controversial Booker prize win. 

The most obvious thing about these reviews was that it didn’t live up to their expectations. 

So why did they expect so much in the first place? The cost of the ticket was often quoted as being the biggest upset - for the same price you could see Elton John or Queen, along with the theatrics and spectacle that go with them. Here was just a small woman, albeit with a great mind, sat on a chair opposite a politician. Did they expect pyrotechnics and a full band?

Here’s where reviewers got more upset though: with a politician in charge of the questions, the conversation skirted around literary topics for most of the night to instead delve into current global events and climate discussion. 

These are topics that Atwood is clearly passionate about, and has brought into much of her writing, yet somehow it seemed “off-topic” to ask her about these. Somehow people didn’t expect her to talk about anything other than her books, and only in explicit terms. 

But for those of us who came into the evening a little more relaxed in our expectations, whether that’s because of a discount ticket, a lack of knowledge about Atwood’s back catalogue, or a freshness to the author-event scenario, I like to think we were more open to being charmed and entertained by the author - and in turn quite enjoyed ourselves.

For your next event, try going in with no expectations. Scale back your subconscious demands and let yourself enjoy it, however it comes.