Ticketmaster-Live Nation: A straight ticket?

Concertgoers likely won't get fooled again by ticket fees if Ticketmaster is allowed to merge with concert giant Live Nation.

Industry observers expect those annoying add-on charges to disappear. That's "the one positive of the merger," said Gary Bongiovanni, editor of the concert journal Pollstar.

Don't expect tickets to get any cheaper, however. That $75 ticket with $15 in extra charges may simply be priced at $90.

"The business will get its pound of flesh but with a more fan-friendly method," predicted longtime Minneapolis promoter Randy Levy. "I see this as a neutral situation for the concertgoer. Nothing changes the supply-and-demand [nature] of the business."

The $2.5 billion merger, announced Tuesday, put the spotlight on a rarity in today's economy: a bullish business. Concert revenues actually have risen as the rest of the music industry struggles against the tide of changing technology and illegal downloads. The average box office gross in North America was up 18 percent last year while average attendance jumped 6 percent, according to Billboard magazine. During the same period, sales of recorded music fell 15 percent.

While fans expressed fears about the deal, which would combine the world's leading ticket agency and the world's top concert promoter, industry experts are uncertain about the effect on consumers.

"Whether ticket prices go up or down is more reflective of the economy and the acts themselves," said Xcel Energy Center General Manager Jack Larson, who participated in a conference call with 45 arena managers this week. "Acts usually dictate what the ticket price is."

Azoff is known as an aggressive manager who maximizes profits for his acts. He broke the $100 ticket barrier in the mid-1990s with the Eagles. At the same time, it was Azoff who introduced a no-fee policy with the Eagles' tour last fall. While he's likely to broaden that policy -- a move that might mollify critics of the merger -- skeptics fear he'll push prices higher.

"Irving is king of the whole thing; he has a master plan," said Larson, who exchanges e-mails with the mighty manager several times a year.

In a conference call Wednesday, Azoff said: "The goal of this company is going to be to get more artists to work and fill more venues and fill more seats."

He says other promoters would be given a fair opportunity to compete: "We think that it will be a more level playing field, and there's no real barrier of entry for anybody to expand their promotion areas."

Fans, Congress object

"That makes it frustrating, because I don't know how much is going to the artist. The higher price is justifiable, say, if more [money] is going to the Fine Line [Music Cafe] to make it a better place to listen to music. Ticketmaster wants to make their tarnished image better. I can't believe they charge $2.50 or whatever to print your ticket at home but it's free if they mail the tickets to you."

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., have urged the Justice Department to reject the merger.

Ticketmaster's practices caught their attention this month when fans trying to buy Bruce Springsteen tickets online instead were directed to the company's affiliated ticket-scalping site, TicketsNow.

Springsteen himself raised objections to the merger in a posting on his website: "The one thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now would be Ticketmaster and Live Nation coming up with a single system, thereby returning us to a near-monopoly situation in music ticketing."

Of course, power over pricing ultimately sits with the artists: How many more millions do they want? How much first-class comfort do they need?

"We absolutely cannot afford to take that [738] plane because of the price of fuel and the price of renting the plane," singer Stevie Nicks said this week. "Everybody but the principals of the band are on a bus, and we are on a small plane."