PAYING FOR POP

If you’re planning to see only one concert this summer and two of your favorite acts--say, Blues Traveler and Crosby, Stills & Nash--are playing similar-sized venues, how do you choose between them?

Try ticket price.

It will cost you $116 (plus service charges) for a pair of prime seats to see Crosby, Stills & Nash at the 6,251-seat Universal Amphitheatre on Sept. 28, but only $45.50 for two of the best seats to see Blues Traveler at the 6,165-seat Greek Theatre on Aug. 27.

Such price discrepancies are common on the concert trail, where even seats in the same venue can vary from act to act by as much as 300%.

Ever wonder why?

Concert promoters, agents and managers say that numerous factors come into play when establishing ticket prices--the cost of renting the venue, travel, hotel accommodations, insurance, advertising, security, stagehands, etc.

But the bottom line is that venues charge what artists want them to charge.

The higher the guarantee demanded by the artist, the higher the ticket price promoters must ask to make ends meet.

“Ultimately, ticket prices reflect the amount of money the artist is going to [charge] the promoter,” says Gary Bongiovanni, editor in chief of Pollstar, a trade publication that tracks the concert industry. “Tickets cost $18 for Garth Brooks because Garth Brooks wants them to cost $18, and they cost $45 or whatever for Reba McEntire because that’s what she wants them to cost.”

At the Universal Amphitheatre, country music fans will shell out $40.50 per ticket for the best seats to see Willie Nelson on Aug. 9, but it will cost them $65 per ticket to sit in the same seats to see Wynonna next March.

At the Greek, front-row seats for the Indigo Girls’ performances last week went for $29.75 each, but the same prized location will cost $62.75 each for Santana’s shows Sept. 19-21.

A Southland promoter says it really is a simple equation.

“Figure that most of the venue’s costs are pretty constant,” says the promoter, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “The only thing that isn’t constant is who’s playing on the stage. Need I say more?”

According to insiders, it costs mid-size venues such as the Greek Theatre and Universal Amphitheatre about $60,000, or about $10 per seat, to stage a concert. Built into the cost are expenses such as advertising, backstage catering, basic sound and lighting, insurance, technicians, security, ushers, ticket-takers, administration, utilities and maintenance.

The remainder of the ticket revenue--aside from service charges--generally goes to the artist, whose expenses include the cost of the production, travel, support crew, backing musicians, trucks to haul equipment, hotel accommodations, meals and various agent and management fees.

The artists’ expenses can vary greatly, of course, depending on a variety of factors. The Gipsy Kings’ traveling party this summer, for instance, numbers 32 people, including 14 band members, while Blues Traveler’s entourage includes only 12, the four band members among them.

Typically, newer acts and artists that draw a younger audience--from Pearl Jam to Beck--tend to keep prices down to build fan loyalty while older, more established acts such as Santana or the Gipsy Kings will charge full market value, or close to it.

An agent for several major acts says he sits down with artists to discuss ticket prices before launching a tour.

“We take into consideration the kind of money we think the act ought to make based on its drawing power,” said the agent who asked not to be identified.

“First, we decide how many tickets the act can sell and then we talk about what we think is the appropriate ticket price on two levels:

“No. 1 is to generate as much income for the artist as possible by pricing the tickets at the right price so that they sell. And No. 2 is, how does it appear to the fans, one ticket price versus another ticket price, and what kind of message do you want to send to your fans based on your ticket prices?”

The most dramatic case of matching supply and demand were Barbra Streisand’s concerts in the summer of 1994. The singer, who charged $1,000 for the best seats at her 1993 New Year’s Eve performance in Las Vegas, charged a top price of $350 for her summer tour, including six shows at the Pond of Anaheim, where last spring the same seats for two No Doubt shows went for $18.

In the rock world, the Eagles surprised many by charging more than $100 for the up-front seats at some shows on their 1994-95 “Hell Freezes Over” tour, but again the demand was there.

Ticket brokers, of course, have long shown that the best tickets for many high-profile shows are actually underpriced in terms of what consumers will willingly pay. (Brokers, for instance, reportedly got $4,000 for the best seats at Streisand’s Las Vegas show.)

The question was whether artists, fearful of alienating their fans, would actually try to get that price.

The Eagles, for one, ran into scant resistance, selling out all but a few of their reunion shows.

“But you’ve got to be careful about what you charge in relationship to the image of the band,” says a prominent agent. “From what I gather, the soft attendance on the U2 tour relates in part to the ticket price.” (Tickets for U2’s “PopMart” stadium tour are priced at $52.50 and $37.50.)

“Not that those fans don’t have the money, but I think a number of the fans are offended by the price because of what the band stood for.”

Blues Traveler, whose tickets are the cheapest of the season at the Greek Theatre this year, keeps prices down to keep the fans coming back each summer.

“Our established fans--people we’ve already won over--would probably pay more,” says Dave Frey, the group’s manager. “But people who may be sitting on the fence would probably be less inclined to pay $40 to see the band. And we want to keep building our audience for as long as we can.”

For veteran acts such as Crosby, Stills & Nash, it’s more a matter of being paid what they’re worth.

“We believe that Crosby, Stills & Nash deserves the guarantee that they command,” says the group’s manager, Gerry Tolman. “They’ve proven themselves year after year. Our research and our experience show us that we have an upper-demographic consumer who will happily pay $58, or more, to see them. . . .

“It’s all a matter of what the marketplace will bear.”