That all depends, for there are various market factors involved when adding up the material expenses occurred in an immaterial operation such as ours. There are market fluctuations and the ever-changing prices of wholesale tour info. Stock market activity, regional weather conditions, legal expenses, and yes, even politics is a factor when trying to come up with a solid figure that represents the intangible price of the finished product, such as Ashlee Simpson playing in Seattle on February 24.

Sure, there’s the obvious ethereal expense one sees when visiting our main facility in California’s central San Joaquin Valley. For instance, the new dates for Aaron Carter were trucked in, while the dates for Snoop Dogg and Fighting Gravity came by train. Of course, loading docks, Teamsters and railroad spurs cost money, as do heliports, private airstrips and state-of-the-art matter teleporters. However, the cost of delivering bulk data to our facility represents only a fraction of the total overall price of tour information.

Like many fluctuating values for indefinable goods, the price of tour dates often begins its long journey somewhere out there before it reaches the here and now of Fresno, California. Whether the dates originated at the itinerary mines in the Mojave Desert and were mule-trained to the closest transportation facility, or if the dates were carried on the backs of children making five cents per day in Thailand and Canada to waiting barges for a slow trip upriver, the expenses add up, and help determine the final sticker price for, say the new routing for Keller Williams or the additional dates for Bright Eyes and Percy Sledge.

But costs occurred at points of origin for determining the indeterminable value of tour dates make up only a small slice of the tenuous pie. Current events may also raise, lower or stabilize data prices. For example, the recent confirmation that Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko suffered deliberate dioxin poisoning was responsible for the sudden rise in price for Slipknot dates, while news of the latest search by the police of Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch has played havoc with recent wholesale prices for dates for The Good Life and Larry The Cable Guy. Furthermore, while the influence on tour date prices resulting from Major League Baseball’s current steroid scandal has yet to be seen, more than one market analyst has warned us that it “ain’t gonna be pretty.”

How much do tour dates cost? One may very well ask how much a sunny day costs, or what’s the going price for a kidney for sale on eBay? As with all good things, computing the concrete value of something as abstract as concert data can make one’s head spin, for pondering the imponderable always leads to inconclusive answers to incomprehensible questions. However, we hope this exploration of the subtle, yet ambiguous nature of tour dates has been as imperceptible as it has been diaphanous.

Coming up later this week – How much would rumored photos of Lindsay Lohan pushing the PLAY button on a tape machine before making an appearance on a major TV network’s morning show sell for on the open market? Stay tuned.