The first concert tour produced by downloadable-music website MP3.com got

off to a confusing start last week.

In the first four dates of the MP3.com Music and Technology Tour, which

the Goo Goo Dolls are headlining, organizers stopped charging for admission

to the tour's Village area — featuring lesser-known bands and

digital-music technology displays — in the face of low attendance.

They canceled the Village at one stop and clarified that the Goo Goo

Dolls would not be appearing on all dates.

"This is the beta test of what it is we're going to do offline," MP3.com

Senior Vice President John Diaz said Monday.

On Saturday the Village was canceled at the University of Illinois in

Champaign, Ill.

Diaz said the decision to bag the fair was made Friday evening because

of heavy rain. Earlier that day, the Village was moved inside the Assembly

Hall concert site, but it could not stay there Saturday because of the

Goo Goo Dolls' setup.

But several Assembly Hall employees, including marketing director Gary

O'Brien, said Saturday's Village was already canceled by Friday morning.

On Friday the Village "did OK, but it didn't do great," O'Brien said,

adding that while the hall hadn't sold a single $10 Village-only ticket,

the $20 ticket for the Goo Goo Dolls included entrance to the Village.

Diaz estimated that fewer than 1,000 people attended the area in more

than 10 hours on Friday.

The Village fee was scrapped during the tour's first stop, Oct. 5, at

the University of Iowa, in Iowa City. Diaz said making the fair

free encouraged more people to visit and was in keeping with MP3.com's

history of giving away music online for free.

"It was pretty disappointing the first few days," John Lenihan, MP3.com's

public relations manager, said. "The attendance for the bands wasn't

great."

In the past 18 months, MP3.com — which counts among its investors

singer/songwriter Alanis Morissette and rapper Master P's No Limit Records

— has become the epicenter for the downloadable-music movement. The

site features free, near-CD-quality music by more than 25,000 artists.

Earlier this year, MP3.com made its first move into the concert trade by

sponsoring Morissette and Tori Amos' joint 5 1/2 Weeks Tour. It also will

sponsor a TLC tour that kicks off Friday. The Music and Technology Tour

is the website's first foray into producing concerts.

The company is using the William Morris Agency to book talent for the

outing and Tour Together, an Aspen, Colo., tour production and staffing

company, to handle logistics such as staging and lighting, Diaz said.

Despite such partnerships, organization has been problematic.

Lenihan, for instance, said he did not know until Monday that Saturday's

Village production was canceled.

Last week, tour representatives at Nasty Little Man publicity said they

were unaware that the Goo Goo Dolls and Tonic would play only the second

day in cities where the tour had two-day stops. The tour's website was

amended last week to make that clear.

"It's the beginning of the tour, and there's bound to be a glitch here

and there," Nasty Little Man spokesperson Perry Serpa said Tuesday (Oct. 12).

Staging the Village area in addition to the main concert means there are

more details to be considered than on most tours, Serpa added.

The confusion doesn't appear to have affected the tour's main attractions.

The Goo Goo Dolls packed their 90-minute set with pop hits such as "Slide"

(RealAudio

excerpt), "Name" and "Iris," as well as some older, harder-rocking

material. Singer John Rzeznik bantered frequently with the crowd.

Tonic opened the show with a set that had fans standing on their chairs

even before the band dug into such hits as "If You Could Only See."