If you have a Bruce Springsteen fan on your Christmas list, the shopping just got easier: An IOU for tickets to the tour he's planning--his first with the E Street Band since 1989--would fit nicely in any stocking.
But if you're buying for a Lollapalooza or Madonna fan, you may not want to make any promises until a couple of questions are answered--respectively, "What's the lineup?" and "How much?"
Both the alternative-rock festival, which took 1998 off after failing to secure a satisfactory lineup, and the Material-turned-Maternal Girl, who hasn't toured since 1990's "Blond Ambition" sojourn, are expected to join a potentially strong 1999 concert schedule that will also include the Rolling Stones; Alanis Morissette; Korn teamed with Rob Zombie; Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers; and, rumors persist, Barbra Streisand.
Lollapalooza organizers are laying plans for a relaunch in the summer, while Madonna's managers have solicited bids from tour packagers to produce a trek expected to run from July to September.
That won't come cheap. The bidding--said to be between SFX (the company that in the past year has bought up most of the nation's concert promotion firms and many concert venues), the Creative Artists Agency, Canadian promoter Michael Cohl and East Coast firm Metropolitan Entertainment--is apparently fierce.
This auction approach is the same that U2 employed for its ambitious 1997 "PopMart" stadium venture. Cohl won the gig, guaranteeing U2 more than $100 million for the tour.
Madonna is expected to play smaller, indoor arenas and book fewer dates than U2 did, so the overall cost will not be as high. But with expectations of elaborate staging, the per-show cost could be huge--costs that could raise ticket prices into the range of the Eagles' reunion, with seats generally topping $100.
"I guess the question is, 'What is her core audience?' " says Gary Bongiovanni, editor in chief of concert business publication Pollstar. "When she last toured, it was a lot of young girls [who couldn't afford a high ticket price]. I don't know if it's true now. But she's certainly not overexposed in the concert market, and if she's only doing a fairly small number of shows, she can command a very high price."
Representatives of Q Prime, Madonna's management, had no comment on the plans.
