Concert Biz Rebounds

The concert business has responded to last year's worst summer season ever with the highest ticket price in history: the Rolling Stones, for $453. But apart from the Stones and $250 top seats for Paul McCartney, most artists have learned the lessons of 2004, and ticket prices are generally more reasonable than in recent years. Green Day tickets top out at $45, System of a Down goes for $32 to $40, and the John Mellencamp-John Fogerty tour costs $23 to $78. Even the Stones sell some seats for $60.

"It feels better across the board to me," says Irving Azoff, manager of the Eagles, who are charging between $25 and $175 for their twenty-show West Coast tour.

The Stones, McCartney and the Eagles quickly sold out almost all of their early dates; U2 stand to gross $300 million -- more than three times as much as Prince or Madonna in 2004; and Motley Crue, Green Day and Mellencamp-Fogerty are selling well. Nine Inch Nails, Audioslave, Weezer and others have smartly picked midsize clubs and theaters they can pack.

After high prices kept fans away from amphitheaters in 2004, leading to $10 lawn seats and other desperate last-minute discounts, concert promoters and artist managers have pledged to overhaul the system this year and lure fans back into venues. Clear Channel Entertainment's top concert executive, Michael Rapino, announced plans earlier this year to drop lawn seats to $20, cut facility charges and allow fans to bring blankets -- and early evidence shows that the policy has been implemented in many, if not all, Clear Channel-run amphitheaters.

There's a wider gap between the expensive seats and the cheap seats this summer, so if you're willing to sit in the nosebleed section, you can, in most cases for less than $30 -- or, for megastar acts like the Stones and McCartney, for as low as $60 and $50, respectively. "It gives everybody a chance to see it," says System of a Down manager David Benveniste. "And the Stones still make their money."

Many major artists, including Lenny Kravitz, Audioslave, Weezer and even the Backstreet Boys, are playing smaller venues this year. "No matter what, fans want to see you in a smaller place," Kravitz says. "It feels like it's their living room, and that's what I always aim for."

The world's biggest promoters, Clear Channel, House of Blues Concerts and AEG Live, have pressured artists to lower their demands for huge upfront guaranteed payments. Top promoters have blamed these high guarantees for jacking up the ticket prices in recent years. Many artists are playing along, but some say it's simply their job to get as much money as possible in advance. "We all talk about it, but we all want the same guarantees," says Jonny Podell, an agent for Van Halen, the Allman Brothers Band and others. "It doesn't always work out like that, and we have to invest in our careers."

For the big promoters, the stakes are high this summer. The industry is paying close attention to Clear Channel's Rapino, who went public this year with his prescription to lower guarantees and drop facility fees. So far these changes have been moderately successful: Guarantees, sources say, have dropped ten percent from last summer, although official ticket prices and sales data have yet to come in. "Everybody feels the responsibility to keep the market robust," says the William Morris Agency's Marc Geiger. "It started pretty well this year. It hasn't hit a point yet where it feels like it's a disaster."