The Guardian announced yesterday that they are holding a weekend of events at Kings Place in March. From the press release, they’ve announced a number of different sessions and speakers, including Charlie Brooker, David Miliband and even Araucaria – the guy who sets the (incredibly cryptic) Guardian crossword.

In a piece about the weekend, Alan Rusbridger writes: “We hope that many of you will want to come and meet some of your favourite Guardian faces, learn about the path the paper is on and add your voice to how we shape our future.”

And to be honest, that sounds pretty good to me. I love newspapers and a chance to hear firsthand exactly what went on behind the scenes on some of the biggest stories such as the phone hacking scandal, the riots, and Wikileaks would be amazing. And also, the opportunity to see things like Laura Barton interviewing Marcus Mumford  (of Mumford & Sons) live infront of an audience sounds pretty cool to me. And not just because I love Mumford – I think it’d be good to see someone’s interview technique that you tend to only see written pieces from. (Ok, maybe the fact it’s Mumford & Sons is more of the attraction here). But I do honestly think it will be a really interesting weekend and an opportunity to learn a lot.

But then you look at the price for the weekend (£40 for Saturday, £30 for Sunday or £60 for the whole weekend). And suddenly it’s less appealing. And perhaps the reasons behind the ‘festival’ become more apparent.

It’s no secret that newspapers are losing money. They have been for ages. And I guess a lot of papers are now getting to a stage where they need to consider other ways of making money. And yes, an event does sound like a good idea. And it’s the kind of thing that I think a lot of people would be interested in (or maybe I’m just being a news geek). But I think £60 for the weekend may be pricing a lot of people out.

This was pretty evident from our replies on Twitter when we mentioned it earlier in the week. A number of people said they’d probably be interested (we’re all news geeks apparently!) but that £40 was a lot of money to the poor wannabe hack and if there was £40 spare, it could probably be better spent elsewhere.

So, what do you think? Will you be signing up for a ticket? Or do you think it’s a waste of time? As ever, let us know in the comments or tweet us @wannabehacks.