For months I have been looking at what various artists offer on their VIP ticket packages and whether I consider them to be worth the money. Personally I don't think the ones that charge in the region of £200 for a seat, programme and a dinner with the other VIP guests is worth the money. I'm going to talk in particular about the Meet and Greet Ticket packages which give fans the opportunity to meet their favourite artists. Normally these packages include a premium seat in the first few rows plus merchandise. The cheapest I have seen these packages for is £218. Considering their price, are these tickets really worth it? Some may argue that artist should be willing to give something back to their fans and do them for nothing, others may say that it's just a way of getting more money out of gullible fans who believe it is worth the money. On the flip side of this there are people who think that if an artist means a lot to you and you can afford it then why shouldn't you fulfil your dream in meeting them? I attended a Meet and Greet in 2010 and I believe it was worth the money. Meat Loaf is an entertainer who I have admired for years and I'd always thought it would be brilliant to meet a celebrity I'd admired for that long so when the Meet and Greet tickets came up I had no hesitation in purchasing the package. It cost £200 but the memories I got from that evening were priceless. Meat Loaf was a pleasant man and gave each person there some time to chat to him. I think it was well worth the money I paid and I'd do it again without question. There has been occasions when I have read accounts of Meet and Greets with other artists that haven't been such positive experiences and that is when the worth of these packages need to be questioned. Who wants to pay that kind of money to discover that the artist you have idolised and dreamt of meeting is actually a bit of an idiot who doesn't seem to care about giving their fans a brilliant experience. Thankfully Meat Loaf is not like that and I've never read any reports of a fan being disappointed over their meeting with him. I have on occasions read about negative parts of a Meet and Greet but they have been with the venue staff or some other aspect out of Meat's control.

I'm going to make an exception to my normal stance of remaining fairly anonymous and actually post the picture that was taken at my meet and greet. It's not the greatest of photos because I was extremely nervous but here it is anyway:

I was thinking the other day that I'd have loved the promotion we could have got from having Meat Loaf share something on our site and since he's occasionally shared reviews that fans have written, including linking to their websites, I'm thinking we're in the wrong business. We don't need to be wasting our time with all these silly images when we could have used the time for something else. Then I look once again in the cover of Hell in A Handbasket and I see a photograph of Meat and I'm sat there thinking that it would be perfect to use in a graphic so yesterday I set to work at turning this photo into a desktop. The first idea got scrapped as it just didn't work and I was just playing with the different blending modes and there it was, the idea that would become the finished product. Skip past a few more experimenting with other layers and the text and we have something that is worthy of sharing on the site. I was looking at exactly why Everything Louder is about images rather than words. We're better at it.
I got the reinforcement of this when I shared the desktop and got positive feedback from other fans, who are the people that Everything Louder exists for.