Stung! Speculators find little demand for pricey Police tickets

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Stung! Speculators find little demand for pricey Police tickets

The resale market has gone cold for the year's hottest rock tour, which comes tonight to a sold-out Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

By Jon Bream, Star Tribune

Last update: July 02, 2007 – 11:53 PM
It is the biggest, hottest and most expensive rock concert tour of the year.

But fans -- and brokers -- trying to sell extra tickets to tonight's sold-out Police reunion concert in St. Paul are getting stung.

"I've never seen so many tickets available," said Mike Nowakowski, co-owner of Ticket King, a Hudson, Wis.-based ticket seller, on Monday. "I've never seen it on the day before a show where you can buy tickets for pennies on the dollar."

Last week, Ticket King listed more than 350 people trying to sell 1,000 tickets to the Xcel Center concert.

On eBay, a $50 ticket was sold for 99 cents on Sunday; someone was asking as little as $26 for a $225 ticket, the top-priced seat, on Monday. (In Minnesota, it is illegal -- until the law is repealed Aug. 1 -- to sell a ticket above face value.)

The 17,000 tickets to the Xcel concert sold out quickly when they went on sale March 5. According to Ticketmaster, the Police is the most requested concert in the first six months of 2007, moving more than 900,000 tickets (totaling more than $102 million) in North America. It's common that buyers pick up a number of tickets for the resale market. In this case, the supply exceeded the demand.

Why?

The tour is overhyped, the tickets are overpriced and -- hey -- it's a holiday week and many people are out of town, according to secondary ticket sellers and fans.

"The Police were a good band," said ticket broker Bobby the Brain, who has been selling on the streets for 39 years and at one time worked at A&M Records with the Police. "But they weren't the Who or Paul McCartney. They did five albums and broke up quickly."

Bobby, who like all street brokers declined to give a surname, thinks there is limited built-up demand to see the Police because the trio's front man, Sting, has toured regularly since the group stopped performing at its commercial peak in 1984.

Others think $225 is a steep price for the Police compared with other blockbuster names such as Roger Waters ($99.50), Tool ($55), Prince ($131.21), Kenny Chesney ($68.75) and Tim McGraw/Faith Hill ($89.75).

"In this corporate world of entertainment, they price out the middle-class guys like me," said Monte Olmsted, 44, of Minneapolis, a corporate communications specialist for a financial institution. "I'm a big fan of the Police. But these tickets are so expensive."

Joe Stevenson, of Minneapolis, asked a friend to buy him a pair of tickets, but suffered sticker shock when he saw the bill for $500. He resold his seats for $300, taking a 40 percent loss. "Pearl Jam is my favorite band," he said. "I wouldn't pay $250 to see them; I'd probably pay $100 or $125."

The timing of the Police concert -- the night before July 4th -- is not the best, said Ticket King's Nowakowski.

"People in our business underestimate the effect of concerts in the summer in the Twin Cities, especially over a holiday," he said. "If people have to choose between a concert and a cabin, they choose a cabin or outdoor activities."

Naive speculators

Even rabid fans, such as Karen Whyte, of Rapid City, S.D., thought it would be easy to resell tickets.

Calling the Police "absolutely my favorite band," she bought two Xcel tickets via a Best Buy promotion before they went on sale through Ticketmaster. Trying to get even better seats, she bought two more from the Police's fan club, hoping to sell three of them on the Internet. When that strategy failed, she turned to her family. "My sister and niece are driving in from Kentucky and I'm gifting them $450 worth of tickets," said Whyte, who has invested $2,500 in Police tickets this summer (she "ate" $1,000 worth of VIP tickets to the Denver show last month). "I couldn't even get a $50 bid for a $225 seat on eBay or Craigslist. I'll try to sell it at my hotel. I knew it was a risk when I bought the tickets, and it's biting me."

There is a silver lining for Whyte. She won a Best Buy contest to attend the Police's pre-show sound check and meet the band members.

Some inexperienced speculators miscalculated.

"I screwed up," admitted Nate Sund, 31, of Maple Grove, who had only one offer of $50 for his $250 ticket on Craigslist. "I thought scalpers got so much more. I'm going to end up using the ticket myself."

Even Ticket King is feeling burned by the Police. "We're going to lose a lot of money," said Nowakowski. "We have tickets at all the venues around the country; it's happening all over."

Officials at Xcel Energy Center are aware of the re-sale ticket market but "as far as we're concerned, all the tickets are sold and they are out of our control," said arena VP and general manager Jack Larson. "We're expecting a full house."

Savvy Police fan Olmsted has other expectations. He plans to show up at the X about 7:30 p.m., when opening act Fiction Plane takes the stage. He will peruse what the brokers have to offer on the corner of Kellogg Boulevard and W. 7th Street. He has learned from experience.

"Last year, a friend and I went to the Tom Petty/Pearl Jam second concert and we got $100 tickets on the street for 40 bucks each," Olmsted said. "We missed the first two Pearl Jam songs, but I'm sure Tom Petty and Eddie Vedder [Pearl Jam singer] would be proud of us for not being taken to the cleaners. If I don't see the Police, I'll live."

Jon Bream • 612-673-1719

Jon Bream • popmusic@startribune.com