Enjoying Rio de Janeiro at Half-Price!

 

This title may sound surreal in a city where an ice cream cone costs about $ 6.00 (R$ 14 at the current exchange rate) and a caipirinha, the national drink, $10[1]. For residents and tourists alike, Rio prices are over the top. People complain because the cost of living has far exceeded the 6% annual inflation. They also make jokes about it and the real, the Brazilian currency, has been fittingly renamed the surreal with Salvatore Dali portrait printed on the mock notes.

                          

This being said, some Cariocas, as the Rio residents are known, can still enjoy a perk undreamed of in many other parts of the world. This perk is called meia, short for meia entrada, or half-priced admission. In Rio, nearly 70% of the population pays half-price for admission to theatres, concerts, shows, museums, sport events, stadiums, landmarks like Sugar Loaf and Corcovado, and so forth. The half-price benefit is a state-wide law (lei da meia) dating from 1930. Brazilians take this half-price benefit very seriously, too seriously for the entertainment industry which regularly lobbies the government to have the law curbed or repealed. To compensate for lost income, organizers double admission prices. As a result, the 30% “demographic middle” has to pay outrageous prices for popular concerts. Rock bands and pop stars do not get out of bed for less than a million dollars a show. The full price admission can easily reach $ 400, a record price even by BRICS’s standard[2].

Who are the lucky beneficiaries? First and foremost, students, rich and poor. For decades students have abused the system. It is estimated that there are twice as many student cards out there than genuine students! This number exasperates the entertainment distributors. Students are avid consumers of rock concerts which are shockingly expensive to organize.

The second group of beneficiaries is made of senior citizens and disable people who are habitually law abiding. A reason might be that Brazilian ID cards are not easily forged. For seniors, the meia is one perk among many others. After 65, senior citizens travel free in public transports like buses and subways. They can also visit state-run museums for free. Supermarkets, banks, movie theaters, and so forth provide special counters for seniors.

Unable to compete with the fast moving photocopying and printing technology, the government has decided to limit to 40% the number of admissions for students to any show. The new regulation has not yet been implemented but it will raise all sorts of disputes. Seniors will not be affected by this decision, true they are not great fans of rock festivals.

During the organization of the 2014 Football World Cup in Brazil, the meia policy has led to a tug of war between the government and FIFA, the international football association. FIFA did not win on this front: half-price tickets will be available but only in the cheapest seating category. In addition to those mentioned above, two extra groups will benefit from the half price policy: people receiving low-income grants (Bolsa familia) and obese fans. The later will get extra pampering and enjoy extra-wide seats. This is the Brazilian way to fight obesity.

                    

             Extra-wide seat at half-price: Two seats for 1/4 of the price!

According to 2011 statistics, half of the Brazilian population is overweight and 16% is obese. If this trend continues it seems that 100% of the audience to any entertainment, including games, movies, theaters or concerts will be entitled to meia entrada!

The population of Rio is aging fast, the city will soon become the geriatric capital of Brazil. Copacabana is already the suburb with the oldest population in the whole country. As a result, standing in a senior line is rarely a good idea. The “demographic middle” line goes much faster.

Thanks to these perks, Rio seniors spend little time at home watching telenovelas. They are enthusiastic movie-goers. Afternoon shows attract mostly seniors; forged student-card holders go to night performance to avoid detection. This blogger has not researched the cultural habit of obese people, but one may suspect that they watch plenty of telenovelas.

In a country of surreal prices, the meia entrada is a bit of an illusion but it nonetheless stimulates people to seek entertainment. Last week, four senior ladies went about town and had a drink in a café in the hip Dias Ferreira Street in Leblon. In Rio, the chic suburbs of Leblon and Ipanema are the epicenters of price surreality! One lady ordered a $ 10 caipirinha, the standard price in Leblon. The other three requested red wine by the glass. The waiter poured so little of the liquid in the glass (at $12 a shot) that they complained. With aplomb, he rebutted them by saying this was the way wine was served in the best cafes of the world. He had picked the wrong customers, one was German, the second from Belgium, the third French and the forth a well-traveled Brazilian. The absurdity of the situation escaped him too. Finally the ladies settled for the cheapest (drinkable) Argentine wine bottle at a thrifty $50.

                       

The gregarious Cariocas are becoming “un-gregarious”, changing their ways. Now at the end of a lunch or dinner in a restaurant, the bill is no longer equally divided, many patrons “go Dutch” paying one’s own expenses. The locals complain about surreal prices and rising inflation but they still have meia to cheer themselves. Very few Cariocas will trade Rio for any other city by the sea.

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[1] Taxes hit hard too: 83% on cachaça (the local rum) and another 76% on the caipirinha. Beer can: 55.6%, soft drinks 46.47%.

[2] An economic grouping of emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa and China.