THE TAMING OF THE FANS

Tired Of Taking Hits To Their Reputations And Bottom Lines, Rockers
With Rowdy Fan Bases Are Making New Moves To Control Their Crowds.

Fans of O.A.R. were so rowdy at Jones Beach Theater three years ago
that the rock group has been banned from the premises ever since. More
than 20 inebriated minors were carted to local hospitals that
night-victims of group chugs, beer pong games and other parking-lot
diversions.

In response to that incident-and a number of others like it -O.A.R.
recently adopted a fan code of conduct, dubbed the "Don't be that guy
(or girl)" policy. Among other no-no's, the code demands that fans
refrain from fighting, doing illegal drugs, wielding laser pens and
drinking underage.

O.A.R. and other bands are admonishing fans in open letters and
calling out flagrant offenders from the stage. They're sending advance
teams out to brief venue managers on their audience's habits. They're
paying to supplement parking lot security teams-or importing their
own. The jam band Phish, known for its endless improvisational
interludes and fanatical following, sends out a manual to venue staff
with specific policies on how their "peaceful, intelligent" fans must
be handled.

It's a gradual shift away from the hands-off approach bands have long
taken to the action in and around their concerts, and in a shrunken
industry more dependent than ever on live-music money, it's about
business. O.A.R., which plays upbeat rock with reggae undertones, has
been trying to win its way back into Jones Beach's good graces for
three years. The potential revenue missed amounts to at least $150,000
per gig for the group.

"That's our outdoor New York play. That's a big payday wiped off the
table," says O.A.R. saxophonist Jerry DePizzo.

Still, bands are wary of playing the nagging parent. "I'm not saying
don't drink. Just don't do 13 shots out of a bowling ball," says
O.A.R. manager Dave Roberge. He elaborates: "The guy peeing where he's
standing? That's a problem."

Fan behavior is impossible to track with accuracy-just try asking
someone to fill out a survey at a Metallica concert. Some in the
concert industry argue that the steadily rising cost of alcohol inside
arenas and amphitheaters encourages concertgoers to overdo it. "If you
can buy a 12-pack for the cost of a couple beers on the inside, why
not start on the cheap stuff and get a head start?" says Harold
Hansen, a security director of the International Association of Venue
Managers.

Recently scrutiny has shifted somewhat from jam-band followers to
those in the burgeoning electronic music scene, who have resuscitated
the mass raves of the 1990s, dance marathons fueled by thumping techno
music and often drugs like Ecstasy.

The Electric Daisy Carnival was essentially drummed out of Los
Angeles, in large part because a 15-year-old girl died there last year
of an overdose, and two deaths marred another such gathering last
month in Dallas. But a similar event that drew an estimated 230,000
people to a Las Vegas racetrack recently ended after three nights
without major mishap.

In the run-up to the festival, organizer Insomniac Events had issued a
press release trumpeting its zero tolerance policy. The 1,000-acre
site was dotted with six stages where DJs bent over laptops and
turntables. Beats hammered out of sound systems and metal sculptures
breathed fire. The smell of marijuana smoke permeated the throngs,
including many women wearing bikinis and fur boots.

At one point, a young man wearing a tasseled wool cap sprinted by a
reporter, chased by a yellow-shirted security guard. The staffer
grabbed the man from behind in a neck hold while four more guards
surrounded them.

Standing outside a tunnel pulsing with colored lights, a 21-year-old
woman named Kendall said it was "unrealistic to expect at this type of
concert for people not to take drugs. It's hypocritical."

A spokeswoman for Electric Daisy organizer Insomniac Events says 1,000
security guards were onsite in Las Vegas and that the company has
comprehensive security procedures, but that fans take responsibility
for their own actions.

For acts who tour year in and year out, often returning the same
venues, a more direct communication with fans is often necessary.
Until last April, it had been nine years since Athens, Ga.-based
rockers Widespread Panic had performed at the Verizon Wireless Music
Center in Pelham, Ala.-county judges had led a charge to prevent their
return after mass arrests flooded the system over the years.

This year, after a turnover in local leadership, Widespread Panic was
booked again. The band proceeded with caution. In a newsletter to
fans, the group pleaded for self control. Paraphrasing the message,
band manager and booking agent Buck Williams says, "Don't do stupid
things--people are watching you." Though about 70 people were arrested
at the show, the majority for alcohol-related charges, Pelham police
Capt. Larry Palmer says, "You could feel the difference in the crowd.
I hope they come back next year."

Acts with a party message baked into the music itself say it would be
hypocritical to tell fans to mellow out. The San Diego band Slightly
Stoopid mixes dub reggae with freeform rock, and sends a pot-friendly
message on all levels, from its lyrics to the name of its current
"Seedless Summer" tour.

Active since 1995, the group has a reputation which precedes it, but
its business team routinely warns local promoters before they book
concerts: "There's going to be a lot of people smoking weed," says
co-manager Matt Phillips. Slightly Stoopid takes gigs on April 20, aka
4/20, the unofficial marijuana holiday, but only on the condition that
tokers in the audience go unmolested. "We'd love to put it in our
contract, but [promoters] don't want that in writing."

Slightly Stoopid believes it is no longer welcome in New York's
Central Park after some "controlled chaos" among intoxicated fans at a
concert during the park's popular Summerstage series. With limited
options for outdoor gigs in New York, the group is forced to ferry
gear and personnel out to the city's Governor's Island for an August
date. A spokesman for the Central Park Foundation says the group
hasn't been banned.

The Grateful Dead is the original model for many heavy-touring acts,
from its policy of allowing fans to record concerts, to its initially
laissez-faire attitude toward the parking-lot scene. Through the '70s
and much of the '80s, the band allowed overnight camping in parking
lots and turned a blind eye to the sale of unauthorized merchandise
and drugs. Then, in 1987, the group scored its one-and-only radio hit,
"Touch of Grey," and a flood of newly minted Dead Heads swamped the
scene. In 1989, under pressure from promoters and venues, the group
officially banned camping and vending in the lots. Fans adapted and
persisted. Some accused the band of greediness or caving in to the
man. "There was this enormous sense of entitlement in the parking
lot," says Dennis McNally, the group's historian and former publicist.

Though they were staunch anti-authoritarians, members of the Dead
reinforced the rules by releasing (pre-Internet) messages to fans via
local radio stations and newspapers. Except for Jerry Garcia, the
band's spiritual leader: "He couldn't bring himself to issue orders,"
Mr. McNally says. "He was not the mayor of a traveling city."

The band's robust three-decade relationship with its fans hit bottom
on July 2, 1995, at the former Deer Creek Music Center outside
Indianapolis. As the group played "Let It Grow," a wave of
gatecrashers kicked and ripped their way through a high wooden fence,
assisted by many audience members inside. Appalled band members looked
on from the stage as police in riot gear mustered outside.

A concert scheduled at Deer Creek for the following night was
canceled, the first time any Dead show ever had to be scratched due to
fan behavior. At the urging of the band's management, Mr. McNally sat
down in his Indianapolis hotel room and wrote a missive to the Dead
Heads.

"We're all supposed to be about higher consciousness, not drunken
stupidity," he wrote in a 400-word letter peppered with expletives.
All six band members signed the letter, including Mr. Garcia, who died
a month later.

Music acts typically don't bear legal responsibility for what goes on
outside their concerts. Parking lots are a patchwork of jurisdictions,
with anyone from state police to private security firms patrolling
them, depending on the venue. Some lots are owned by private
businesses, others by city governments.

More than almost any contemporary rock band, Phish has been saddled
with its followers' reputation for illicit activity. But the band has
grown especially savvy about smoothing the way with locals. The band
takes the rare step of sending its head of security to new venues in
advance of shows, where he briefs security on Phish Head behavior. The
group invites these new partners to attend Phish shows in other
markets. The band also offers a reference list of security personnel
at venues they've played in the past, including trouble spots, and
encourages them to compare notes with peers.

Phish also sends out a manual that includes a profile of the fans,
including their tendency to enter a venue at the last minute before
show time, and "dance and twirl in any open area" during the show.
"Phish fans are a peaceful, intelligent group of people," the document
says. Local police should be made aware of "the special handling many
situations require," it adds.

Phish began expanding its security purview after its popularity spiked
around 1995-along with arrests, bad press and a handful of
drug-related deaths. For example, the group tries to contain
"Shakedown Street," a term borrowed from a Grateful Dead song for the
inevitable black market that pops up in parking areas. Lot attendants
send the first cars to enter-those most likely to be loaded with
vendors and goods-to a remote part of the lot.

Phish's problems have declined-the band's three-day festival in
upstate New York last week left local authorities gushing with praise.
Part of how they tamed their parking lots was the aging of its
audience. In addition, the band's recent four-year hiatus dissipated a
population of fans who followed the group everywhere. That means fewer
homegrown merchants-and drug dealers-who lived off the tour economy.

Like Phish and the Dave Matthews Band, O.A.R. is represented by the
firm Red Light Management. After O.A.R.'s rocky 2008 tour, the manager
Mr. Roberge asked veterans from the Phish camp to help, including tour
manager Richard Glasgow, who went on the road with O.A.R. the next
year.

He advised the O.A.R. team on how to prepare promoters, especially in
places the band was hitting for the first time, for a potential
onslaught of young drinkers. The band crafted the code of conduct,
which was posted at venue entrances and sent out in newsletters. The
group also adopted the Phish tactic of recruiting volunteers to clean
up after fans in parking lots.

"Dave [Roberge] doesn't hide the fact that there are issues with his
band," says Kevin Morrow, president of concert promoter Live Nation's
New York division. "I've never really seen anyone address their fans
in the way O.A.R. has."

Still, the group is wary of squelching the fun. O.A.R. claims to have
turned down lucrative tour-sponsorship offers from liquor companies,
but also nixed the idea of having a Mothers Against Drunk Driving
booth at shows.

"You can't come off as too preachy. Though it's the right message, it
would be probably affect the band negatively in the eyes of its
audience," says the saxophonist Mr. DePizzo.

In preparation for last year's summer touring season, Mr. Roberge
sought a reprieve from officials at Jones Beach. In a meeting at the
park director's office on Long Island, he detailed a security
procedure for before, during and after a concert. He says he also
offered up to $25,000 to supplement the state park police detail that
patrols the concert grounds. "Didn't work," says Mr. Morrow, who was
trying to book the show. "They said, 'One day, maybe, but not now.' "
This year, with the band hitting the road to support a new album, due
in August, Mr. Morrow enquired again, but got the same rebuff.

Police, venue managers and promoters say the rampant underage drinking
at O.A.R. shows has waned.

"I don't think it's a problem anymore with them," says concert
promoter Seth Hurwitz, whose Merriweather Post Pavilion in Maryland
will host O.A.R. for the ninth time next month. Inside the venue,
"Their [revenues] per head on alcohol have gone up, and that means the
crowd's getting older."

- - Timothy Pratt in Las Vegas contributed to this article