“Double it. Okay.”

“That gives you 150, which you must multiply by the number of current dates for Sting and Ash. That should give you… ah… ah…”

“10,500.”

“Very good. Next you have to add that figure to the national average, subtract the GNP and divide by the APR. You still with me?”

“Like a shadow. What happens next?”

“Depends. If the result is over 100, we then compare it against the estimated single-night box office gross for the upcoming Eddie Money tour, and split the difference. Otherwise we take a standard deduction of 29 percent.”

“Is this when you check with that place in Chicago?”

“That’s right. You go to the Chicago Board of Trade Web site and get the latest quote for Billy Corgan’s ego. Just remember to get the metric version.”

“Gotcha.”

“Then you take the square root of that number, multiply it by the other number and then add the number of cities Donny Osmond and Shane MacGowan & The Popes have on their respective schedules.”

“That should give us 3,819.”

“Uh, uh. Now, here’s the tricky part. Ready?”

“Check.”

“You factor in the number of members in matchbox twenty, fractionalize it against CD sales for Kansas and Jonny Lang, multiply it by last week’s SFX Acquisitional Average, then divide by last year’s total profit from digital music sales.”

“But my math teacher said you can’t divide by zero.”

“That’s what they used to think in the pre-dot-com economy days, but we know better, now. There, you end up with a final figure of… lessee, carry the one… $9.28.”

“So that’s how they figure out ticket service charges. Gosh, you make it look so easy.”

“It is easy once you know the formulas. Now, if you have an extra couple of hours, I’ll show you how they pick support bands.”