Word of mouth and feedback loops

The courtyard of the Pleasance at the Ediinburgh fringe is a great place to observe the impact of feedback loops in shaping consumer preferences.

Bar the household names or comics with a cult following, most fringe venues and performers are perpetually desperate for ‘bums on seats’ and will find any legal way to persuade people to come.

Countless fliers are thrust into the hands of fringe-goers as they wander around or emerge from a performance into the daylight.

But 99.9% of these people are wasting their time. Regulars at the fringe -  and believe me there are thousands who make an annual pilgrimmage to the festival - know that the best guides to what is worth seeing can be found not from another glossy flier - but simply by asking the people around you in the queue.

It boils down to word of mouth in casual and fleeting conversations as we wait patiently to see another show - what is hot and what is not - and these dscussions can make or break a fringe show over the course of the three weeks.

The second most important influence is the show review - but here seasoned veterans of the fringe know full well that many of the reviews have been written by the mates of those performing or by critics with an axe to grind. And anyway, by the time a 5-star show has been reviewed in the Herald, the Scotsman or Three Weeks- the show is probably already sold-out.

No ... the best way to find out what to see is simple - start a conversation. Standard economics tends to assume that our preferences are independent of each other - the Edinburgh fringe is a different animal.

Competitiveness [8 Feb 2012]
Teaching vacancy - Economics & Business Studies, Reed’s School - Cobham, Surrey [19 Jan 2012]
Revision Presentation: Economics Evaluation Skills [10 Jan 2012]
Exam Advice: 10 Ideas for a Better Economics Paper [10 Jan 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Factors Driving Business Investment [10 Jan 2012]
Unit 4 Macro: Natural Disasters and their Economic Impact [7 Jan 2012]
AS and A2 Economics - 10 Ways to Improve Evaluation [4 Jan 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Prezi on the Economics of Negative Externalities [2 Jan 2012]
Exam Technique for Economics - Weesteps to Evaluation [2 Jan 2012]
Resources on Keynes and Hayek [27 Dec 2011]
Introduction to Neuroeconomics - Fusing Psychology with Economics [16 Dec 2011]
Rory Sutherland at Zeitgeist [1 Dec 2011]
Behavioural Economics: Herd Behaviour [28 Nov 2011]
Stephen King - Great Article on Macroeconomics [22 Nov 2011]
Beyond the Bike - The Value of Money [19 Nov 2011]
LSE Lecture: Daniel Kahneman - Thinking Fast and Slow [15 Nov 2011]
LSE lecture: Darwin economy [13 Nov 2011]
Economics Resources - Week Ended 6 November 2011 [6 Nov 2011]
Is happiness the right measure of social progress? [20 Oct 2011]
Why Is Macroeconomics Such A Mess? [11 Oct 2011]
Fat tax: Denmark [5 Oct 2011]
Starter Video: The Slums of Manilla [11 Sep 2011]
50% tax rates - Chuck it George [7 Sep 2011]
NHS spending good, private provision bad? [5 Sep 2011]
Mixing with the Nobel Economists [4 Sep 2011]
Toilet rolls, soap and climate change [1 Sep 2011]
John Kay on the future of Economics [26 Aug 2011]
Unit 4 Macro: GDP per person since the credit crunch [19 Aug 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: The Price of Football [2 Aug 2011]
7 Reasons why Teachers should Blog [7 Jul 2011]
Shaping the Future - Blanchflower on the UK Economy [7 Jun 2011]
Poor Economics - Esther Duflo at the LSE [3 Jun 2011]
AS Macro: Preparing for Unit 2 (May 2011) [25 May 2011]
AS Macro Key Term: Supply-Side Policies [25 May 2011]
AQA A2 Economics - European Context [23 May 2011]
Revision notes on unemployment [22 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Competition and Efficiency [19 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Innovation and Economic Policies [18 May 2011]
AS economics: Using the cost-benefit principle [18 May 2011]
UK Economy Update: What Mervyn Said [11 May 2011]
Review of “Adapt” by Tim Harford [9 May 2011]
Dominos Pizza turns to Behavioural Economics [5 May 2011]
AS Micro: Rising Global Food Prices [2 May 2011]
Video Clips on the Chinese Economy [1 May 2011]
AS and A2 Macro Revision: Keynesian Economics [28 Apr 2011]
Economics Recommended Reading - Summer 2011 [26 Apr 2011]
AS and A2 Macro Revision: The China Effect [26 Apr 2011]
A2 Macro: Twin Deficits [22 Apr 2011]
AS Micro Revision: Public and Private Goods [21 Apr 2011]
Fantastic short piece on nudges and shoves! [19 Apr 2011]
UK Economy at a Glance April 2011 [17 Apr 2011]
Key AS Micro Terms: Economic Efficiency [16 Apr 2011]
Key AS Micro Terms: Information Economics [15 Apr 2011]
Online Economics Revision Help [13 Apr 2011]
Tracking the effects of the recession on GDP [5 Apr 2011]
AS Macro Revision - Key Term Revision Bank [1 Apr 2011]
AS Micro Revision - Key Term Revision Bank [1 Apr 2011]
Progress towards low carbon economic growth [18 Mar 2011]
Google Docs - Macroeconomic Performance [1 Mar 2011]
Intense focus on cutting emissions is dumb argues Lomborg [16 Feb 2011]
Mo Tanweer on Global Currency Wars [10 Feb 2011]
5 Fresh Links: Videos to attract FDI [4 Feb 2011]
EU Economics: Hopes for a low carbon future in Europe [3 Feb 2011]
How Much Do I Earn? [1 Feb 2011]
Variations in Regional Economic Growth [25 Jan 2011]
Economics at the Movies - Margin Call [23 Jan 2011]
Revision Economics Q&As for the June 2011 exams [6 Jan 2011]
Behavioural Economics - Public Policy and Behavioural Change [30 Dec 2010]
Keynes spotted in London [29 Dec 2010]
UK Economy in Focus [22 Dec 2010]
Economics Made Fun [12 Dec 2010]
A Christmas Reading List in Economics for 2010 [9 Dec 2010]
AS Micro Revision - Market Forces and Resource Allocation [2 Dec 2010]
A selection of economics revision presentations [1 Dec 2010]
Changes to AQA Economics Spec and other Animals [28 Nov 2010]
Does Facebook have a monopoly over the internet? [21 Nov 2010]
What You Need to Know About Economics [18 Nov 2010]
Cutting up cotton subsidies? [15 Nov 2010]
The Rise and Rise of Internet Monopolists [14 Nov 2010]
Experimenting with Google Docs - the Rise of a Digital Conglomerate [8 Nov 2010]
Revision Presentation on Causes and Effects of Inflation [4 Nov 2010]
Extend and Enrich with EconoMax [29 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - Our Daily Bread [28 Oct 2010]
The Acid Burns Through - Requiem for Neo Liberalism [28 Oct 2010]
The Upside of Irrationality - Dan Ariely at the LSE [27 Oct 2010]
Krugman attacks the coalition’s fiscal policies [22 Oct 2010]
Cows with IP addresses and social networks as modes of production [22 Oct 2010]
Economics Nobel Prize 2010 [11 Oct 2010]
Lifting the cap on tuition fees - a question of price elasticity? [10 Oct 2010]
Two super transport economics resources [8 Oct 2010]
Let’s hear it for the girls! [7 Oct 2010]
Using Wordle in AS Macro Teaching [3 Oct 2010]
Two New Films on the Financial Crisis [2 Oct 2010]
Update on Millenium Development Goals progress [30 Sep 2010]
Whisky galore - investment in the Scottish economy [29 Sep 2010]
Who will win the 2010 Nobel Prize for Economics? [22 Sep 2010]
The Rise of Micro Companies [21 Sep 2010]
The Social Cost of Dementia [21 Sep 2010]
Pay - What Are You Worth? [14 Sep 2010]
Launch of the Ricardian [13 Sep 2010]

ECONOMICS TEACHER RESOURCE NEWSLETTER

Join over 6,000 other Economics Teachers in the UK and around the world who receive the tutor2u regular Economics Resource Email Newsletter. Get special offers, first news of latest resources, teaching ideas, conferences and workshops + loads of great ideas for teaching economics from our blog authors.