EL PASO -- Steve Dixon drove to Britney Spears' lush digs near Los Angeles last year to hear songs from what would become her new "Circus" album, the title an obvious reference to what the pop star's life had become.

Dixon, a graduate of El Paso's Coronado High School and her longtime tour accountant, latched onto it like a skilled trapeze artist. "It's got to be a three-ring circus. It has to be larger than life," he said of the stage presentation he was asked to help create for her first tour in five years.

"She was doing great at that point already. She was motivated and ready to go. She was on a health kick. Still is. So she was just ready," he said. "We figured it has to be biggest thing on the planet -- and it is."

"It" is the elaborate three-ring circus stage that will be on display Monday when the remade and remodeled teen pop icon's "The Circus Starring Britney Spears" comes to town at 8 p.m. at the Don Haskins Center. It should fill all 11,800 seats.

That the tour is coming to El Paso at all is a surprise for a city that does not host many superstar acts. Dixon acknowledges that he steered it here.

"I've got to show my mom and dad that at least once in their lives that I have a real job," joked the 45-year-old tour director and production designer.

"I really wanted to prove El Paso-Las Cruces as a market that could handle a show like this," said Dixon, who oversees virtually every aspect of the operation, including 46 performers, a 212-person crew and

28 semi-trailers worth of gear.

The Don is the smallest arena on the tour, Dixon said, forcing him to squeeze its stage into the basketball arena.

When a guy has earned a reputation for running efficient, profitable concert tours, people such as Britney Spears listen. So have his other employers, including Justin Timberlake, 'N Sync, the Backstreet Boys, Alicia Keys and Barry Manilow.

Carol Roberts-Spence, special events director for the University of Texas at El Paso, said Dixon stands out in the music world.

"He's very professional and he, of all the ones I've dealt with, is probably one of the best ones out there," she said. "He knows his business."

So how did the California-born son of a commercial airline pilot come to be a top touring honcho? It wasn't easy.

Steve Dixon is the son of Jerry and Patricia Dixon. He graduated from Coronado in 1982 with dreams of becoming a pop star. But he wasn't in harmony with higher education, failing out of, among others, El Paso Community College, UTEP and the University of Texas at Austin.

"I told my father I didn't spend seven years in junior college for nothing," he said with a laugh. "I was a musician. I didn't care. I was going to school because my parents made me."

Proud father Jerry Dixon, who now helps with the bookkeeping, said he has measured his son's success in dollars and cents. "It's been growing over the years," said the senior Dixon, 76. "You can tell by the amount of money he commands that he's obviously getting up there."

Steve Dixon's big break was meeting Barbara "Mother" Hubbard, the scion of the Southwest concert industry, who put New Mexico State University's Pan American Center on the map. She offered to show him the ropes if he'd maintain a C average.

"I figured he would go far," said Hubbard, 82. "He ... tried to be the next Neil Diamond, and I just told him, 'You'd make more money if you learn the business side of this.' That's what he did."

He worked his way up from cleaning bathrooms to handling the marketing. He also graduated from New Mexico State with degrees in journalism and business. His first job was as regional director for Ticketmaster in Houston. But Dixon wasn't cut out for the 9-to-5 life. He tried restarting his music career.

Then, out of the blue, he got a call from Hubbard, who said Wynonna Judd was looking for him.

Judd hired him for a 1994 tour. Dixon later persuaded Barry Gibb to put the Bee Gees back together for their "One Night Only." He worked for Michael "Riverdance" Flatley's "Lord of the Dance" for two years in Europe and the Middle East before returning to the United States after his mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She beat it.

Soon after, he got a call to come work for "an artist who was breaking and needed help."

Britney Spears.

Dixon has worked on all of her tours, rising from tour accountant to tour director and production designer. His company, Music Tour Management, conducts its business from El Paso.

Among his innovations on the "Circus" tour are the 80 high-priced ($500 in El Paso) ringside seats that circle the stage.

"Some of these artists hate that abyss, the six feet between the barricade (that separates them from the crowd), because it's so impersonal," he said. "So we came up with a way to turn the chairs into the barricade."

He has carved out a niche by running tours that control costs while offering more bang for fans' bucks. "My forte became profitability. ... I stole the catch phrase from the film business -- that you spend money where people see it and don't spend where they don't," Dixon said.

His style is to keep the lines of communication open among all the parties involved. It wasn't like that when he got into the teen pop touring business in the late 1990s.

"Nobody was communicating to find out what the problems were once a tour was over," he said. "You're licking your wounds instead of preventing a train wreck."

Of course, that's what a lot of people think Britney Spears is. She is slowly overcoming that image.

Dixon said the singer has good creative instincts, knows how to entertain an audience and is doing well on this tour.

"She has an amazing level of creativity, and she's keenly aware of the audience. Listen, she's gone through a bad time, but she's back. Back better than ever."

He's got her back, too. When asked how she was holding up, Dixon answered carefully.

"The only thing I'll say about her private life is one thing that's important for any of these celebrities when they're working hard is they have to find balance," he said.

"That's one thing we're all focused on, to help her keep balance. She works hard, spends a lot of time with her family. But ... when she pops out of the stage and is doing her show is when she shines."

Doug Pullen may be reached at dpullen@elpasotimes.com; 546-6397. Read Pullen My Blog at www.elpasotimes.com/blogs.

What: Britney Spears, with Jordin Sparks and Kristiana DeBarge.
When: 8 p.m. Monday.
Where: Don Haskins Center, UTEP.
How much: $47.50 and $97.50 (floor seats are sold out), on sale at the University Ticket Center, Ticketmaster outlets, www.ticketmaster.com and 800-745-3000.
Information: 747-5234; www.utepspecialevents.com