LEWISTON – The city-owned Colisee has created an online cyber club aimed at boosting Internet sales of tickets to everything from bull riding and monster truck rallies to country concerts and dancing Muppets.

Call it cyber advertising.

In return for signing up at the venue’s Web site, www.thecolisee.com, people will be sent offers to buy tickets before they go on sale to the general public. There may also be coupons for reduced price admissions and newsletters on upcoming shows.

After only two weeks, the club has 800 members.

“We haven’t begun promoting it, yet,” said Kelly David, the Colisee’s marketing director.

One aim is to soften a fairly immovable pair of demographics, the people who buy tickets online versus the people who want to buy their tickets in person.

People who feel more comfortable with the direct personal contact of a salesperson in a box office window rarely go online, David said.

It’s a service the Colisee is happy to provide, she said, but many people like the online convenience. For the average show, online sales account for 30 to 40 percent of grosses, she said.

However, for certain shows, such as the spring concert by the band Korn, online sales surged higher. The band also offered early tickets to members of its online fan club.

“This is how everything’s going,” David said.

It’s how a growing population is learning about concerts and buying its tickets.

“For the Larry the Cable Guy show, almost all of the tickets were bought here at the box office,” she said. That concert, which happened a few weeks after the Korn show, drew an older audience.

So far, club members have received no offers. That will change in the coming weeks, promised David.

Her hope is to have the club operating before tickets go on sale for the venue’s next concert, headlined by up-and-coming country singer Dierks Bentley.

That show is scheduled for Oct. 20, with tickets tentatively slated to go on sale Sept. 16.