Affordable entertainment

When individual show tickets for the 2009 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo go on sale Saturday, concert goers will notice no price increase ... for the sixth consecutive year. How many top-line entertainment experiences can brag about their low prices?

There’s … uh … and …

Well, filling up your car with gas is pretty entertaining these days.

Well, filling up your car with gas is pretty entertaining these days.

Sixteen-buck tickets to see the Jonas Brothers, ZZ Top, Gladys Knight, Taylor Swift, Reba McIntire, Keith Urban, Toby Keith and many others is a tough act to follow, even in this bargain-basement economy.

“We determined last June, even before the economic crisis, that there wouldn’t be a ticket-price increase in 2009,” said Leroy Shafer, chief operating officer of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

“We pride ourselves in presenting affordable family entertainment. We can do this for several reasons. We have 72,000 seats, so we can spread the cost of the entertainment over 72,000 ticket sales. Plus we have donors and sponsors and contributors, all of whom pitch in to help us keep prices reasonable. Donations primarily go to scholarships, but that money is also used for entertainment.

“And don’t forget we have 21,000 volunteers. If we had to pay them for their work, it would cost millions and we couldn’t keep our ticket prices so low.”

The vast majority of tickets in the lower deck of Reliant Stadium will cost $21 this year. All the upper-deck tickets will be $16.

The last price increase was in 2003, when tickets in both decks went up $2.

Going back, tickets in 1999 (in the Astrodome) were $12 lower deck and $10 upper deck. Twenty years ago, every ticket in the Dome was $9.

“We say the Rodeo is unequaled entertainment for unequaled value,” Shafer said. “It’s not just a $16 concert ticket. That ticket also lets you watch the world’s biggest rodeo. It gives you admission to the livestock show. It gets you into the commercial exhibits and the carnival (where you can purchase reasonably priced and nutritious carnival food like deep-fried Twinkies and pizza on a stick).”

The big ticket crush Saturday will be for the Jonas Brothers, three squeaky-clean lads who make the young girls swoon.

People who keep track of these things expect a computer surge equal to last year and the year before, when fellow Disney star Miley Cyrus shattered every record for number of tickets sold, fastest sell-out and loudest shriek ever heard in Reliant Stadium.

Warning: This doesn’t mean that 72,000 tickets for each Rodeo concert will go on sale Saturday. The Rodeo has sold 42,000 season tickets. Also, tickets are promised to sponsors, officials and donors.

So Saturday, roughly 20,000 tickets for each concert, including the Jonas Brothers, will go on sale.

Do not dawdle, or you’ll be dabbling in the secondary ticket market, where tickets will cost slightly more than $16-$21.

Currently, lower-deck tickets for the Jonas Brothers are $200 each on eBay.

“I’ve been with the Rodeo since 1973, and no entertainers have created more hysteria than the Disney acts like Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers,” Shafer said.

“We had Elvis here twice, in 1970 and 1974, but he was 10 years past his peak, really. The Osmonds, Leif Garrett, Shaun Cassidy were huge for us in the ’70s. I would say the biggest hysteria before Miley and the Jonas Brothers was caused by the Jackson 5 in 1973 and 1974. Michael Jackson was still a kid, and you can’t believe how much excitement they created.”

The Rodeo has made some concessions to the down economy.

There will be three Wednesday night performances of the Rodeo — Alan Jackson on March 4, Reba McIntire on March 11 and Gary Allan on March 18. For those shows, tickets in the upper deck are only $10, and plenty are still available.

Or you can opt for a Value Days deal (Rodeo, meet McDonald’s): For $20 you get a ticket to the Rodeo, your choice of a Papa John’s pizza or Prince’s burger, soft drink, two ride tickets at the carnival, two coupons to play carnival games and special deals on cotton candy and other goodies.

For Value Days tickets, you have to click on www.rodeohouston.com. For all other ticket purchases, use www.ticketmaster.com.