Streisand Show: The Warmest Ticket in Town : Tour: Although her six-night engagement is likely to set single-venue sales records, demand for the steeply priced seats has fallen short of expectations in the resale market.

Barbra Streisand arrives at The Pond tonight, poised to set box office records with a six-night gross that is likely to top $12 million.

According to rankings kept by Pollstar, a concert industry trade magazine, the record for a touring performer in a series of concerts at a single venue is $11.6 million, set by the Rolling Stones in 1989 with a six-show engagement at Shea Stadium in New York City.

Streisand’s unprecedented ticket prices--a scale of $350, $125 and $50 is standard throughout her five-city tour--should enable her to eclipse that record. Promoters of the shows here are not releasing estimated grosses, but the $12-million mark appears within reach.

The Anaheim dates are expected to draw about 12,500 paying fans each night. Given an average ticket price of $172.30, Streisand would siphon $2.15 million out of The Pond each night and $12.9 million over six nights.

“That would certainly be a record for any touring artist,” said Pollstar editor Gary Bongiovanni, “a record that for the moment looks untouchable, unless she decides to break it herself.”

Yet for people who bought Streisand tickets not as fans but as investors, the financial picture may not be so bright.

When the tickets went on sale on March 27, all 75,000 sold out in a three-hour frenzy in which Ticketmaster received an estimated 1 million calls. As always with major shows, a chunk of the tickets was gobbled up by brokers and individual speculators who thought there would be a bonanza in the scalpers market. Streisand herself directed some 2,000 prime-location tickets to six Southern California charities, specifying that the $350 seats be sold for $1,000 as an aid to fund raising.

Ticket brokers say that while demand for Streisand seats in the resale market has been good, it hasn’t come close to initial expectations that one broker described as “hysterical.”

Most of the charity tickets went unsold and were returned to be put on sale at face value through regular outlets. As of Tuesday afternoon, you could still drive to the arena box office or call Ticketmaster and get $125 or $350 tickets at the face price--bad news for those hoping the Streisand tickets would, at this point, be rare and much bid-upon items.

Indeed, the current O.C. Recycler classifieds list 112 parties selling Streisand tickets.

The initial announcement that Streisand was coming “turned Los Angeles into a city of scalpers,” said Fred Ross, a ticket broker in Los Angeles and a director of the California Assn. of Ticket Agencies, the brokers’ trade group. “So many people bought tickets--not (just) ticket brokers but (regular) people who thought they could resell the tickets and make money. And that hasn’t happened.

“A lot of people are going to lose money. I get 10 calls from people wanting to sell Barbra Streisand tickets for every one person wanting to buy a ticket. That isn’t to say there isn’t a lot of interest in the show, but the ticket price has gone beyond what people are willing or able to pay.”

Tim Carroll, a 55-year-old high school teacher from Anaheim, was among those who were caught up in the speculative bubble for Streisand tickets and who now are trying to unload them via the classifieds. Carroll thought he got lucky when he was first in line to buy tickets at an outlet in March.

“I wasn’t going to buy any of the $350 seats, but there I was, and I thought maybe I could buy them and make a little profit on them,” Carroll said over the weekend. “Now I’m just trying to sell them at face value.”

Still, brokers on Monday were quoting prices as high as $750 for Streisand tickets in the first few rows and as low as $110 for nosebleed seats with a $50 face value. At the same time, though, they were asking $550 for prime locations for the Eagles’ upcoming sold-out stand at Irvine Meadows.

Ross said the top Eagles seats (face value: $115 each) are scarcer and in greater demand for resale than the $350 Streisand tickets. “We get lots of calls from buyers for the Eagles, hardly any calls from sellers. People bought Eagles tickets with the idea they were going to the shows. People bought tickets to Barbra Streisand with the idea they were going to sell them.”

And that created lots of competition for those charities, which also are trying to sell tickets.

“When this was first considered, there was 100% unanimity that these tickets would sell faster than Manhattan Island did,” said Al Meyerhoff, senior attorney in charge of the pesticide campaign of the National Resources Defense Council, one of the groups Streisand is trying to help. “I’ve learned a lot since then. The market was saturated.”

Meyerhoff said his organization would be able to sell only 100 or 150 of its initial 500-ticket allotment. That also was the pattern for the Alliance for Children’s Rights, the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles and Operation USA’s earthquake relief fund. Officials at those agencies said they initially took 250 to 450 tickets but were able to sell only about 100 of them at the specified $1,000. The United Friends of the Children would not release figures.

Bucking the trend was Girls’ Voices/Women’s Lives, a program of the Hollywood Policy Center. Executive director Kathy Garmezy said the agency “tried to hit the ground running right away and be really creative in reaching out” and managed to sell virtually all of its 350-ticket allotment. Garmezy said the ticket sales would net the program nearly $200,000.

The six charities were not given tickets outright but, in a paper transaction, had to buy them at their $350 face value before reselling them. They incurred additional expenses for advertising and other marketing costs.

Garmezy and officials of some of the other nonprofit groups said they typically turn to Los Angeles’ entertainment community for donations. This time, “we knew that community would be a less likely source than usual,” Garmezy said, because many in Hollywood would have access to Streisand tickets through other channels.

But even those who were less successful said the Streisand tickets had netted them a good chunk of money for their programs, as well as helpful publicity and exposure.

Jeffrey Schwartz, development director for the Alliance for Children’s Rights, said his agency sold about 100 tickets and will net about $50,000. “Expectations were so high, and sometimes when expectations are so high, you scratch your head and say, ‘It wasn’t what I expected.’ But it will be a very nice sum, and the value in terms of putting us on the map has been fabulous.”

Marge Tabankin, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Streisand Foundation, the outlet for Streisand’s giving, said the attempt to sell charity tickets for $1,000 “was an experiment. We were trying to direct those people who would pay scalpers to nonprofit organizations.” Of the various tour stops, “Detroit was the biggest problem (in terms of selling the $1,000 tickets). D.C. was fair, San Jose is good, and Los Angeles is in the middle.

“New York (where Streisand will play five tour-concluding concerts starting June 20) is fabulous. The Gay Men’s Health Crisis Center in New York sold 1,000 tickets and called for another thousand. New York is more insane. People are in total Barbra hysteria in New York.”

In Los Angeles, according to ticket broker Ross, some tougher realities may have kept the initial, record-setting run at the box office from touching off the voracious resale demand that speculators both charitable and profit-seeking had been counting on.

“Maybe they didn’t think of the earthquake having a big effect in Los Angeles,” he said. “Maybe they didn’t think of the economy in Southern California being in as bad a shape as it really and truly is. Maybe there were too many shows. As phenomenal as she is, maybe there just isn’t that big a demand for her tickets.”

Correspondent Jim Washburn contributed to this report.

Charities still selling $1,000 tickets: for tonight’s show, the National Resources Defense Council, (310) 996-1188); for Friday, the Alliance for Children’s Rights, (310) 393-5600; for Sunday, Girls’ Voices/Women’s Lives, (310) 478-3002); for Tuesday, the Legal Aid Foundation, (310) 477-0672; for June 2, Operation USA, (800) 678-7255.

TO BE EXPECTED

Concert-goers are urged to have cash for parking and arrive early, so they can go through metal detectors. F2

TO BE PONDERED

The Pond of Anaheim has lots to offer a performer, and it expects something in return from the exposure. F10