Ticketmaster

First, Karen McVearry spent $30 to join the Hannah Montana fan club and buy presale concert tickets for her 9-year-old daughter Maddie. Too late - they had sold out. The 36-year-old Catonsville mom tried again the day the tickets went on sale to the public. As Maddie played soccer, McVearry stood on the sidelines, a cell phone in each hand, calling Ticketmaster, while a friend also called and tried ordering online. Still too late. The Jan. 8 Hannah Montana show at 1st Mariner Arena sold out in minutes.

What Kimmie's Angels on Ice When Tomorrow, 7 p.m. Where 1st Mariner Arena Tickets $75, $45, $25; available at ticketmaster .com. Call 410-347-2010 for information Benefits Cool Kids Campaign

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS Tonight, California rockers the Red Hot Chili Peppers perform at Washington's Verizon Center, 601 F St. N.W. Quirky duo Gnarls Barkley -- made up of Cee-Lo Green and Danger Mouse -- open the show. The show kicks off at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $69.50 and are available through Ticketmaster at 410-547-SEAT.

NEW YORK -- USA Networks Inc., the media company run by Barry Diller, dropped its plan to buy No. 3 Internet search service Lycos Inc. yesterday because of opposition from Lycos shareholders.Lycos' shares had declined by more than one-third after Diller proposed combining the companies in February. The Waltham, Mass., company's shares recouped about 35 percent of that loss as opposition to the plan increased, and rose $8.75 yesterday to $107.Shareholders led by David Wetherell, head of CMGI Inc., the Internet venture company that is Lycos' biggest shareholder, opposed the combination because it did not offer any premium.

A word of advice to Bruce Springsteen fans: Don't sleep in this Saturday.Springsteen's reunion tour with the E St. Band will finally play this area on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1 at the MCI Center in downtown Washington. Tickets for the shows go on sale at 9 a.m. Saturday.The tour -- which marks the first live performances by Springsteen and his long-time backing band in over a decade -- has been one of the year's most globally anticipated outings. By the time Springsteen and company arrive at the Continental Airlines Arena in New Jersey next month, they will have played to more than 775,000 fans in 12 countries.

In an unprecedented show of popularity, the Backstreet Boys have sold all 765,000 tickets for their North American concert tour in just one day, generating an estimated $30 million.Tickets for the 11-week, 39-city arena tour, which kicks off Sept. 14 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., sold out as soon as they went on sale Saturday -- most within an hour.The box office activity for the Sears Presents Backstreet Boys Into the Millennium Tour, which runs through Dec. 2, is unprecedented in the concert business.

Jackie A., 15, got to a Tower Records in Chicago at 6 a.m. last December to get tickets for an 'N Sync concert. She was first in line, but got really weak seats.Surprised? We were, too, when Jackie wrote us a letter. Then other readers echoed her complaints. So we asked experts how to avoid those lame concert seats -- and score the best seats possible.When it comes to standing in line, "There's no advantage to getting there early," says Ticketmaster spokesman Larry Solters in Los Angeles, "because there are usually lotteries to see who goes first.

WASHINGTON -- Jaynie Simmons lost the battle on Sunday. She arrived at the National Gallery, felt the skin-baking sun, stared at the endless line of sweaty people waiting for free passes to next month's Vincent van Gogh exhibit and left.With a soldier's resolve -- and lots to read -- she was back yesterday. It was still pretty sultry. The wait was two hours. But she would not be denied her free advance pass to see the work of the famed Dutch painter, whose praises she sang while biding the time.

The Washington Capitals hadn't made the Stanley Cup Finals in 24 years, so is it any wonder Ticketmaster is confused?Many Capitals fans found themselves surprised this week when tickets they thought they had ordered for last night's Game 3 arrived and turned out to be for the Capitals' third home game of the series, which would be Game 6 if the series goes that long."

Baseball maniaA DOZEN PEOPLE lined up in the cold yesterday morning, awaiting the opening of Maryland Bedrooms-Futon Discounters in Glen Burnie."Yeah -- we're waiting in line for water beds," laughed Pat Hora, 44, staked out with husband, Gary, 57, for a sale of sorts.But not water beds.The store is also a TicketMaster outlet, and the Pasadena couple was waiting for Orioles single-game tickets to go on sale at 10 a.m.Tim Brownell, 36, got there first -- arriving at 5: 30 a.m., he said.Brownell lives in downtown Baltimore, far closer to the Oriole Park stadium ticket office than Glen Burnie TicketMaster -- which adds a service fee to the ticket prices.

Awards Spoiler alert: Don't read this if you plan to watch ESPYs Swimmer Michael Phelps, a Rodgers Forge native and Fells Point resident, set an ESPYs single-year record Wednesday night in Los Angeles by winning five awards: Best Male Athlete, Best Championship Performance, Best Record-Breaking Performance, Best Moment (as part of the 1,600-meter Olympic relay) and Best U.S. Male Olympian. PGA standout Tiger Woods, who had received Best Male Athlete the previous five years, had held the single-year record with four awards.

What a difference a year makes. Last summer, the two-day Virgin Mobile Festival boasted top-tier names like Kanye West, Jack Johnson, Bob Dylan and the Foo Fighters at Pimlico Race Course. Tickets for both days ranged from $175 for general admission to $450 for VIP passes. This year, the festival cuts back to one day, moves to the smaller Merriweather Post Pavilion and books slightly less glamorous headliners Blink-182, Weezer and Public Enemy. But - and this is a big "but" - this year's festival is free.

Ticketmaster does it again. In February, the quasi-monopoly botched sales for Bruce Springsteen's current tour and sent fans to Ticketmaster's TicketsNow.com scalper site, where they had to buy seats at huge markups. Last week, Tickets- Now said it sold too many tickets for the Springsteen show at DC's Verizon Center. The company called fans, who thought they had locked up seats at hundreds of dollars apiece to tell them the bad news. TicketsNow said it will give people refunds along with free tickets in the cheap seats.

Fed chief says strategy to ease crisis working CHARLOTTE, N.C.: While acknowledging that the Federal Reserve was "extremely uncomfortable" about bailouts of big financial companies, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Friday that the central bank's strategy to ease the financial crisis is working. Bernanke was referring to the Fed's decisions last year to step in and financially back JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s takeover of investment house Bear Stearns and throw its first of four financial lifelines to insurance giant American International Group Inc. At a Fed conference in Charlotte, Bernanke said it had to act because collapse of those companies would have dealt a serious blow to the financial system and economy.

So I asked Ticketmaster spokesman Albert Lopez about the experience of a Baltimore-area grandmother who tried to buy Disney on Ice tickets online from Ticketmaster. She was shocked to find out later that she had actually bought from TicketsNow, Ticketmaster's scalper site, for much more than face value. "When I read your article about TicketsNow scalper site, I realized we, too, had been directed to TicketsNow and were charged exorbitant prices for those tickets," she wrote. "I figure we were overcharged $17 per ticket, not counting fees, for a total of $136.

Marylanders who got stiffed on Bruce Springsteen tickets by Ticketmaster are but one reason to be skeptical of a proposed merger between the behemoth of ticket sellers and the powerhouse promoter Live Nation. Justice Department lawyers who are scrutinizing this deal should recognize that competition in the marketplace now is virtually nonexistent and consumers deserve more choices - not fewer - in buying tickets to concerts and other shows. Live Nation owns more than 140 venues and has multiyear comprehensive deals covering the tours of Madonna, Jay-Z, U2, Nickelback and Shakira.

Construction begins on housing in Middle River Construction has begun on Renaissance Square, a 196-home development in Middle River that includes senior housing, Baltimore County officials said yesterday. The developer, Enterprise Homes, has secured financing for the project, which will include 115 townhouses and detached homes priced from $225,000 to $375,000. Help with closing costs and down payments will be available on some homes. Evergreen, the senior housing component to be built by Bozzuto Construction, will include 81 one- and two-bedroom apartments.

Lettie Holman swears on Bruce Springsteen's soul patch that Ticketmaster automatically kicked her over to its high-priced TicketsNow scalper site when she was trying this week to buy seats for The Boss' tour stop at Washington's Verizon Center. Ticketmaster says she and others who make similar claims are misremembering or lying. So it is that, even before it starts, Springsteen's newest tour has become a public relations disaster for him and America's best-loved concert-ticket monopoly.

Catch LeAnn Rimes in concert this weekend and support the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation at the same time. The 20th annual concert to benefit the foundation will also feature The Hard Travelers, a Maryland folk group. The concert starts at 7:30 p.m. at 1st Mariner Arena, 201 W. Baltimore St. Tickets are $27-$69 and can be purchased at ticketmaster .com.

Longtime singer and actress Liza Minnelli returns to Baltimore for the first time since the 1990s on Saturday. After releasing more than 20 albums, the award-winning Broadway performer recently released a DVD featuring some of her more recent work. Proceeds from the concert will go toward the Chimes School for children with disabilities. The performance is at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St. Tickets are $53-$78. The concert starts at 7:30 p.m. Call 410-547-7328 or go to ticketmaster .com.