Devyn, Grace and Shea took inspiration from other collectives across the motu, specifically in the North Island, where they saw many Pacific representation and spaces. Photo: Brown Town
- An Ōtautahi-based group faced backlash for offering racially tiered tickets for an upcoming event
- Initially, tickets were priced differently for Tangata Moana, Māori and Pasifika ($20) and for allies ($30)
- The names were later changed to "Alofa" and "Ally"
- The ticketing was defended as a way to address wealth disparities and increase access for Māori and Pasifika communities
- The Human Rights commission told RNZ on 17 January it had received 15 complaints about the pricing model
An Ōtautahi-based collective recently sparked backlash from locals last week when it offered racially tiered tickets for an upcoming gig. But was the reaction justified?
Brown Town, a group which aims to create inclusive spaces for Māori and Pasifika, defended their ticketing model as a way to address wealth inequities and increase accessibility for Tāngata Moana.
While the group faced controversy, leading to a renaming of tickets, this is not the first instance where pricing models attempting to address systemic inequities have sparked debate. Across the world, similar initiatives have taken the same approach.
In 2018, Nigerian social practice artist, Chef Tunde Wey, conducted a social experiment in New Orleans, charging white people more than people of colour.
Nigerian artist, chef, and writer Tunde Wey's 2018 social experiment 'Saartj' challenged white customers to pay more than people of colour. Photo: Supplied / Tunde Wey
The Nigerian pop-up, 'Saartj', served a box lunch to diners, but asked white customers to pay $30, and black customers to pay $12.
His intention, he said, was to encourage customers of different ethnicities to acknowledge New Orleans' racial wealth disparity and create conversation.
People of colour would also be given the option to collect the $18 paid by white customers to "redistribute wealth".
However, before non-people of colour made the choice between paying the $12 or $30, Wey would share with them the wealth gap statistics.
Researchers at The Data Centre found the median net worth for Black households in New Orleans, Louisiana, was $21,000, while the median net worth for white households was $185,000 - a disparity of $164,000.
The experiment had a polarised reaction, with some applauding Wey's approach as a bold way to highlight systemic inequities, while others, particularly online, said it was divisive and or performative.
In 2019, a Detroit-based non-profit organisation 'AfroFuture Youth' implemented a similar tiered pricing model for their music event 'AfroFuture Fest,' charging people of colour less than white attendees to make the event more accessible to marginalised communities. Photo: Screenshot / X
In 2019, a Detroit-based non-profit organisation 'AfroFuture Youth' implemented a similar tiered pricing model for their music event 'AfroFuture Fest,' charging people of colour less than white attendees to make the event more accessible to marginalised communities.
An organiser for the event, Adrienne Ayers, said via Twitter or X : "Often when dope events happen in Detroit the cheapest tickets are bought and then sold by people not from the community (because) they can afford them first, leaving higher price tickets as the only options left."
The organisation received public backlash, including criticism from Eventbrite the ticketing platform, who said the tiered pricing scheme "clearly violated" their terms of services.
AfroFuture eventually revised their pricing model to $20 general admission, with a suggested donation from non-POC after receiving "racist comments" and threats on their Instagram pages.
More recently, in Australia, the First Peoples' Assembly of Victoria employed tiered pricing for cultural events like the 2024 'Treaty in the Park' and the upcoming 2025 'Treaty Day Out'.
The First Peoples Assembly of Victoria employed tiered pricing for their upcoming event 'Treaty Day Out', offering free tickets to indigenous enrolled in the assembly. Photo: Screenshot
Victorian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were enrolled in the Assembly of Victoria could attend for free, with the option to enrol online at any time.
"Friends and allies," or non-indigenous attendees could purchase tickets at $50 plus booking fees.
Wealth inequity in New Zealand
BERL (Business and Economic Research) senior consultant Urvashi Yadav said in Aotearoa there was a "significant gap in both income and wealth between Pākehā and Māori and Pacific peoples".
"This gap is visible in data stretching back as far as the statistics go," Yadav said.
"The median weekly wage for Pākehā as of June 2024 was $1352, for Māori it was $1247 (a gap of 8.4 percent), and for Pacific Peoples $1200 (a gap of 12.7 percent)."
In terms of wealth, Yadav said, the gaps are even larger.
"According to Stats NZ data from 2021 on household net worth, the median individual net worth of Pākehā was the highest of any group in Aotearoa at $151,000. The individual net worth of Māori was $42,000. Pacific Peoples had the lowest net worth of any ethnic group at just $16,000. These numbers are adjusted for the younger age profile of Māori and Pacific Peoples."
These gaps have not improved significantly since 2015, Yadav said.
"The underlying causes of these gaps are complex and multifaceted, and there is a lot of research that examines the root causes of these gaps.
"The root causes of these gaps are systemic, and systems-level change is needed to completely eradicate these gaps. But communities can advocate for progressive and fairer tax systems, support entrepreneurship especially in trade focused sectors, and invest in their education, particularly at higher tertiary levels and in areas with skills and labour shortages.
"One of the most important determinants of wealth inequality are the intergenerational transfer of wealth as accumulated wealth, such as property, flows from one generation to the next."
Tunde Wey is a Nigerian social practice artist focused on using food, finance, and investment to address economic disparities. Photo: Supplied
Global kōrero on tiered ticketing
Chef Tunde Wey, who conducted the social experiment 'Saartj', said the public's response to alternative strategies, like tiered pricing to highlight racial or other disparities was often hypocritical.
"Claiming a reverse racism or discrimination is one such hypocrisy, as if the original and current discrimination - racial domination of indigenous / native / earlier people - is comparable to an isolated event wherein a relatively paltry surcharge is requested via tiered pricing," Wey said.
"There is no such thing as reverse discrimination and if there was, [Brown Town's tiered ticketing] is not an example.
"Tiered pricing does not confer the minority group coordinating this extraordinary event any true institutional power relative to the privileged majority."
However, Wey said the question of whether those strategies were effective in addressing inequities was a separate concern altogether.
"In my experience these strategies have limited to no success in creating systems change. But they are a formidable way to draw attention to the problem of racial hypocrisy, racial subordination and racial privilege."
Combining tiered pricing with education of the "ongoing racial system" was an effective way to expose racial exploitation, Wey said.
