Pssst ... Wanna Buy the Best Seat in the House?

Oct. 19, 2007 Special to ABCNEWS.com — -- Angry about Hannah Montana concert ticket prices rocketing into the stratosphere? Cheer up. At least it's not La Scala.

When Milan's renowned La Scala theater opens its 2007-2008 concert season on Dec. 7 with a production of Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde, you'll pay an eye-popping 2,000 euros ($2,829) for the best seats in the house. That's face value. Feel better now?

Click here to see the best seats in the house at our partner site, Forbes.com.

Forget scalping and software. To get the top tickets at any high-profile concert or athletic event these days, prepare to haul in cash by the bucket, even if you're first in line. And the best of the best? Make that a wheelbarrow. We poked around the worlds of professional sports and the performing arts to hunt down the priciest seats.

Take tickets for a New York Rangers regular-season game. They haven't won a Stanley Cup championship since 1994, but "VIP ringside" at center ice in Madison Square Garden will set you back $1,004.50, making them the most expensive regular-season, single-game seats in professional sports. (Wonder what they do with the added 50 cents?)

Or how 'bout them Yankees? Major League Baseball's Bronx Bombers haven't been to the World Series since 2003 and they haven't won it since 2000. But that doesn't stop the team from selling the priciest seats in baseball--$400 a pop to sit near home plate or along the first and third-base lines at Yankee Stadium.

Our aim was not to identify which teams, performers or venues charged the highest average ticket prices. Rather, we searched for the single most expensive ticket in 2007 for pro sports around the world, as well as Broadway, popular and classical music and dance.

We looked at face-value ticket prices for events that were open to the general public. We left out luxury suites and premium seats that included the price of food catering or required multi-event or multi-year commitments.

For athletic events, we limited ourselves to regular-season tickets that were available on a single-game basis. That excluded playoff games, championship series and World Cup tournaments. For the performing arts, we limited ourselves to performances at an art troupe's home concert hall and excluded one-off charity events.