BEYONCE PERFORMANCE PAYCHECK: ONE NIGHT CONCERT, 24 MILLION DOLLARS

BY COLM SIMMONS

On January 21st, Beyoncé performed a one-night concert at the luxury hotel Atlantis the Royal in Dubai and was paid $24 million dollars; now what. The singer’s newest paycheck has been making waves with the increase in the discussion surrounding the wage gap and payment inequities. Is there an ethical way to make 24 million dollars in one night? With the cost of living on the rise, Americans are becoming more critical of the existence of millionaires and billionaires. When so many people are struggling with poverty and trying to survive on minimum wage the fabulous wealth of celebrities becomes that much more ridiculous. Can one person put in the work to become a billionaire without someone else being taken advantage of or underpaid?

Atlantis the Royal is a new luxury hotel that is owned by Kerzner International and starting February tenth will open for stay at around $4,000 per room per night. The resort took 14 years to make from conception to building and cost around 1.6 billion dollars in construction, it’s a whopping 43 stories, 795 rooms, 17 restaurants, 92 swimming pools, and about 937,500 square feet. While the Kerzner CEO, Sol Kerzner, has a net worth of 600 million dollars the luxury resort pays their employees that work serving food and beverage 41% less than average according to AmbitionBox. Atlantis the Royal’s sister resort hotel Atlantis the Palm was built at a time of economic crisis in Dubai. Now Dubai hopes that the Royal brings in tourism to help promote and fund the economy. It’s hard to see the benefit when guests pay large sums of money to stay at the resort but the employees aren’t paid in a way that reflects the hotel’s luxury.

Similarly and more recently concert tickets have had a large jump in price. Artists like Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and SZA have released tour announcements, and although fans are excited ticket prices are becoming a problem. Art takes time and work and an artist deserves to commercialize and profit from their craft, but when the art becomes inaccessible to the fans the real problem begins. Some venues have priced tickets for Beyonce at around 900-1000 dollars and after receiving 24 million for her Dubai performance the reason for the high price is unclear. Beyonce is the name and draws crowds wherever she goes. She’s a beyondtalented singer and performer and she put her all into her shows but does that warrant unattainable tickets and checks that would take more than a lifetime for most to achieve?

While Beyonce has worked hard to get where she is and the growth of her career is well documented it’s still hard to say that any one person deserves to be a billionaire, or in her case when combining her assets with Jay-Z her husband. When it comes to the workers at the hotel, background dancers and singers, and any other person involved with the performance who most likely made nowhere near 24 million dollars. The check has been cashed and Beyonce has now won the most Grammys of any artist ever which is amazing, but we as a society must remain vigilant about the growing gap between billionaires and those still receiving pay under the minimum wage..