Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana Best of Both Worlds tour

****ING **** MAN.

**** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****.


I now will have to sell not ONE but TWO of my Kidneys!

 

That is what you did huh?

The prices going up on ebay is rifreakingdiculous.



I'll just get a suite.

 

you could give me one kidney

 

but, you wouldn't want to replace your ovaries?





YES, YES!

awesome.

 

come on now, folks love some kam.

Kam loves some Kam.

 

chron


By BRUCE WESTBROOK
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Tickets are sold out, fans are in tears and parents are in an uproar.

Sound like a Duran Duran tale from the '80s — or N' Sync in the '90s? No way. There's a new tour furor, and it's over 'tween sensation Miley Cyrus, star of Disney Channel's Hannah Montana.

Her Nov. 11 show at Toyota Center sold out Saturday in five minutes. Now the only way to get tickets is at inflated prices from ticket brokers or individuals.

Fifty-two ticket groupings were posted on eBay as of Monday afternoon. Depending on the seats' locations, bids ranged from $67 for a single seat to $1,275 for four seats. Most tickets on eBay averaged more than $200.

Brokers sell for just as much, if not more, being legally allowed to sell at any price the market will bear. They just aren't allowed to make such sales on the premises of an event.

For the lucky ones able to get tickets right way, their face value was economical for a tour, ranging from $25 to $65.

"The tickets are priced and sold as fairly as possible," said Debra Rathwell, senior vice president for AEG Live in New York, which is handling the tour.

"I can assure you this is no conspiracy," Rathwell said. "We do everything in our power to stop brokers from getting tickets, but it's impossible."

She said selling tickets at inflated prices has escalated in recent years because of the Internet. "That's changed everything."

Nor does it help that Hannah Montana is so popular. Rathwell said every show in every city, no matter how small, has sold out in minutes.

Such sellouts can prompt scheduling of extra shows, but in this case, that would be hard. Montana's Nov. 11 date in Houston will be followed by a Nov. 12 show in San Antonio, which also is sold out. She has a Nov. 9 show in Glendale, Ariz., but the next day should be needed to transport the stage and equipment — not to mention giving Cyrus, 14, a day off.

Last March, Houston's first Hannah Montana show set a new paid attendance record for the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, drawing of 73,295 fans to Reliant Stadium. That show sold out in three minutes. At Toyota Center, concert capacity is about 13,000.

"I've never seen counts like this," Rathwell said. "Usually some single seats remain available, but for this tour, they're all gone. It's sold out to the last seat."

Among parents dismayed by the fast Houston sellout and subsequent price gouging is Sandra Isget of Groveton. Having promised her 8-year-old son she'd get tickets, she wound up paying $629 for two seats to a Bossier City, La., show via Ticket Exchange, a service of Ticket Master, which allows fans to sell or buy among each other.

"I didn't trust eBay, because you don't know who those people are," Isget said.

Now she's having buyer's remorse.

"It was supposed to be something light-hearted and fun, and it's turned into something more expensive than our monthly mortgage," Isget said. "My son has no knowledge of us going into credit-card debt to get the tickets. I thought it would be worth it — that it would compensate for my own mental anguish — but it leaves me with such a bad feeling. I'd promised him. How far am I willing to go to keep that promise. If I refused, that only hurts him."

Denice Smajstrla of Pearland failed to get a ticket for her daughter Saturday but won't be paying scalpers.

"It's not the end of the world," she said. "It sounds like they (the promoter) were trying. I don't know that anyone is to blame. She's a popular little girl, and there's a lot of people."

Rathwell said promoters try to put as many tickets as possible into the hands of fans, not brokers. For Hannah Montana, sales were limited to four tickets per person, and half the tickets were sold through a fan-club promotion.

"We could be doing many more shows," she said of the tour. "I think it's hard when it's little kids and this show is like the only thing in their world, but what can you do?"

Hannah Montana mania began when her self-titled show debuted in March 2006. Its premise involves ordinary teen Miley Stewart, played by Miley Cyrus, who secretly transforms by night into pop sensation Hannah Montana.

Cyrus' father, country-music star Billy Ray Cyrus, plays her father and manager on the show and one of the few people who knows her double identity.

The series soon spun off into soundtrack albums and DVDs, and Cyrus, suddenly a pop star, launched her first tour last fall.

Her new tour begins Oct. 18 in St. Louis, Mo., and continues through Jan. 9 in Albany, N.Y. That will be followed by further production on the TV series.

 

1560's Hunter Hearst Hoffman

To no one's surprise, tickets for Hannah Montana's concert Nov. 11 at Toyota Center sold out in the blink of an eye, leaving long lines of disappointed young fans and angry parents who think the system of selling concert tickets is flawed.

Flawed is putting it mildly. That's like saying King Kong was a slightly-larger-than-normal chimpanzee.

I loved watching the TV news reports from Toyota Center where the reporter interviewed grown men in line last Saturday for Hannah Montana tickets. The ticket buyers couldn't even name the act they were buying tickets for. Plants for scalpers? Nah.

The concert is sold out, but a quick surf of the Internet shows hundreds, if not thousands, of tickets available for resale — with nosebleeds going for $400 and close-up seats running $2,000 each. And that's not counting tickets available at legitimate secondary-market ticket sellers. Who knows how many tickets they have?

Face value for Hannah Montana tickets was $25 to $65.

Here's how the problem happens. Regular folks who needed two or four tickets bought eight tickets. Now they're hoping to sell them at a huge profit. I actually know a guy who does this on a regular basis. When a concert comes to Houston, he wants two tickets but buys four. Then he sells the other two tickets for twice face value.

He winds up going to the show for free.

With the majority of tickets being sold via the Internet, everybody can be a ticket scalper. Ticket agencies are actually a small part of the problem now. It's mostly greedy everyday people.

Artists, promoters and arena operators have scratched their heads for years trying to come up with a way of thwarting scalpers. They've tried limiting the number of tickets one person can buy. They've tried requiring ticket buyers to pick up their tickets at the box office (that was a disaster on show night). They've tried pre-sales to members of the artist's fan club, so true fans get first crack. Nothing seems to work. Scalpers still flourish.

Here's the easy solution in the case of Ms. Montana: Just schedule a second concert. The demand for tickets is certainly there. And this time, would-be scalpers from the first show would be left holding the bag. That'll learn 'em.

• Two local industries — pro wrestling and the media — were rocked last week by reports that Houston native Booker T has quit World Wrestling Entertainment. According to ESPN, Booker T was suspended by the WWE after his name turned up in a steroids investigation.

Booker T also hosts a weekend radio show in Houston.

Maybe it's time we started testing all Houston media personalities for steroids.

Let's see, what are the signs of steroid abuse?

1. Weight gain.

2. Hair loss.

3. Weird behavior.

Does that sound like anybody on Houston TV or radio?

This is where you fill in the blank for the punch line.
• Never mind that the Houston Texans are 2-0 for the first time in their history. They're actually fun to watch for the first time, too.

This shows how truly pathetic the former decision-making regime of Bob McNair, Charley Casserly, Dom Capers and David Carr was. Five years down the drain.

If the Texans beat Indy at home next week, start thinking playoffs.

• World champion eater Joey Chestnut won the Kolache Factory Eating Contest last week at Minute Maid Park by wolfing 56 sausage and cheese kolaches in eight minutes. Pat Bertoletti finished second with 54 kolaches.

Imagine 54 kolaches — and you have to swallow defeat on top of that.

• Next year the Emmys should have another award:

Worst Disc Jockey to Host a Major TV Awards Show.

And the winner is Ryan Seacrest. He was dreadful.

• This year, the Latin Music Fan Awards (El Premio de la Gente) have been expanded to include sports and other forms of entertainment.

Four teams have been nominated for Favorite Soccer Team.

"Lo and behold, we ended up being nominated," said Houston Dynamo president Oliver Luck.

Luck may have some explaining to do if the Dynamo wins.

"We don't have any Latino players on our team!" he said.

• The match has been signed. It will be a Triple Threat match for the Texas All-Star Wrestling tag-team belts on Oct. 13 at the Humble Bingo Arena, 210 First St. W. in Humble.

The competitors are: current title holders Scoby Gober and Bones vs. Nate Slater and Rocco Carmanooch vs. my buddy Sean Pendergast and me. If Pendergast and I win, we'll donate our prize money to charity, but we're keeping the 10 pounds of gold that will fit nicely around waists.

Pendergast and I will be escorted to the ring by our manager, Sheik Ali Ramzanali, and our sensuous valet (whatever Hooters Girl can be talked into wasting a Saturday night with us in Humble).

For ticket information and other matches, click on www.taswwrestling.com.

• Today's trivia: What is the largest American Indian tribe in the U.S. today?

• Are you constantly chased by men in white lab coats waving butterfly nets? Are you also a Houston Rockets fan?

Here's your chance to parlay your nuttiness and turn a profit. The Red Rowdies are holding auditions at 3 p.m. Saturday at Toyota Center. Red Rowdies are those wacky, out-of-control fans who sit in the end zone of the lower bowl during Rockets games and "scream for the team."

Just show up at the audition and turn it loose. The payoff? If you're picked, you get free tickets to all Rockets home games.

• The Houston City Council is in the process of picking which restaurants can do business at Bush Intercontinental Airport. There seems to be a lot of confusion on how to do this.

Here's a simple solution. Ask prospective restaurant owners, "If we let you in the airport, will you promise to keep prices in the ballpark? Let's say, you can't agree to charge any more for food at the airport than you do at your other locations?"

Other airports have price controls, and they work. The prices they charge currently at Bush Intercontinental are outrageous.

Last time I flew out of Terminal C, I left a deposit on a cheeseburger. Four more payments and I eat.

• Trivia answer: The Cherokee tribe has a population of about 730,000, followed by the Navajo with about 300,000 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.




Cablinasian, please tell Hoffman to hook this brother up with atleast three tickets, four would be awesome.

Thanks, your loyal 1560 KGOW listener, Kam.