Would You Pay $250 to Meet the Rock Band YES in Monterey?

Ticketmaster sent me this deal offer today and I'm shaking my head.

They offer me a chance to get great seats for the Yes concert March 10 at Monterey's Golden State Theater for $87.55 or $107.55, both of which include a service fee of around $20 (what service exactly did they perform besides taking my money and giving me a ticket?)

But wait, there's more.

For $250 I can get the Yes Meet & Greet Package, which includes:
- One reserved ticket located in the first 5 rows of the stage
- Exclusive meet & greet with Yes
- Personal photograph with Yes
- Autographed 8x10 photo
- Specially designed tour shirt (limited to VIP packages only)
- Collectible tour poster (numbered, limited)
- Autographed copy of "Fly From Here"
- Official meet & greet laminate
- Set of official Yes guitar picks (with case)
- On-site VIP host

Or for $125 I can get the Yes Tour Package, which includes:

- One reserved ticket located in the first 12 rows of the stage
- Specially designed tour shirt (limited to VIP packages only)
- Collectible tour poster (numbered, limited)
- Autographed copy of "Fly From Here"
- Commemorative VIP laminate
- Set of official Yes guitar picks (with case)
- On-site VIP host

Feel like you're at the car wash?

So far, Santa Cruz has avoided such offerings. Or, more likely, promoters know that people here aren't as apt to be scalped.

I understand why bands are doing this, but there's still something that seems sleazy about it.

They do it because that's what scalpers have been doing, even supposedly legal ones, such as Stub Hub, which last time I checked was owned by eBay. Scalpers send people to wait in line for the best tickets and then sell them at four or more times the cost.

So, if you bought a good seat from Stub Hub, you would likely pay $250 but not get to meet and greet the band (something they like about as much as having their dressing rooms catered by McDonald's) or get that exclusive T-shirt or the made-in-China guitar picks. And the band would get nothing over the $85 list price before service charge ticket.

So it makes sense for them to cut out the middle people (Santa Cruz politically-correct term for what would be middle men everywhere else).

And actually, if you look at it, paying the $125 price with T-shirt and laminate isn't much worse than the regular ticket price.

The question here is, would you do it? Would you buy the VIP package to see this band that's been around since the 1960s (with only three original members touring)?

If you are a Yes fan, are you disappointed to see this once-new agey, hippie-dippy idealistic band not only doing this kind of promotion, but also playing casinos?

I should add here: I used to love these guys and have seen them do some of the best shows of my life. But I doubt I'd pay the freight on this one.

What's the most you've paid for a concert? Mine was $250 for Roger Waters and it was worth every cent. But I hope that was a once-in-a-lifetime price.

How much money changes hands at a show like this? You can figure the average ticket price around $80 with 1,600 seats. So, the gross is $128,000.Then, maybe, another third of that in merchandise, such as T-shirts, sweatshirts, autographed whammy bars.

Ticketmaster takes $17- $20 a ticket, which is a nice chunk of change. (Remember when Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam refused to play for them because of obscene service fees?)

Lastly: will we ever get concerts at Kaiser Permanente Arena and if we did, how would that name fit on the tickets?