By Jim McCarthy Mar 29, 2011 0 comments

Another Violent Tornado of Truth…

Apparently, the furious rate of sales to Charlie Sheen’s “tour” is primarily attributable, at least in NYC, to broker speculation.  The quote from the NY Post piece from a broker who’d gone long on Charlie Sheen tickets and is now going to lose a bundle was pretty funny and should be enshrined on a bronze plaque at the Ticket Broker Hall of Fame:

“If I opened the newspaper tomorrow and saw that [Sheen] was dead, my first reaction wouldn’t be ‘Darn, I really liked his movies.’ It would be, ‘Sweet! Now I get my money back from Ticketmaster!’”

(What?  There’s no Ticket Broker Hall of Fame?  Don Vaccaro, call your office!)

Well, it’s the job of a ticket broker to speculate but it doesn’t look like it’s going to pay off this time.  I can practically hear a countdown in my head until Bob points out how Charlie Sheen is all train-wreck value, and that train-wreck value doesn’t tour well because there’s no core fan base.  Yep, I can hear it now, primarily because he’s completely right.  (And here am I predicting what Bob L is going to say when just at this moment, he sends out a piece about his dental emergency last night.  Hope you’re ok, Bob. :) )

A couple weeks ago, I was talking about how a live tour was the natural thing one does when one feels that one is “winning” and wants to capitalize it.  As it turns out, touring may be the thing that actually tells you how much you really are winning, as opposed to youtube views or mentions in gossipy websites.  Warren Buffett once said that the stock market is “in the short term, a voting machine; in the long-term, a weighing machine.”

Similarly perhaps, internet popularity is a voting machine, but touring is a weighing machine.

UPDATE: What Lefsetz actually said.  I wasn’t miles off. :)

UPDATE 2: The first show was a total bomb and Sheen got booed off the stage .  Lefsetz, who I’m going to keep tracking on this because this is the kind of thing Bob was born to write about, thinks that the brokers might get their wish.

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