Despite early year successes by acts such an Bon Jovi, the Spice Girls, and the Police, the touring panel at the annual conference of the International Association of Assembly Managers predicts that energy costs and the economy’s slowdown will have a crippling effect on the fall touring schedule. Speaking on the panel, CAA managing partner Rob Light said that of the strong performing tours, “ninety percent went on sale before April, when gas really kicked in and the housing crunch started to happen.”

John Meglen, co-president of Concerts West, also expressed concern over the secondary sales market, where inflationary prices are leading music fans to skip seeing their favorite acts live. Though the panel’s predictions were pretty grim, it did point to the advent of paperless ticketing and development of record labels as possible fixes to some of the problems facing live music.

Though it will be nice not to have to buy a scalped ticket and more bands will play live if their album is tied to the company backing their tour, the panel did fail to address the fact that, no matter what fixes they implement, the only result is that it will be easier to see Miley Cyrus, Dave Matthews, or some other established act.

Smaller acts don’t fit into the equation, and will have to come up with their own fixes to the problem of touring in a recession. [Billboard]