I Bought the $250 VIP Package and All I Received Was a Lanyard and a Wave

Let me describe the moment the whole thing crystallized for me. I'm standing in a convention center hallway in Columbus, holding a tote bag that cost extra, watching a man I've listened to for six years — through breakups, through a move, through one very bad winter — glance up from his phone, wave vaguely at the line of people holding VIP lanyards, and look back down.

That wave cost me two hundred and fifty dollars.

Fandom, Now With Pricing Tiers

Live entertainment around podcasts and creator culture has absolutely exploded, and on paper, that's beautiful. People who met in comment sections hugging in real life. Creators doing Q&As in actual theaters instead of bedroom studios. I want to be clear: the shows are often great. The energy in a room full of people who all get the references is genuinely something.

But somewhere in the last few years, the meet-and-greet stopped being a bonus and became a business model with more tiers than a credit card rewards program. General admission. GA Plus. VIP. Ultimate. "Ultimate" apparently means a poster, priority seating, and roughly ninety seconds of eye contact with someone who has said the word "welcome back to the show" in your earphones a thousand times.

The Greeting Card Economy

Here's the phrase I can't shake: the greeting card economy. Everything sold at these events is designed to represent connection rather than contain it. The signed poster. The photo op. The "exclusive" merch that will be on the online store by Thursday. Each item is a receipt proving you were in proximity to someone you admire.

And look — I get the economics. Touring is expensive, ads are flaky, and creators deserve to be paid by the people who consume their work. If a thousand people happily buy the VIP package, who exactly am I to call it a scam?

But there's a difference between paying for a product and being told you're buying community when what you're actually buying is a queue.

The Emotional Upsell

What bugs me most is the language. These packages aren't marketed as "longer queue time." They're marketed as "a special moment together." The upsell isn't merchandise — it's simulated intimacy. The implication, gently, is that the size of your love can be measured in dollars, and the person at the front of the line loves harder than you.

Meanwhile, the actual community — the group chats, the fan Discords, the friendships formed for free over years of episodes — costs nothing and delivers everything. The most meaningful part of my convention weekend wasn't the wave. It was meeting two people from my group chat at a diner afterward and talking for four hours.

What I'd Actually Pay For

I'm not saying never charge. I'm saying be honest about the product. I'd pay real money for a genuinely small show — fifty seats, actual conversation, a creator who has to look at us. I'd pay for a live episode with a real Q&A instead of scripted banter followed by a merch table sprint.

What I won't do again is fund the middleman: the lanyard, the line, the vague wave. That's not community. That's a toll booth with a photo backdrop.

The people I love listening to deserve to make a living. I just wish the living didn't have to be made by renting them back to us by the minute.