Sarah is right - the more people pay - assuming the promise is delivered - the more they enjoy it - and the more CDs they buy and this has nothing to do with the demographic - it's about anticipation and delivery. Period.

Autoharpbob is also right to point out the existence of what I choose to call artflation - but this only affects what artists ask for not what they get. So it's a short term influence only.

Gerry (Twickfolk) is bang on the nail: Loads of different systems exist, and we should be very wary of judging one by the criteria of another (which is what I fear has been happening above).

George is also spot on: The massive diversity of deals on offer (as evinced by Gerry), compounded by the disparity between large and small venues within any given geo-financial territory (sorry) compounded by the requirement to avoid cannibalising your own market, means that it makes sense to settle on one 'offer' and just let promoters say yeah or nay to it. Nothing whatsoever wrong with that.

By then C-flat says "Why, after fees are agreed/guaranteed and an artist booked, would the artist want to control what the minimum ticket price should be?"

This confuses me. The answers is of course that they wouldn't, and I've never hear of anyone doing so, certainly not the artist s/he named in the first post - because, as as been explained, he and others like him do not work for a flat fee. And although there is indeed a low guarantee, it is so low in comparison to the actual gate as to not apply. The question is, in this case, spurious.

Tom