BIDDING ON SEATS BIDDING ON SEATS Ticket prices for Bon Jovi, July 29 at Giants Stadium: Top regular price: $125 Ticketmaster auction: $150 minimum bid RazorGator: Listed by resellers at $61 to $1,232 StubHub: Listed by resellers at $65 to $1,412 Source: USA TODAY research Ticketmaster uses auctions to fight online scalpers LOS ANGELES  Don't be surprised if the best seats for a summer concert are available only via an auction. Ticketmaster, which dominates the ticket business, is fighting back against online ticket resellers by letting customers bid up the prices for the best seats and returning profits to promoters and artists. It will auction the best seats to many top summer tours, including Madonna, Shakira, Kelly Clarkson, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bon Jovi and former Pink Floyd composer Roger Waters. The Internet has made it easy for speculators to buy tickets and resell them at huge prices at online sites such as Craigslist and eBay. Ticket sites StubHub and RazorGator do nothing but resell tickets, charging both sellers and buyers service fees. Ticketmaster auction money is split between the promoter and artist, with Ticketmaster taking a service fee. Waters will perform Pink Floyd's complete Dark Side of the Moon with a backup band at New York's Madison Square Garden on Sept. 12. Regular top ticket prices are $175; the first four rows' minimum Ticketmaster auction bid is $500. Seats are being resold on StubHub and RazorGator with asking prices soaring to $4,600 and $7,000, respectively. With the Ticketmaster auctions, "the whole point was to try and recapture revenue that's being generated on the back of the artist and promoter," says Arthur Fogel, president of tour promoter TNA International, which is behind Madonna's summer tour. The best seats for Madonna's Confessions tour have a face value of $350. The Ticketmaster auction averaged $400 to $500 a ticket, Fogel says. David Goldberg, Ticketmaster executive vice president, calls the online bidding for show seats "a market solution to an industry problem. It makes it a much more level playing field." The problem is that the hottest shows sell out in minutes on the Internet. And, Fogel says, resale websites have made it easy for the ordinary computer user to become a ticket broker. Auctions "move the concert market even further from its roots: music for the people," says Gary Bongiovanni, editor of trade magazine Pollstar. "Concerts are supply and demand, and the person with the most coconuts gets the prize." Enlarge By Koji Sasahara, AP Ticketmaster will let customers bid up prices for hot summer concert tickets, including those to Bon Jovi.