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Ticket Prices: King's Ransom
Sunday, February 8 2004 |
Fans better start saving if they want to see their favorite acts in concert.
Earlier this month we asked you to contact us in regard of some research a journalist from Las Vegas was doing about ticket prices for Elton's upcoming "The Red Piano" shows at Ceasar's Palace. Following is the resulting article:
By MIKE WEATHERFORD - REVIEW-JOURNAL
For Las Vegan Robin Zimmerman, Elton John's multiyear commitment to Caesars Palace "feel(s) like I've been given the greatest gift on the planet."
"So far, I am going to all 18 that are currently on sale," she adds of the pop legend's concerts that begin Feb. 13 in Caesars' 4,000-seat Colosseum.
But Phil Friederichs, a fan in Germany, decided ticket prices ranging from $100 to $250 define "the moment when the last puzzle piece of rock 'n' roll is thrown in the trash.
"I could well afford it, but to me it's a clear sign that Elton wants to keep his fans out and play for a supposed Vegas elite."
Elitism is a charge that might be leveled more and more often at the Strip as the ticket prices for top shows continue to rise. Is the sky really the limit? Or can they push beyond the ozone layer? Las Vegas seems bound and determined to find out.
Consider these:
- Luciano Pavarotti, Feb. 28 at Caesars Palace: Tickets range from $125 to $800.
- Rod Stewart, March 20 at the Hard Rock Hotel: Tickets range from $303 to $753.
- Sting, Feb. 15 at the Hard Rock Hotel: Tickets range from $155 to $505.
(Those who investigate the seating charts will find the most expensive tickets aren't limited to the first couple of rows.)
Add these one-time concerts to the top tier of ongoing shows that already have crossed the $100 barrier. Cirque du Soleil's "O" at Bellagio has a top ticket price of $150, and in March will change its seating configuration so that more seats go for the top price.
The increasing price of entertainment makes it fair to ask if Las Vegas is on its way to losing its image as Middle America's playground and is starting to become more of a rich person's folly.
"How do you sell Vegas when there's something like this going on? It's scary," says one tourism official who asked not to be named who deals in marketing Las Vegas' image. "We're about promoting the city and we don't want to run people away."
Die-hard Elton John fan Joanne Ohanesian happens to work for the Palm Springs Desert Resorts Convention and Visitors Authority in Rancho Mirage, Calif.
As a fan, she considers her April 4 ticket for John "a one-time splurge" funded by her income tax return. "I think it is a little out of line considering the number of shows he's got," she says of the singer's commitment to at least 75 concerts over three years.
But as one who also sees Las Vegas from the perspective of the tourism industry, she predicts the strategy will work. "I think they have enough of an international market (of customers for whom) money isn't an object."
Within U.S. shores, "people have options now when it comes to a gaming experience," notes Hard Rock Hotel President Kevin Kelley. With the explosion of tribal casinos in California and Arizona, "if we're pricing a lot of people out of the market, that's a very bad thing."
Then he laughs, admitting that sounds strange coming from the host of the Stewart and Sting concerts. But, Kelley also contends, "it's hard to look at one show and say we're gouging." For the past 76 shows at the Hard Rock, he says, the average ticket price is closer to $60.
"Just as casino resorts cater to different clientele, why shouldn't the entertainment offerings cater to a wide market as well?" agrees Michael Coldwell, spokesman for Caesars Entertainment. The high-dollar acts play the Colosseum, but sister-property Paris Las Vegas had outdoor poolside concerts by such acts as Uncle Kracker and Aimee Mann for $25 to $45 last summer.
Both Caesars and Hard Rock focus their publicity efforts on the "quality of the experience," as Kelley puts it, of seeing the big acts in a venue smaller than a sports arena. "It's a completely and totally unique experience," Kelley says of seeing arena stars in the 1,500-capacity venue the Joint. "That's why we compete against the (MGM) Grand Garden."
The issue of competition from tribal casinos could be flipped to use as an argument for why Las Vegas "has to rely less on gaming as its key product," Coldwell says. "Las Vegas needs to differentiate and take that next evolutionary step."
Some of the trend in pricing is unique to Las Vegas, while some of it reflects larger changes in the music industry.
Big shows mean big prices
As they used to say of prostitution, Las Vegas concerts have become a victimless crime. One person may decide a certain ticket is over the line, but another will snap it up as an ultimate expression of devotion to a performer.
"If you're a real Elton John fan, you will be in Las Vegas on Feb. 13," writes James Turano, a Chicago superfan who has been featured on VH-1.
"It is supply and demand," says Coldwell of Caesars. "When you look at the scarcity of Elton John tickets, it tells us there is a market out there."
Concert prices nationwide have escalated in recent years. Music downloading weakened CD sales, making tours more critical to performers. At the same time, promoters realized concert tickets had been undervalued since the industry's infancy in the early 1970s, when concert tours were more a vehicle to promote record sales.
The cost of ongoing shows such as "O" and "Mamma Mia!" ($71.50-$93.50) is more in tune with the rise of Broadway theater prices. In November, the New York Daily News reported top-priced Broadway tickets went up 54 percent in the past 10 years, from $65 to $100, and the cheapest ticket doubled, from $30 to $60.
The same comparison in Las Vegas isn't applicable at the cheaper end, because distinctions such as Broadway and off-Broadway aren't so uniform. But the highest ticket has gone from $72.85 for Siegfried & Roy -- by a long mile more expensive than other shows of the day -- during this week in 1994, to Celine Dion's $225.
But it doesn't stop with the ticket's face value. It's no longer street-corner scalpers, but ticket vendors advertising in the open and running sophisticated Web sites, who spur promoters to raise the official price.
Nevada Ticket Services, the largest of local agencies, asked as much as $450 for tonight's Dion show, and as much as $250 for tonight's performance of "O" on its Web site, www.lasvegastickets.com.
Last year, one of the Dion show producers, John Meglen, argued: "Why should a scalper who takes no risk make all that money? Why shouldn't Celine make that money? Why shouldn't the people putting up the money make that money?"
Clark County code makes ticket scalping a misdemeanor, and allows private enforcement by the operator or manager of the venue, and the business license issued to Nevada Ticket Services and other companies stipulates that they abide by the code.
For Nevada Ticket Services, the fine line of distinction is in separating the face value of the ticket from a courier or service fee reflecting "the costs involved in obtaining quality seating."
Under "Explanation of Charges," the Web site explains the face value of the tickets is charged by the company, while the fees are charged by a separate entity,TCS (Ticket Courier Service) Express Inc.
But even street scalping is hardly secretive.
"If you go to any event in the community, you will find people selling tickets," says Mark Tratos, an attorney who specializes in entertainment issues. "It seems part and parcel with the notion that you can buy anything in Las Vegas."
Someone is willing to pay
Las Vegas is the rare market with two arenas on the Strip (Mandalay Bay and MGM Grand), two more within a 3 1/2-mile radius (The Orleans Arena and Thomas & Mack Center) and two 4,000-plus-seat theaters (Caesars Palace and Aladdin).
For the stars' agents and managers, it's simple: If Bette Midler wants to play a sports arena in Reno, there is but one choice: Lawler Events Center, where tickets for her Feb. 20 concert are $55 to $155.
In Las Vegas, there are four arenas, and still more choices if the Aladdin, Caesars or Hard Rock Hotel want in the game: "The acts don't care (where they play). Their price is the same. We're going to step up to the plate and we're going to buy them," the Hard Rock's Kelley says.
Thus, tickets for Midler's Feb. 14 concert at the MGM Grand Garden are $75 to $250.
"It just depends on how greedy you want to be," says one casino official who is involved in concert decisions who asked not to be named. "Everyone sees this going on, so they want what everyone else gets: `Celine gets $225 so I should get $225.' "
Stewart's high expectations for Las Vegas are said to stem from a lucrative deal he scored at the Rio to perform a 1999 New Year's Eve millennium concert. Having turned the seven-figure corner, why would he agree to another Las Vegas concert for his old $300,000 guarantee?
"It's a major concern to us," says Glenn Medas, vice president of entertainment for Mandalay Resort Group, which has more often than not let the high-dollar shows go to the Colosseum or MGM.
"We try not to get into bidding wars. If it gets too crazy, we usually bow out gracefully," Medas says. "The ones who end up losing are the people who end up paying for the tickets."
It's all about image
Concerts and big shows do create ancillary spending on-property: Caesars Palace does not share in Dion's ticket revenue, but realizes at least an extra $150,000 every night she performs, the company has noted in previous earnings reports.
The rest of it comes down to image and what the high rollers leave behind in the casino. The first is hard to pin down in value, the second is closely guarded information.
To some degree, at least, event concerts have become analogous to a heavyweight fight: a debatable number of tickets are actually sold to the public; a considerable number are saved for high rollers, who then feel beholden to show their gratitude at the tables.
But if that's true, then why sell any tickets if the prices breed resentment? Why not keep the event off the radar screen, the way many conventions and corporate events do when they hire big names for private concerts?
As with the individual fans, it's about the casino's bragging rights.
Concerts such as Sting and Stewart are part of "an important marketing effort," the Hard Rock's Kelley says. "To break even with Rod, we'd have to charge double."
Publicity from TV shows such as "Access Hollywood" motivates the company to commit to losses that can't be justified as a players' event, he says. "We've shrunk down our casino blocks (of Stewart tickets)," he says. "It's going to take a very high-profile customer to qualify. ... We hope to have a good night (at the tables), but you can't go to the bank thinking the event will pay for itself."
Caesars' high-dollar concerts also might be seen as an aggressive push to re-establish a brand once synonymous with entertainment, but one that lost ground when the casino closed its original showroom in 2000.
"I think Caesars is in a re-branding mode," says Mandalay Bay's Medas, while Mandalay's image "doesn't rely solely on big-name entertainment."
Time will determine whether high-dollar entertainment eventually tarnishes Las Vegas' image or makes it all the sexier. The buyer can only beware, or at least settle into that triple-digit seat knowing that he may have paid a king's ransom, but no one held a gun to his head.
"The Red Piano" - One week to go
Thursday, February 5 2004 at 06:46:30
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