Just in time, too. According to the concert trade magazine Pollstar, the average ticket price rose an astounding 30 percent from '98 to '99, while overall attendance decreased. The business may have celebrated a $1.2 billion year in '99, but it managed to lose customers.

But if some acts are conscientious enough to keep their ticket prices low, why do they tolerate runaway fees, which often add 30 to 50 percent onto the price of a ticket? After all, the tacked-on charges are spelled out in advance, so acts can't claim ignorance.

Managers and promoters aren't saying, but here's the assumption: With artists pocketing such generous guarantees ($600,000 a night for KISS; $1 million for an 'N Sync stadium show), they realize they need to cut the middlemen some slack. "They figure we can live with the fact that they're getting facility and high service fees," says one source, adding, "It's curious why groups don't go to Ticketmaster and say 'I'm playing SFX buildings but I want to do things on my terms.'"

Then again, look at what happened to the last act that made a stink about ticket fees. Half a decade ago, with the band at the peak of its grunge power, Pearl Jam put service fees under the microscope, refusing to tour in venues that had exclusive contracts with Ticketmaster. Lead singer Eddie Vedder felt the company fleeced fans by charging indiscriminately high service fees, back when $5 per ticket was the usual ceiling. ("That seems like the Ice Age," quips one touring pro.) Company officials responded that Ticketmaster worked in conjunction with building owners and promoters when it came to setting fees; Ticketmaster, which had to cover its operating costs, claimed to receive a relatively small portion of those revenues.

The band scrapped one tour; the following year it hired an upstart ticketing company called ETM, which charged roughly $3 service fees, and tried to bypass Ticketmaster's established venues. But halfway through, bogged down in a logistical nightmare of routing a tour around established Ticketmaster venues and into parks and old racetracks (as well as Vedder's health problems), the tour collapsed.

There's no doubt who won that titanic battle: Five years later, Pearl Jam is preparing to kick off a new summer tour in August. It will be handled by Ticketmaster. What happened to ETM? The company announced last week that it was going out of business; Ticketmaster was buying up its assets.

Pearl Jam has not entirely lost its fighting spirit. The band will price tickets at $26 and $30, among the cheapest of any multiplatinum act in the country. But what about those bothersome fees? Let's take the fan who buys a lawn seat for Pearl Jam's Aug. 27 show at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in upstate New York. He'll face a $6.05 service fee, a $5.50 facility fee and a $3.50 handling fee. That $26 ticket suddenly costs $40.80 -- a 56 percent increase over the ticket's face value.

How about the Spears fan who snatched up a $22 lawn seat for the pop sensation's June 21 show at Merriweather Post outside of Washington, D.C.? Tack on the $3 per ticket parking fee, the $7.50 per ticket service fee and Ticketmaster's $3.25 handling fee (even though the tickets weren't mailed out, but merely left at the venue's will-call window), and that $22 ticket cost $35.55, a 59 percent increase.

Same goes for that $45 AC/DC ticket for the band's Aug. 25 show at Madison Square Garden. It actually costs $59.25.

"And those are charges you must pay before you walk in the door," points out one concert veteran. "As opposed to buying that Coke or T-shirt."

For acts who aren't working to keep ticket prices low, the service fees are head-turning. KISS at Irvine Meadows in California? $9.95 service fee per ticket. The Who at Nissan Pavilion in Bristow, Va.? $10.95 per ticket. Diana Ross and the Supremes at the National Car Rental Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.? $15 per ticket.

Of course there's no reason it would cost Ticketmaster more money to spit out a $125 Who ticket than a $32 Creed ticket. But the industry's unwritten rule has always been the higher the ticket price, the higher the service fee.

For now, at least, as the economy hums along and disposable income piles up, fees aren't stopping anybody from getting to the shows. Says one source: "Nobody squawks."

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