No one taking blame for Hannah ticket fiasco

By Ray Waddell

NASHVILLE (Billboard) - Who's at fault for the controversy surrounding the upcoming "Hannah Montana" tour, for which tickets quickly disappeared and then reappeared with huge markups on the secondary market?

Venues, promoters and resellers -- some would call them scalpers -- all say, "Not us."

As attorneys general from three states look into the situation, Ticketmaster will on Monday seek a preliminary injunction in Federal District Court in Los Angeles against software provider RMG Technologies. The ticketing giant believes RMG's automated programs provide resellers repeated access to ticketmaster.com and move these buyers to the head of the digital line, leaving moms and kids very upset.

Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon has announced that the state is suing three ticket resellers on charges they violated state consumer protection laws. Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel says he is investigating resellers in his state, as is Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett.

"Scalping's illegal in Arkansas. The (attorney general) got a lot of complaints. He's investigating, and we're helping him all we can," says Michael Marion, GM of Alltel Arena in North Little Rock, Ark.

The attention from state legal eagles speaks to the huge demand for tickets to the 54-date Hannah Montana tour, which begins October 18 in St. Louis. The tour has been a rude awakening to the harsh realities of the modern concert market for an emotionally invested ticket buyer.

"You're dealing with a mother/child dynamic here that can lead to a very upset child and a very angry mother, and that certainly exacerbates things," Ticketmaster VP/assistant general counsel Joe Freeman says.

What seems to be catching ticket buyers off guard and attracting the attention of politicos is a) how quickly tickets in the primary market are disappearing; b) in turn, how quickly these tickets are showing up on the secondary market and; c) the price tag on those tickets once they hit the secondary market.