By George Petersen

At a press conference yesterday in Los Angeles, Ozzy Osbourne and promoter Live Nation announced that the ticket prices for OzzFest 07—the 25-date, hard-rocking spectacular—would be free.. nada… zippo. Evidently it won’t be a completely out of control free-for-all, as attendees would have to log onto go to www.ozzfest.com or www.livenation.com and be directed to sponsor sites where the free ducats would be doled out.

These days, ticket prices are astronomical, even before you ante up for parking, beer, a hot dog, T-shirt or program book and the all-too-familiar “ticket service fees.” And if The Stones or McCartney are in town, you can have a great date for $1,000 or so—-chump change for the average billionaire. So if there’s a better way to make it happen, so much the better. There’s no shortage of great local acts to fill in the gaps at each tour stop and Ozzy’s banking on finding some headliner types that would be willing to do a couple free shows—in exchange for selling CDs, T-shirts and other merch.

The big question is whether it would work? Maybe–this crazy idea does have some merit, especially in an industry facing the spectre of a summer of half-filled stadiums and cancelled dates. There are some other issues to work out, such as parking—particularly in areas that offer “free” parking (it’s actually built in as a surcharge in the ticket price), but the notion of selling merch has kept a lot of bands (small and large) alive for years.

The whole concept is either the smartest or dumbest idea in years. Maybe by the time OzzFest kicks off on July 7th in L.A., we’ll have that answer, but in these days of ticket pricing insanity, at least somebody’s trying something new.

When not working on Mix stuff, George Petersen records and performs with the SF Bay Area-based rock band ARIEL. Check ‘em out at www.jenpet.com.

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