Streisand Tickets Still on Sale for Anaheim Shows : Pop music: Despite a likely record box-office take, some seats are up for grabs at or near face value.

Barbra Streisand arrives at the Anaheim 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 playing 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 New York’s Shea Stadium.

Streisand’s unprecedented prices should enable her to eclipse that record at the Pond, where tickets are $350, $125 and $50. Promoters of the Anaheim shows are not releasing estimated grosses at this point, but the $12-million mark appears to be within reach.

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

For people who bought Streisand tickets as investors, the financial picture may not be so bright.

As with all major shows, a chunk of the 75,000 tickets was gobbled up by brokers and individuals looking for a bonanza in the resale market. Streisand directed 2,000 prime 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 demand has been good, but hasn’t come close to initial expectations that one broker described as “hysterical.”

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Most of the charity tickets are still for sale and some 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 tickets at the face price for at least some of the shows. That was bad news for speculators hoping Streisand tickets would, at this point, be rare and much bid-upon items.

The initial Streisand announcement “turned Los Angeles into a city of scalpers,” said ticket broker Fred Ross, a director of the California Assn. of Ticket Agencies.

“So many people bought tickets--not (just) ticket brokers, but (regular) people who thought they could resell the tickets and make money. . . . I get 10 calls from people wanting to sell 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, an Anaheim high school teacher, was among those who got caught up in the speculative bubble and are now trying to unload Streisand tickets via the classifieds. Carroll thought he got lucky when he was first in line to buy tickets at an outlet last March.

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“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. “Now I’m just trying to sell them at face value.”

Brokers on Monday quoted 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, brokers were asking $550 for prime locations for the Eagles’ upcoming sold-out stand at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre.

But Ross said that the top Eagles seats, with a face value of $115, are in greater demand for resale than the $350 Streisand tickets. “People bought Eagles tickets with the idea they were going to the shows,” he said. “People bought tickets to Barbra Streisand with the idea they were going to sell them.”

That created lots of competition for the charities that received tickets to sell at the $1,000 price mandated by Streisand.

“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 charities. “I’ve learned a lot since then. The market was saturated.”

* Charities with $1,000-tickets available: Natural Resources Defense Council, (310) 996-1188; Alliance for Children’s Rights, (310) 393-5600; Girls’ Voices/Women’s Lives, (310) 478-3002; Legal Aid Foundation, (310) 477-0672; Operation USA, (800) 678-7255.

Free-lance writer Jim Washburn contributed to this report.