The High and Low of Amnesty Ticket Prices

While ticket brokers are asking as much as $350 for what they’re calling “choice seats” at tonight’s Amnesty International concert at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, more than 8,000 tickets were still available Tuesday afternoon at face value of $35, plus a $3 or $4 service charge.

Brian Murphy, president of Avalon Attractions, which is promoting the local date on the worldwide tour, said the 7 p.m. concert--featuring Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman and Youssou N’Dour--will be held rain or shine. Seating capacity for the show is 65,000.

The face-value seats are available through Ticketron and Ticketmaster locations in Southern California. Some of those seats, according to a check by The Times, are located as close as the mid-point on the Coliseum floor.

In a separate informal survey of three local ticket brokers who specialize in purchasing the face-value tickets and then reselling them at a higher figure, The Times found one broker--Good Time Tickets in Hollywood--asking $350 each for seats in the first 10 rows. Another company, Front Row Center in West Los Angeles, was offering tickets in the 45th row on the floor for $80.

Tonight’s concert is one of three U.S. stops for the “Human Rights Now!” tour, which is designed to salute the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a statement adopted by the United Nations that declares certain universal freedoms and rights.

The other U.S. dates on the six-week, five-continent tour were Monday in Philadelphia and this coming Friday in Oakland. The tour, underwritten by the Reebok Foundation, began Sept. 2 in London and is scheduled to end Oct. 15 in Buenos Aires. Other upcoming stops include Tokyo, New Delhi and Harare, Zimbabwe. Amnesty officials are also hoping to add Moscow to the itinerary.

Today’s concert was originally scheduled to begin at 2 p.m., but was changed following complaints that the earlier starting time conflicted with the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, which concludes at sundown today.

Murphy said N’Dour, a singer from Senegal, will open the six-hour concert, followed at approximately 8 p.m. by Chapman, 9 p.m. by Gabriel, 10:30 by Sting and midnight by Springsteen.

Because U2, the Irish band that headlined a 1986 Amnesty tour, has been working on its upcoming album and film in Los Angeles, there has been widespread speculation that the band will make a surprise appearance on tonight’s show, but Paul Wasserman, the band’s publicist, was unable Tuesday to confirm those reports.