Facts meet logic in ticket game

It's easier to crank out a column like this every week if you try not to let facts get in the way of a good opinion.

Still, all that accuracy stuff is a hard habit to break. So I did a little math after a chat with Mitch Francis, who runs a large network of discount show ticket outlets.

He was the focus of last Sunday's column, which talked about how show producers consider discount tickets a necessary evil of the recession. They grumble, but almost every show discounts in one of two ways: "seating upgrades," or outright price cutting on same-day sales of 30 percent to 50 percent at outlets such as Francis' Ticks4Tonight.

Both ways preserve the higher price for the fabled day the economy rebounds. Besides, a few people still walk up and pay full freight.

Is any of this bad news for the consumer? Perhaps.

First, you have to work for the discount and pay a fee to a middle man. More people might go to more shows if they could just go to the box office and pay what they do to the discounters.

My bigger contention has been that producers "mark 'em up to mark 'em down" at the half-price joints.

Previously, I had compared the price of "Legends in Concert" to the week in 2002 when Francis opened his first discount kiosk, and found a 74 percent increase (and the old price included two drinks!).

"There's another law, which is compound interest," Francis counters. "If something goes up 10 percent a year it doubles in seven years."

"I've heard that for years," he adds of my theory. If there is price inflation it's "very minor, because (shows) absolutely have to compete. If the middle-of-the-road show is artificially high because the price was doubled, it's not going to sell. And it won't sell compared to other choices. Our boards are also a market center."

I went back to the microfilm and found five more shows that were here when Tix4Tonight came to town. Their percentages of price increases since October 2002 ranged from 12 to 41.4.

My "Legends" example turned out to be the highest increase. Stupid facts.

But Anthony Curtis, who tracks this stuff for the Las Vegas Advisor, says show prices collectively jumped 14.2 percent in the first year after the discounters came to town. He charted mostly double-digit increases every year since.

"These prices are going up because of discount options. There's no doubt," he says.

There are facts and there's logic. I just don't think "Matsuri" would be $62, or "Crazy Girls" $45.50 if producers didn't know there's an easy road to the "real" price. Call it "columnist's intuition," because we'll seldom admit we're wrong.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.