Because of fees, concert ticket prices are just the start

Greetings, concertgoers, and welcome to today’s edition of “Guess the Ticket Price.”

For those who have not played before, it works like this: We put the base price of a concert on the screen, then contestants guess how much the ticket will cost after taxes and fees.

Ready? First up is Coldplay, May 20 at the Verizon Wireless Virginia Beach Amphitheater . Let’s pretend we’re not rich – that’s the easy part, huh? – and we don’t want to pay $97.50 to be up front. So, what’s the final cost for a $35 lawn seat?

Forty-five dollars?

Oops, so sorry ma’am, you’ll have to watch the clips on YouTube.

Fifty-five? Well, let’s put the breakdown up on the board: $35 for the ticket, $6 (per ticket) for parking, $3.50 for a ticket tax – and after that it gets a little squishy.

If you buy online or over the phone, Live Nation – the amphitheater operator and concert promoter – charges a ticket fee of $13.85. That brings your cost to $58.35. If you want to get your ticket at Blockbuster, add $2.50 more and your total’s up to $60.85.

You can avoid those charges by driving to the box office, but they’ll still get you with a $5 box office fee, kind of like if your bank charged you for going inside the branch. Still, that’s the cheapest way to get the $35 ticket – $49.50.

Now, add-on ticket fees are nothing new – at the first-ever concert, there was probably a caveman charging his friends a “convenience fee” for saving them seats on a log. But with the country’s two largest concert businesses – Ticketmaster and Live Nation – having proposed a merger, Congress and everybody else might be scrutinizing the charges again.

Critics of Ticketmaster have latched on to the sale of Bruce Springsteen tickets in February, when buyers first got an error message on their computer screens, then saw an ad for TicketsNow offering seats for hundreds of dollars more than face value. TicketsNow, it turns out, is a reseller owned by Ticketmaster.

“That’s an example of how their greed is catching up to them,” said Ma’rie Hodges, spokeswoman for , Seven Venues, which includes Scope Arena, Chrysler Hall, Harrison Opera House and four other Norfolk buildings.

When Olivia Newton-John came to Norfolk last month, Hodges said, the city contacted Ticketmaster and instructed the company not to let any sales roll over into TicketsNow.

There’s almost no way to avoid paying at least a minimal fee or two – even if it’s just the 50-cent facility fee at Scope Arena – for any major event. But Hodges and almost everyone else in the business say that if you want to spend as little on fees as possible, drive to the box office in person. And bring cash for Seven Venues, because paying with a credit card prompts a fee.

But before taking up pitchforks and storming the Ticketmaster and Live Nation offices, listen to what the ticket seller does for nTelos Wireless Pavilion in Portsmouth. Ken MacDonald is president of IMG, which is like a “mini-mini-mini Live Nation” that runs the venue.

When IMG chose a ticketing company, it looked at the sprawl of Hampton Roads and took into account that Hampton Roads is one of the largest markets in the country for “cash ticket-buyers.” IMG wanted lots of outlets, spread all over the region, where people could buy tickets in person.

IMG preferred quality ticket stock – the actual paper that tickets are printed on – and a company that could provide data as to where buyers live, and where and when they purchase tickets. A Ticketmaster ticket, MacDonald said, is tough to counterfeit: If you hold a lighter to it, it burns a unique way; if you photocopy it, the fake won’t have the same markings as the original.

Plus, he said, some ticket companies want the venue to buy the machines and software, whereas Ticket­master provides them.

But again, a face-value ticket for Celtic Woman on June 7 at nTelos goes for $27. On top of that, there’s a $6.65 “convenience fee” that goes to Ticketmaster, a $4 facility fee ($3 for the venue, $1 for parking) and a $3.50 processing charge.

John Vlautin, spokesman for Live Nation in Los Angeles, points out that the concert producer and newly minted ticketing agency doesn’t just sit back and pocket those fees. Live Nation employs about 365 people – box office staff, stagehands, food service, security – to put on the typical show at the Virginia Beach amphitheater, Vlautin said.

“The fees are just an extension of the ticket price. Fans would rather just see a $60 ticket, but the push-pull here is the artist doesn’t want to be seen as charging $60.”

Lon Wagner, (757) 446-2341, lon.wagner@pilotonline.com