Fans had plenty of choices when tickets for The Police went on sale. They could use the Best Buy presale, obtain them through fan clubs or battle with the public for the $50, $90, and $225 seats.

But if they wanted the best seats in the house (rows 2 through 5, center stage) they had to bid in a Ticketmaster auction - starting at $250 a ticket.

The final price of a second-row seat? A cool $660.

Seem high? Get used to it, says Sean Moriarty, president and CEO of Ticketmaster, who says auctions are the future if the concert industry wants to keep thriving.

Here's why: While the live music industry in North America sold $3.6 billion in tickets during 2006, the ticket-resale industry made a whopping $2.5 billion on top of that. According to Moriarty, only 6 percent of that resale market goes to promoters - the rest goes to ticket brokers and individuals.

"We've got the tools (to do auctions)," Moriarty said. "The only question I have is 'Do we have the will?' "

Despite the occasional throwback, Bob Seger recently priced every ticket in the house at $65 each, this is the ticket-buying future: Auctions and top-tier pricing designed to squeeze what the industry considers to be the true market value out of each ticket.

"Auctions are a reality for us as concert promoters," said Don Strasburg of AEG Live, one of Denver's two main promoters. "It's something we can't change even if we desired."

Evolve or die

Some estimates suggest more than half of tickets sold to hot events like The Police are bought by people never intending to go to the show. Others peg that number lower; Princeton University Professor Alan Krueger told Pollstar he thinks only 15 percent of all concert tickets (at most, $630 million worth) are resold.

Though reselling (or in fans' views, scalping) has been around a long time "this business didn't exist 10 years ago in any meaningful way," Moriarty said, referring to StubHub, eBay and the many other avenues for people to resell tickets to the highest bidder.

"I don't have all the answers, but (an auction) is a lot better than having all that money go outside the industry where it doesn't motivate an artist to get out there and play. It doesn't leave a fan with a good taste in his mouth."

In a recent speech to the largest gathering of promoters in the nation, Moriarty cited Tower Records, once the center of the music industry, which recently shuttered its chain.

"It's what happens when an industry fails to innovate at a time of great change," he said.

Moriarty said that while Ticketmaster didn't get there first, they must get into the auction game now.

"If you don't provide that choice . . . someone else will," Moriarty said. "Each and every fan should have a right to resell a ticket in a safe and secure way."

Greed or worse?

Some see this as much more corporate greed - one critic likened it to "strip mining" fans for money. But while Ticketmaster takes the heat, the artists still set the prices.

"Ticketmaster is typically the fall guy for that. The artist wants a certain amount of money, Ticketmaster has to sell the tickets. It's easier to blame the messenger than the people who sent the message," said Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar magazine.

But it's demand that sets the price, allowing resellers to charge hundreds of dollars over face value.

While Ticketmaster introduced auctions in 2003, only in the past year have larger artists participated, including Tool, Coldplay and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Fans might have noticed even newer options: "Buy from fans" and "Sell your tickets" tabs on each TM concert page.

Surprisingly, not all fans are complaining. "In the '70s you could see your favorite band for under $10 right through the end of the decade," said music fan Ken Langford of Golden in an e-mail.

"Even though scalpers were working then, it was not as big an issue, because the market could only bear so much, because the audience was largely broke to start with.

"Now, with the boomer demographic in their prime earning years, there is more cash on hand. Add to that the idea that our rock stars are dropping like flies, and I think the public realizes it is now or never."

However, he adds: "All of this sucks for the average Joe or Jane who wish to get a good ticket."

"This sounds like a more equitable solution than what is going on," said music fan Mike Donovan, who goes to a dozen high-end shows a year. "I would rather see Ticketmaster (and the artists) get the money than the scalpers, who add zero value."

Noted Langford: "this is another case where you cannot force the genie back into the bottle. I can't blame the artist for wanting a piece of the action, especially with the decline of actual album sales."

It doesn't mean all prices will go up. Money made from selling the front of the house at a premium can offset prices for the lesser seats. "The best seats will be more expensive but the cheap seats will be cheaper, in theory," Bongiovanni said.

"You have the ability to give people a break in the back half of the house," Moriarty said. "(Currently) we underprice the best stuff and keep the back of the house higher perhaps than it ought to be and it goes unsold. Everybody loses."

Artists could even use auctions to provide great seats to longtime fans, Moriarty said.

"An artist may say 'I want to sell half the best seats at market (value) and I want to take the other half and give them to my best fans. If I can get economic value out of the other half of the seats I'd like to be able to confer a benefit to my best fans who have been with me for the longest.' "

Auction ins and outs

• THE DIFFERENCE: On Web sites such as StubHub or eBay, if you are outbid, you don't get a ticket. In a Ticketmaster auction, if you're outbid, you're dropped to a lesser seat. HOW IT WORKS

• You bid $200 for a second-row ticket on TicketMaster.

• If you're outbid for all second-row tickets, your bid is bumped to the third row.

• As long as higher bids come in, you keep getting bumped back.

• Up your bid for better seats, or stick with whatever seats the $200 bid claims.

• After the auction closes, your credit card is charged.

Brownm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2674

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