Bloggers Go Crazy For Cruise

I encourage everyone to go to Google and type in, "tom cruise is an idiot." There are close to 250,000 returns. Sarah tells me that all of the radio stations she listened to in on her way in to work this morning were hammering home the same message that seemingly thousands of bloggers are, TOM CRUISE IS AN IDIOT. Tom is a dyslexic high school drop out and now he wants to lecture the world!

I read that Katie's parents are not too happy about her engagement and recent conversion to Scientology. I love the capitalist spirit of our country because someone has already created some merchandise and a web site where you can buy it. We hope that you all will throw some financial support to http://www.freekatie.com/.





Wow! It is easy to get off track when you have actors totally showing the world how stupid they are.

Major League Baseball All Star Game Tickets are still holding up pretty well. It will be interesting to see what happens to the market next week. If there are truly a lot of orders out there then next week we should see the market edge up a bit. It is always possible that we will see more supply come on the market and if that supply is larger than the demand that the remaining orders bring the market should soften.

I received an inquiry yesterday from one of our customers about Live 8 tickets in London. I immediately checked the broker secondary market because there were brokers accepting pre-orders for the tickets at $900 each last week for delivery the day of the event somewhere near Hyde Park. I was amazed that not only were there no brokers accepting pre-orders but that the entire listing for Live 8 had been removed from the market. Maybe Sir Bob has been pressuring some of the American Broker-to-Broker networks also. For the life of me I still can not figure out why eBay succumbed to the pressure and why anyone else would. I just don't see that Sir Bob had anything on eBay that would make them give it up. I did check http://www.craigslist.com/ for London and found lots of Live 8 tickets going for somewhere around 600 Pounds per pair.

I have also been following the situation in England in regards to ticket touts very closely. It seems to me that the combination of the Live 8 fiasco and Wimbledon happening around the same time has been more than the anti free market forces could withstand. The anti touting crowd in England has been whipped into a frenzy. I read that there have been injunctions against around 28 different companies for selling Wimbledon tickets over the internet. The leadership of the four sports(Rugby, Football, Cricket, and Tennis) have petitioned the government to make it illegal to re-sell tickets for all sports. It is currently only illegal to re-sell football tickets in England. They also want a higher penalty for violations of this law and argue that the current 500 pound penalty for reselling football tickets is not high enough is so small that it is merely a nuisance to the touts and does deter them from breaking the law.

I continue to find it amazing that Europe and now England are running very fast in the opposite direction that we seem to be running. There have been several major pro ticket broker breakthroughs in America just in the last two months. Meanwhile across the pond they are trying as hard as they can to make it difficult for the touts using both the law, RFID technology, and named tickets.

I will go on record with a prediction. If the English courts decide to make it very difficult for the touts we will see a lot more British touts running around on the streets of America. This business is too profitable and too necessary for them to give it up. I say let them come over here and create profitable companies that create jobs and tax revenues for our State and Federal Governments.


Until tomorrow - Adios!

You must be shitting me!

I don't normally double blog in one day but I just read what follows in the magazine called, "The Week."

The Church of Scientology has apparently assigned Katie Holmes a "handler" who follows the actress everywhere, says the New York Post. Holmes, who became engaged last week to ardent Scientologist Tom Cruise, now is accompanied everywhere by Scientology official Jessica Rodriguez. "Jessica is reporting back to top-level people on a daily basis about how Katie is faring," a former Scientologist told the New York Post. "In all my years with the church, I never saw them assign a handler to travel with a celeb.... They're obviously worried that Katie's conversion will backfire."

This is just unbelievable to me. Poor beautiful Katie has become engaged to an half brained egomaniac totalitarian idiot. They're worried Katie's conversion won't stick? I guess I would be too if I was suckering people with some bull shit religion started by a science fiction author. I'm sure little Katie lays awake in bed at night wondering if Xenu really exists or if maybe Tom is Xenu. The stupidity here is hilarious.

Katie, wake up and get out while you still can.

Later!

Biffle Out Front

Greg Biffle is out in front leading the pack in the Nextel Cup race. Go Greg, you know you are our favorite driver!

The race this weekend at Daytona is another disappointing ticket. It is always sort of less than face grind it out event, but we just have not been able to do the volume on it we normally do. We bought in all the tickets from our regular sellers of the events and have been able to move all but two of them for low margins so at least we are not losing money.

The Taco Bell MLB All Star game seems to show some signs of loosening but it is still a very tight ticket. I will be heading to Detroit at some point late next week and will blog you from there to keep you updated. Get-Ins appear to be available at around $450 right now, and decent field level infield seats are going for $1200-$2000.

Unfortunately we will not be fishing with the folks from the Gray Drake while in Michigan. I waited to long to book my date and they got all booked up on me. It is unfortunate, but from what I hear the fishing is tough up there right now do to low water levels and high temperatures. I will definitely book with them for a date around the Super Bowl. It will be witches titty cold but the fishing is great on the Muskegon River during the winter. Meanwhile, here in Georgia we were forecasted to have a hot dry summer which would have been bad for trout fishing but so far it has been cool and wet which has produced some pretty good fishing opportunities. I hope to hit one of our mountain streams over the next few days before I head to Detroit, but if not there is always the pond!

Until tomorrow - Adios!

Average actor becomes moron

Tom Cruise, a small man, has been in the news more than his fair share lately. There are several story lines to follow with the most vivid being his recent engagement to the lovely Katie Holmes. Tom had his moment on Oprah where he made a fool of himself professing his love for Katie. Tom, I was very proud of you at that moment. Tom also decided to go public about Brooke Shields use of the anti-depressant Paxil to combat her bouts with post-partum depression. I guess Tom has ovaries and feels he knows a little about post-partum depression now. Then the little man goes ballistic on Matt Lauer's program about prescription drugs and Psychiatry, etc. Tom is a Scientologist and Scientologists do not believe in Psychiatry or drugs as a treatment for anything, what they believe in is a self help cult that is slowly bilking its members out of every penny they have.

Scientology provides a deep well of incredibly comical stuff, I'll just mention the bit I found most hilarious. It involves a guy named Xenu.
According to Wikipedia: "In Scientology doctrine, Xenu is a galactic ruler who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of people to Earth, stacked them around volcanoes, and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. Their souls then clustered together and stuck to the bodies of the living, and continue to cause people problems today."
The details of the story are outrageously funny. For giggles, search for "Xenu" on linkWikipedia.org. Or just check out the web page "operation clambake", at www.xenu.com.

I think the fact that little Tom believes in this Scientologists version of creation is testament to what little brainpower he has. We are estimating Tom's IQ to be somewhere around 105, which is smart enough to memorize lines and make nice facial expressions but well below genius. Hell, even some IQ expert put a number on the President's IQ and John Kerry's during the campaign and they both came in the mid 120's.

Katie Holmes may be beautiful, but Tom is an idiot.

Shut up little man.

Until tomorrow - Adios!

Abused child becomes angry adult

Heavy metal singer Axl Rose, who was raised as Bill Bailey, describes his childhood in mostly angry terms. He speaks of physical and sexual abuse, of a mother who was never there for him, of a stepfather who whacked him for singing along with Barry Manilow's "Mandy." He talks about singing songs of Elvis in front of the smaller children at recess when he was in third grade. He tells stories of witnessing astonishing things springing from a fervent Pentecostal upbringing, and winning prizes for learning Bible verses, yet being unable to believe anything of what he was taught.

By the age of 16, young Bill had developed into a "full-fledged juvenile delinquent," and was banned from his parents' home. He was jailed many times, though says he was not guilty except for some arrests for underage drinking. At 17 he learned that the man who had raised him, Stephen Bailey, was not his natural father, and adopted his natural father's surname of Rose. "Axl" was the name of one of his early bands. Pundits have noted that "Axl Rose" is an anagram of "oral sex," which may have appealed to the rebellious young man.

At 18 Axl hitchhiked to Los Angeles to seek his fortune. There he met up with school friend Izzy Stradlin, and over the next several years the two struggled their way toward success, sometimes living on the streets, playing wherever and whenever they could. The band Guns N' Roses, formed in 1985, had enough success to start playing as a lead act for established groups, and eventually made a name for themselves.

Between 1987 and 1991, Axl was arrested several times for assault. At some point he was diagnosed as bipolar and put on lithium; one source says he also underwent anger management therapy. Axl himself has been quoted as saying, "I'm very sensitive and emotional and things upset me and make me feel like not functioning or dealing with people... I went to a clinic, thinking it would help my moods. The only thing I did was to take one 500 question test - ya know, filling in the little black dots. All of a sudden I'm diagnosed manic-depressive. 'Let's put Axl on medication.' Well, the medication doesn't help me deal with the stress. The only thing it does is help keep people off my back because they figure I'm on medication."

It's impossible to say categorically whether Axl Rose is bipolar. Some of his behaviors - explosive anger, alcohol use in youth, substance abuse - could point to this, but could also be signs of post-traumatic stress disorder or other affective disorders. Accounts of his life give information about his childhood that is conflicting at times. Yet certainly he has had a turbulent life, and by all accounts, not a happy one.

Axl Rose is a loser.

Until tomorrow - Adios.

The Sharpie 500 Ticket Hawk

It's about that time of year again folks. Yes, it's the time of year to start scoping out the scene for the Sharpie 500, other wise known as the Bristol Night Race. Year after year we continue to sell more tickets for this race than any other on the NASCAR circuit. Something about the night race just drives NASCAR fans mad.

The eBay market for Sharpie 500 tickets is starting to take hold and thicken up with inventory, and the broker secondary market seems to be a tad tight. I am in the opinion developing process on this one and right now all I see are mixed signals. While we are still selling more of the Sharpie than any other race, it is not selling as well as last year and at the same time other brokers and tour operators tell me that it is selling very well. Our current pricing seems to be about the same as it always is around this time of year and you can check it out at http://www.alphatickets.com/catalog/sharpie_500_at_bristol_motor_speedway_414181_products.htm.

Alpha Tickets official favorite driver, Greg Biffle, won again last weekend at the Batman Begins 400. Greg has more first place finishes this year than any other driver and is just 49 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson. You have to wonder about a guy named Jimmie and why he spells his name the way he does. We think that Jimmie may be a metrosexual blumpkin afficiando. The boys will head to Sonoma this weekend to do it all again at the Dodge/Save Mart 350. Greg, good luck to you out there!

Until tomorrow - Adios!

Mr. Won't You Please Help My Pony

There is a book called, "the purpose driven life," by Rick Warren. The premise of this book is that God has a purpose for everyone's life. I am beginning to think that I may have uncovered what the purpose of Howard Dean's life is. The purpose of the good Dr.'s life is to complete the total destruction of the Democratic Party as we know it. Hillary and Bill, one of you two better swing into action and save the day before this crazy man drives your bus off the cliff.

Thanks God.

Until tomorrow - Adios!

College Football Tickets & Predictions

To follow on from yesterday I have been taking a look at what the punters think is going to happen in NCAA Football. On Tradesports, The USC Trojans are the overwhealming favorites to win it all. The Trojans are priced in at a 32% chance of winning the whole shooting match at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on January 4, 2006. The Miami Hurricanes are priced at an 8.6% chance and the Texas Longhorns are coming at 7.9%. The Buckeyes of Ohio State are at 7% and they will get to face off with Texas on September 10th at home where one of those two teams chances will die and one will go up. In the SEC, Florida is priced at a 6.5% chance, Tennessee at 5.9%, and LSU at 4.4%.

The tickets for the Ohio State vs. Texas game are very hot and we are seeing a lot of early interest. Get-ins are running around $275 per ticket and the best seats in the house are in the $600-$1000 range.

My prediction is that Ohio State will win the game and go on to win the Big Ten title and may end up playing USC in the Rose Bowl but this will all depend on the fortunes of the big boys in the Southeastern Conference. If Tennessee, LSU, or Florida can run the table and win in the SEC Championship game you will have another situation like we had last year and the BCS folks will have another hard decision to make. Whatever happens, I think I agree with the punters that USC will play in the Rose and win it.

Until tomorrow - Adios!

Early Football Line

Some of you may not realize this but if your taking short orders on the Super Bowl you really need to be paying attention to who may get in the game. As we saw last year, the teams that go to the Super Bowl can have a major effect on the price of tickets. Location can also be a factor but we have not had a desirable location since the San Diego game in 2003, and Detroit will certainly not be a place where people will want to go to the Super Bowl just to go and get away from the cold.

I have been on Tradesports(www.tradesports.com) this morning checking out the early money on who will win the NFC and AFC. The pricing seems to be about the same as where we left off last season which as luck would have it is the way ticket brokers seem to have the tickets priced.

In the NFC the punters believe that the Eagles are the only team that has a chance and have them priced in at a 30% chance of winning the NFC. The Falcons and the Vikings are tied for runner up and are priced in at around an 11.5% chance of winning the NFC. Personally I think the Vikings and the Falcons would make smart bets.

In the AFC we have more of a contest. The bettors currently have the Colts slightly over the Patriots to win it all. The Colts are priced in at 20% chance to win the AFC, and the Patsies at 19.9%. Flying under the radar screen and probably a decent bet for one who wants to take a shot are the Pittsburgh Steelers priced in at 11.4%.

Meanwhile over at the Ticket Reserve(www.ticketreserve.com) they are selling Fan Forwards for the Super Bowl. Alpha Tickets did real well last year with the Fan Forwards owning 16 of them combined between the Eagles and the Patriots. A Fan Forward is an option to buy one Super Bowl ticket at face value if the underlying team on your contract advances to the Super Bowl by winning their conference championship. Currently the asking price for a Fan Forward for the Philadelphia Eagles is $600. If you were to buy two Fan Forwards for the Eagles at $600 plus commission it would cost you $1260. If the Eagles win the NFC you would then have the option to buy two tickets at face value of $500 or $1000 for the pair which would net you into your two seats at $1130 per ticket. If the Eagles are in the Super Bowl it is a safe bet that $1130 per ticket has you well into the money, even in Detroit.

Below are some current prices off Ticket Reserve for some of the favorite teams:

Atlanta Falcons $120
Minnesota Vikings $75
Philadelphia Eagles $600

Indy Colts $250
NE Patriots $389
Pittsburgh Steelers $259

Traders take note of how on Tradesports Pittsburgh is priced about the same as the Falcons and Vikings but on Ticket Reserve they are priced slightly higher than the Tradesports favorite Indianapolis Colts. Could be the makings of a Super Bowl trade right here in Mid June! If only Ticket Reserve were a two way market like Tradesports we could really start to get clever.

The Alpha Tickets blog will continue to follow the situation from here through the end of the NFL playoffs. We will continue to keep you updated on both markets and their respective pricing as well give some suggested trades that we will track and follow.

Until tomorrow - Adios!

Fishing Report

What can I say? It was a tough weekend on the water! We fished the Davidson River near Brevard, North Carolina and the South Mills also near Brevard. The water flows were about four times their normal level due to the rain from the tropical storm that hit the gulf coast last week. We worked our asses off out there and caught very few fish. Maybe they were freaked out about the water flows or maybe we are just bad fisherman. The Davidson River was damn sure loaded up with fish, we just could not catch them. The Davidson is a beautiful river with a lot of large wild Brown, Brook, and Rainbow Trout. In two days of fishing I caught one small Rainbow and my friends caught three to four fish each. We got a lot of exercise but caught very few fish.

I thought for a few minutes yesterday afternoon I was going to have to gas up the car and head back to North Carolina to unload our Monday playoff tickets. It looked for a minute that Campbell may fall apart and Woods may catch him, but in the end the Kiwi prevailed and there was no need to head back to North Carolina. Thank God.

We are now starting to get calls from the sellers of Brickyard 400 tickets. If you are a seller and you are reading this you may want to pay attention. This thing goes the same way every year and I see no reason it will not be the same this time around. The sellers have started calling and we are now in what I will call the "Stalemate" period. The "Stalemate" period will last for about three to four weeks. During this period I will start by offering the sellers about $15 less than face value and each week I will lower what I offer until I get to about half of face value, and during this period all of the callers will say something like, "but that's not even face value, no thanks." After about four weeks of us not buying any tickets and constantly lowering our offers the sellers will start calling at a more frantic pace and will be taking whatever we offer just to get something back for their soon to be worthless pieces of paper. Folks, we have a safe full of unused tickets for this race. There have been times when I have sent stacks of tickets to the street with the instruction to just get whatever you can for them, anything, and I get them all back unsold. It's almost as if you have to pay someone to take these things on the day of the race. If you are reading this and you have them, you may want to take the $15 under today because it is not going to get any better.

Until tomorrow - Adios.

Gone Fishin'

There will be no daily blog tomorrow because to celebrate the end of a very successful run with the US Open Golf Tournament I am going fishing! Much thanks to the generosity of one Mr. Billy Norrell otherwise known as #1FB(number one fishing buddy). Billy has a speaking engagement tonight to a group at the Grove Park Inn, http://www.groveparkinn.com/ and the group is nice enough to be picking up his room for the weekend so he has invited me to share with him in fellowship and fishing. We are no strangers to the waters around Asheville for we have fished up there quite a bit. I fished up on the North Mills just last month. I am not sure which rivers or streams we will hit but on Friday and Saturday when normally I would be working I will be casting the long stick for the most beautiful fish on earth in some of the most beautiful places.

Yes we are officially finished with the US Open Golf Tournament. We still have one order to ship but all tickets to cover are purchased. Our profit margins on this event were very high, which is a nice change of pace considering what we have gone through for most of the year. My partner, Brad Mackler, was convinced after the Masters that the US Open was going to whip our asses. I tried to assuage his fears but to no avail. I am thankful to God that this one went our way and big time. The event was super hot before and after the Masters which allowed us to get much higher prices than normal but that is also what caused our fear. In the end the short sellers prevailed as the market for US Open tickets crashed.

Our next move is the Major League Baseball All Star Game. We do not have a lot of short orders for this event, only a tiny few. I am thankful that our position is small and easily coverable but it was by design. We started getting calls for the All Star game much earlier this year than normal and have felt bullish on it all the way. We made a decision to not get too short because we wanted to attend the event and have everything covered and be able to simply source tickets for those that need them. If any of you brokers that need a lot of tickets for the All Star Game are reading this take note. Please visit our site for our phone numbers, www.alphatickets.com , and get in touch with Sarah and she will put you in touch we me or Brad to help you cover your orders or handle consignments.

Until Monday - Adios!

Ainu, are you out there?

I hope all of you enjoyed the "warm currents" blog as much as I did. That girl is seriously funny! Ainu you have talent! Is that your real name?

Michael Jackson walked on all charges as I expected. All of the witnesses against him were clowns. I hope Mike will follow through with his threat to move to Europe when his trial was over. I think Mike will find him self more at home in a place like France.

Orders for the PGA Championship seem to be picking up. The PGA Championship is at Baltusrol in Springfield, New Jersey. The Championship is usually not a great ticket but if you want to grind it out there is some money to be made. I suppose if Tiger can win at the Open this week maybe it will improve a bit because Tiger will be one step close to a real grand slam instead of the feaux grand slam he had a few years back.

The Detroit Pistons won last night and in a big way. I knew they would do better once they were back on their home court. Get-Ins for tomorrow nights game are going for around $120 which is much less than they were going for late last week. So much inventory on the secondary market and so little time to move it makes for a lot of downward pricing pressure.

NASCAR heads to Michigan this weekend for the Batman Begins 400. We usually get a lot of advance orders for this race and take a lot of orders the week of the event but not this year. Maybe gasoline prices are starting to make people think twice about loading up in the RV and heading for the races? Or maybe, Little E's poor performance this year has people less interested? Who knows, all we do know is that the NASCAR summer schedule is selling much weaker than in years past.

Uncle Mike came back from Bonnaroo and said he had an awesome time. He enjoyed it despite not taking a shower for five days. He said you could get a warm shower for a price of $10, but who needs one? Mike says that Panic(www.widespreadpanic.com) on Saturday night and the Drive By Truckers(www.drivebytruckers.com) were the highlights of his weekend. He also said that hippie girls have big boobies and tend to go without bras more than with them which provided him with endless entertainment. His quote for the weekend, "I am seeing to start signs." Take that for what you will.

Until tomorrow - Adios!

Humor Break

As you can tell, yesterday I did not have much time to write nor did I have much to write about. Today is sort of the same. It is US Open week so we are quite busy here trying to tie up loose ends and get this one done. The Monday went off almost worthless, the Tuesday is worthless, the Wednesday has come back to reality due to time decay and is $20-$25, the Thursday is worth $65 or $20 under face, the Friday is worth $80 or $5 under face, the Saturday and Sunday rounds appear to be worth around $90 or $5 over.

I can't give much today in the way of blogging so I will point you in the direction of one of the funniest blogs I have read. I was randomly searching blogs the other day and ran across this one and when I read her post, "coffee," I laughed so hard that I cried. http://kuroshio.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

Until tomorrow - Adios

Ho-Hum

Well the Pistons received another ass whipping at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs last night, 97-76. Things just don't seem to be going well for the Bad Boys of Detroit. Maybe, things will improve on Tuesday night when they are back on their home court.

The Major League Baseball All Star Game is right around the corner and coming fast on July 12th. Tickets still seem to be very scarce and prices seem to be very high. One has to make the logical conclusion that with a lot of the tickets not being out yet that once they do come out prices will have to ease up with all the extra supply. However, Detroit is a great sports town with a bit of baseball fever and we hear through the grape vine that some of the hospitality companies are saddled with a lot of orders.

Until tomorrow - Adios

MANU!

Manu Ginobili had 26 points last night to lead the San Antonio Spurs to an easy victory over the Detroit Pistons 84-69. We have been receiving quite a bit of calls about NBA finals tickets but it seems the callers only want to see them in Detroit. We have not received a single call from anyone looking for tickets to games in San Antonio. As of this morning the first game in Detroit on Tuesday night is about $185 get-in and the good seats are all in the thousands with the VIP seats around $2500. Having lived in Detroit I have always been a Pistons fan so that is who I am pulling for in these NBA Finals.

We are near the end of filling all of our short orders for the Men's US Open Golf Tournament. We really only need a few more grounds tickets for the weekend and we are done! This has been one of the more interesting US Opens I have had the pleasure to work. The Wednesday ticket is still tight, but not quite as tight as earlier in the week when we were getting $95-$100 per ticket on the Putterboy tickets and $65-$70 on the grounds tickets. The Monday and Tuesday tickets are letting time eat away at any value they may have sort of like a call option just before expiration. The Thursday and Friday grounds tickets can be had around $10 under face value and the Putterboy tickets at right around face value. The Saturday and Sunday tickets are still commanding above face value on both the grounds and Putterboy tickets. We will continue to sell and take orders for this Open all the way through next weekend and will have on site delivery available. The 2006 US Open will take place 06/12/06-06/18/06 at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, New York. We will have pricing on our web site for the 2006 US Open on Monday 06/20/05 at www.alphatickets.com.

Howard Dean is the greatest thing that has ever happened to the Republican Party. When they elected him Chairmen of the DNC I remarked to friends that this was going to be good for us. The funny thing is, the Democrats I know somehow thought I was judging the Doctor harshly and that because he was so great at igniting the grass roots in the 2004 campaign that he was just what the Democrats needed. Howard has not disappointed this Republican. It seems every time Dr. Dean opens his mouth he utters something completely stupid and he seems to be successfully illustrating the he and his party are everything that they accuse the Republicans of being. I have long believed that the Democratic Party at its core is racist, and I know that is tough for a lot of you people to believe because the Mainstream Media has trained you to believe the opposite. President Bush has the most diverse cabinet ever of any President and has appointed African-Americans and Latinos to higher cabinet positions than any ever held by a minority and the Democrats cry "Uncle Tom." Meanwhile, John Kerry had little or no minority involvement on his campaign team and lost ground with the Black, Latino, and Jewish vote. Dr. Dean had his famous comment at a Democrat meeting earlier this year when he said the only way that the Republicans could get minorities in a room like the one he was in was to invite the hired help. Dr. Dean then follows up with his comments on the Republicans being a bunch of White Christians who never worked a day in their lives. Obviously, Dr. Dean is a bit out of touch, but what do you expect from a Northeastern Liberal who grew up in a privileged family? Dr. Dean has probably not seen too many African-Americans in his life that were not hired help. All of the Republicans I know come from more modest upbringings than Dr. Dean and Senator Kerry and all of us are working people, small business owners, etc. Yes, most of my Republican friends are White Christians but I do not think there is anything unusual about that and I recently surveyed them all as to if they would vote for Condoleeza Rice if she were to run for President and not one of them said no. Can you believe it? A bunch of White Christian Republican business owners and people who have to work for their money voting for not only the first female President but the first African-American President! I hope it happens because at that point maybe some of those Americans who are asleep at the wheel believing everything they hear on NPR will wake up and realize the blatant hypocrisy that the leader of the Democratic Party is preaching.

Until tomorrow - ADIOS!

Bonnaroo!

I opened internet explorer this morning and saw the new funky google logo. What's up with that? Those crazy folks at gooogle must be high.

Bonnaroo(www.bonnaroo.com) starts tomorrow. My good friend and sometimes ticket hustling partner, Uncle Mike, will make the journey with his girl Angie. They will travel in Mike's old Toyota van and camp in the baking sun for three days to witness some of the best music being made on earth. Looks like the weather will be hot, muggy, with lots of thunder storms. Back when Bonnaroo started in 2002 we were one of the only brokers in the country that new what it was or that it may be a good ticket. We bought up as many of the tickets as we could get and made an enormous mark up and they sold like wild fire. In 2002 we were practically the only game in town so we set the price and got what we wanted out of them. Hell, I went out and bought two new lap tops with some of the profits from that Bonnaroo. In 2003 we bought as many as we could get and even more than in 2002, they sold like wild fire and we did quite well with them, but not as well as 2002. You might ask, now why was that? The band list was good and it was sold out so why did we get less? The answer is simple, but all of you anti-scalper/broker folks are not going to like it. The reason we did not do is well is because there was no more mystery about the event, the word was out that Bonnaroo was a ticket to buy and make fabulous profits with. Instead of 2-3 brokers making a market in Bonnaroo tickets like we had in 2002, we probably had thirty brokers making markets in Bonnaroo tickets in 2003. With all the extra brokers and all the extra inventory you had all the more competition. Now I know competition is either a word that the anti-scalper/broker people can not understand or maybe they just shy away from competition, but competition brings prices down. What I am saying is, we were not able to get as much for the tickets because there were more brokers to compete with offering lower priced tickets. As the story goes, we sold more tickets for bonnaroo in 2003 than in 2002 but we actually made less money. When the 2004 Bonnaroo was announced I decided to take a different approach. I decided that while the band list was better than ever, with the exception of my beloved Widespread Panic(www.widespreadpanic.com) not playing because they were on haitus, I thought that the shine had worn off and that people just would not be as excited about the event that year. In 2004 we bought no Bonnaroo tickets up front, instead we short sold it into oblivion and did quite well with it. The end result of 2004 was that the market tanked and we were buying the tickets at less than face value. We sold less tickets than in 2002 and 2003 but we made a greater margin. The interesting thing about 2004 was that while the market was a total bomb for the most part, it actually heated up in the last week and we saw prices go up well above face at which point we had already covered all of our orders and were going the other way. Now here we are at 2005, the fourth annual Bonnaroo Festival. This years band list is the best ever with Panic playing two nights, Trey Anastasio Band, Drive By Truckers, The Gourds, Jack Johnson, The Allman Brothers Band, The Black Crowes, Old 97's, John Prine, etc. etc.. We decided to buy no tickets up front and short sell the event again, and we sold ZERO general admission tickets and about ten VIP tickets. We did quite well with the VIP tickets, but it was a small amount. We tried to sell the general admission tickets but to this date the event is still not sold out so we had to compete against the box office. If we would have been willing to be a little more aggressive with our price we probably could have sold some and covered profitably. A nice trade would have been to undercut the box office and sell at $170, $5 below face, and then turn and cover them all on ebay this week at prices between $75-$125 making a nice profit. My wife and I used to follow the Grateful Dead around the country in our younger days, I grew up with Widespread Panic having attended an SEC school, and of course we have seen Phish and Trey Band many times also. In many ways I envy those of you who are about to embark on your long strange trip. I guess I am just too old for that shit anymore. When you have two kids and your own business it sort of gets in the way of totally cutting loose and having fun. To quote AC DC, "For Those About To Rock, We Salute You!"

Until Tomorrow - Adios

National Events Market Theory 2005

This year has been very different from the past several years in terms of pricing for tickets to national events. We have been through several years in a row where almost all of the national events were average or weak tickets. They may have been weak because the economy was weak, or due to the cities the events took place in, or the fear of terrorism. This year they have all been hot.

The Super Bowl was one of the biggest Super Bowl tickets ever in the history of the Super Bowl. At the peak of the market, fans were paying as much as $3500 per ticket just to get in the door. The year before in Houston we had a wild market where on Friday the bottom was falling out and you could land get-ins for $700-$900 per ticket, but by Sunday afternoon you could fetch around $2000 per ticket on a get-in. Two years ago in San Diego tickets traded steadily around $1750 to get in all the way through. Three years ago in New Orleans, the 9/11 game as we call it, you could buy the tickets at face value $400 and less.


The Final Four in St. Louis was completely insane. Prices for distant view get-ins were $700-$800 even on the day of the game, and for the Monday game were $300-$400. Last year in San Antonio you could get face on Saturday and you were lucky to get face on Monday. Two years ago in New Orleans you were lucky to get face value on the get-ins either Saturday or Monday.

The Masters was much hotter this year than years past. The Masters badge was a steady $2500-$2750 all the way until the last week of March when we saw it completely blow up and brokers were asking as much as $7500 per badge. I believe that some badges did trade hands at $7500 and maybe more but it did cool off and ended up closer to the $3000-$3500 range over the weekend before the practice rounds. The Wednesday practice round tickets was much hotter also with prices peaking the week before the event around $450-$500 per ticket. The Monday and Tuesday tickets were about the same as ever. In 2004, Easter Sunday fell on Masters Weekend and held prices way below normal. In 2004 we were buying the badges at $1500-$1700 and selling them at $1800-$2100.

The Kentucky Derby was super hot this year. One of our Louisville contacts told us that of all the derby tickets he had witnessed that this was the biggest. Prices to get in peaked around $500, but the better seats were getting quite a bit more than usual. In 2004 it was a rainy week and tickets were easy to come by.

The US Open this year started off weak but is now finishing strong. In a week long event we see spots of weakness and strength. The Wednesday ticket is by far the tightest of all days. We have received as much as $95 per ticket for the Wednesday Putterboy ticket where in years past I am not sure we have ever received more than $45. The Wednesday grounds tickets are worth about $55 per ticket right now and they are usually a $10 ticket. The Weekend tickets are all holding up anywhere from 10%-30% higher than we have seen over the last several years and there has been no change in face value.

A lot of brokers both big and small have been getting crushed this year because of all of this price increase. Now some of you are saying, "How can this be?" A lot of people think that if prices are high the brokers must be killing it, but that is not the way it works. Yes some brokers have done quite well, but a lot of brokers have been hurt badly. This is a two-sided market just like the stock or options markets but there are actually three kinds of players in a two-sided market. You have brokers that do not take inventory, and do not short sell so they have no position or risk associated with a particular event and they simply flip tickets or "broker" them and make a small percentage each time. You have brokers that will take a short position meaning that they sell tickets they do not have for delivery later betting that prices will drop or ease and they can cover at a profit. Then there are brokers that go long buying in the tickets at good prices hoping to be able to quickly sell them to brokers or to the public for more than they paid making their profit. With all of the national events "blowing up" the short sellers have taken a beating all year.

Why is all of this happening? Of course, I do not really know, or pretend to know but as always I have an opinion. It could be the opposite of what I mentioned above, that the economy is doing well, that the election uncertainty is over and W is safely in the White House, that the fear of terrorism here on our soil is dissipating, the teams and the site locations are better, and or some of the arenas are smaller in size so there is less supply. I am quite sure that some of the reasons I just listed played some role small or large in these events, but they do not make up my theory. My theory is that because we had several years of average price to weak price events and the short sellers were doing well the number of short sellers in the market increased. With more and more short sellers entering the market each year the amount of short orders for national events has gone up big time. More short orders means more short covering. If you take a look at Barrons Business weekly in the back in the tables section you will find a table called "Short Interest." Short Interest is the number of shares currently short by speculators and traders in any particular stock at that given time. Obviously we do not have a Short Interest table for national events but the concept is the same. Short Interest is like a rubber band being stretched out that eventually has to pop. At some point the speculators have to cover and when they start covering sometimes a panic ensues and everyone starts covering as fast as possible and at whatever price. I think that some of this is what has been driving the prices in these markets, too many brokers with too many short orders that had to cover or they were through and their reputations ruined. At the Super Bowl this year there was some broker in the lobby of the Adams Mark that I had never heard of that was letting it be known that he was still short two hundred seats and was paying $3000 per for anything which is just the sort of insanity that makes the guys that have tickets say, "hmmm. I think we can get more, let's jack it up a few hundy and see if they still buy."

The follow on of this theory is that because so many brokers have lost so much money this year on national events a lot of them will go out of business, or quit taking short orders, or at the least continue to take short order but price themselves out of the market leaving only the big guys willing to take a shot on the orders at reasonable prices. Less short orders, less short interest, less panic buying .

Think about it.

Until tomorrow - Adios

Gin, Horses, and Biffle

The official start of summer is still a few weeks away but it is starting to get hot here in Georgia. This weekend I made my annual shift in cocktail of choice from brown liquor to white liquor. Every year around this time I shift from my beloved Manhattan's to more summer oriented libations favoring gin but I will also consider vodka in a pinch. I am a big fan of Bombay Sapphire Gin with Soda, Tonic, Bitter Lemon, or Martini style. The gin and bitter lemon has to one of the most refreshing summer cocktails one could prepare. I find that in America there is a lot of disdain for gin, and I am not sure why. A lot of people seem to think that gin is revolting and only for hardcore alcoholics, but gin is made of all sorts of botanicals like grains of paradise and juniper berries and is known to be good for your skin. Go out and get your self a bottle of Bombay Sapphire(http://www.bombaysapphire.com) and some Bitter Lemon and check it out.

The Belmont Stakes is this weekend and, with no chance for a triple crown, tickets are very weak. In Horse Racing, the Kentucky Derby is always a good ticket, and then two weeks later you have the Preakness Stakes which is usually not a good ticket, and if the same horse wins both races the Belmont can be good. We did very well last year with the Belmont after Smarty Jones won both the Derby and the Preakness, but this year with Giacomo winning the derby and Afleet Alex winning the Preakness, Belmont tickets are cheap. I still have a few of the best seats in the house at www.alphatickets.com.

NASCAR goes to the Poconos this weekend for the Pocono 500 and you find those at www.nascartix.com. Greg Biffle is having a great season with yesterdays victory at Dover and he is now only 46 points off of Nextel Cup leader Jimmy Johnson. Greg Biffle is Alpha Tickets favorite driver and we are all pulling for him here.

Until tomorrow - Adios

Wednesday Gets Tight

A falling market for US Open tickets is the only thing this Open has in common with Open's of years past. This year prices have fallen from higher highs and settled at higher lows and there are some interesting areas of tightness. Usually obtaining the Monday-Wednesday practice rounds is a walk in the park. This year the Monday is worth about what is always worth which is $5-$10, if you can get it. However, the Tuesday remains stable around $25 when the market for Tuesdays is usually around $10 and the Wednesday ticket is very tight. We looked around yesterday and were startled to see how few Wednesday tickets remained available on the open market. With the Wednesday supply vanishing fast I don't have to tell you what prices have done. Yes Virginia, they have gone UP! We are still able to pick them up on eBay in the $25-$35 range, but on the broker secondary market one could fetch upwards of $50 for the grounds tickets and as high as $80 for the Putterboy ticket. The Thursday ticket appears to be getting weaker with brokers selling the grounds for about $5 over face and the Putterboys around $5 below face. The Friday ticket is just slightly stronger than the Thursday, and the weekend tickets are holding up well commanding solid over face payment. Why Wednesday this year? Who knows what drives all the action is this business? All I know is that we took an unusually larger number of retail orders for Wednesday than we did any other day, and some of the other brokers I speak with say the same. You can check our current prices at http://www.alphatickets.com/.

What is going on with NASCAR this summer? We are finding the going unusually slow. We are doing more advertising than ever and our prices seem to be competitive but the buyers are just not showing. The Sharpie 500 is good but not selling quite as fast as in years past, the Brickyard is about the same as ever and the rest of the summer schedule is very quiet. We are seeing almost no interest in either Michigan Race, Chicagoland, Poconos, Loudon, Daytona, etc. We have a site totally devoted to NASCAR tickets, you can check it out at http://www.nascartix.com/.

I read today that an Italian official says that Italy should have a referendum on dropping the Euro currency and going back to the Lira. France rejected the new constitution last week and the Dutch overwhelmingly rejected it this week. What is going on in Europe? The Euro continues to get pounded against the dollar which is the reverse last fall's trend. At last check the Almighty Dollar is up 10% against the Euro for the year, and 5.7% against the Pound Sterling. Getting long the dollar this year is proving to be a better bet than the stock markets which are slightly off this year but have been rallying as of late. The big winners of the year are the gutsy speculators in the Oil market; those who have been long Oil Futures this year have already racked up gains of around 25% in the NYMEX Crude contracts. There is a lot of talk by the skeptics that America can not sustain our growth and way of life because we are living on borrowed money, and time, thanks to our frothy bubble in the Real Estate market which of course is doomed to pop as did the NASDAQ bubble in March of 2000. The question I ask is if the money is to leave here, it must go somewhere, so where will it go? Many of our skeptics believe China is the destination because the growth rates there are unbelievable, and then there are those that believe the stability of Europe will be the home for all of the fleeing money. My theory on this is that as long as China is a semi-communist authoritarian regime with one of the most corrupt and fixed stock markets in the world big money will only allocate small amounts because while the rewards are high the risks are even higher. As far our friends in Europe, what can I say? The whole program seems to be falling apart. Then there is the question of who really wants to invest money in a place where the people do not want to work more than 35 hours per week, need 6 weeks or more of vacation per year, they have double digit unemployment with millions on the dole, most of the Euro states have flat or negative growth rates and negative population growth rates, seemed to have never had or at least lost any ideal of capitalism and the desire to make money, socialism and anti-americanism are the powers that be, and they seem to love tyrants like Iran that continue to lie to them? At the risk of sounding smug or pompous America is still the place and will continue to be the place. People from all over the world still want to come here everyday to escape the hopelessness of their home countries and come to the only place in the world where you can still make riches out of rags. We are the land of the free and the home of the brave. Americans are enthusiastic about work and making money and we laugh at those who only want to work 35 hours per week and have to have their six weeks of vacations. So here are your investment choices; (1) Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, (2) Bunch of Pussies, or (3) with a bunch of corrupt, communist bastards, that have proven through the long course of history they can not be trusted and will try to screw you at every turn? I am going to stick with choice number one for now, and then down the road there is always Costa Rica if things get bad here!

It has rained all week long here and rain is in the works for the weekend and beyond. This is bad for my fishing schedule. No one likes to fish in the rain, but some of us will do it. However, it is good to keep the snakes away and it is also good for our North Georgia trout streams which thrive on cool wet conditions in the summer. My spider bite is healing nicely and the swelling is all gone but my foot remains very red. We do not know what kind of spider got me but whatever it was it was nasty.

Until tomorrow – Adios!

Awright, Awright

Well the bite was not that of a brown recluse, but definitely some sort of venomous little spider. The Doc gave me some steroids and although my foot is still very red the swelling has gone down big time.

The Spoon concert was awesome. Britt Daniel is a genius. If you get a chance to see them in your home town don't miss it. Visit the web site to get details on their tour at www.spoontheband.com and go out and buy the new cd, you won't be sorry.

Coldplay tickets go on sale this weekend through ticketmaster and word on the street is this show is going to be very hot. I hear that if you can get your hands on the Pit seats at the amphitheatre shows you should do very well. The Rolling Stones continue to dissapoint, and the brokers have to be taking a beating on this one. It seems that the face value of the Stones tickets are just too high at $400 each for main floor seating.

Until Tomorrow - Adios

The Point Of Recognition

I am going to have to keep things short on this cool rainy alpharetta day. As most of you have probably figured out, I like to spend a fair amount of time in the woods on streams and ponds fishing for various species of game fish. There are some risks involved with this process and one of them is venemous bites from spiders and snakes. I have already been nailed by spiders a couple of times this spring but they were minor wounds. Sunday morning I felt a sting on my ankle and since that time my bite has progressively worsened. My ankle is all swollen up, red and purplish, and I have some limited mobility. I have set an appointment with my Dr. this morning to get this checked out and make sure it's not a brown recluse bite . Considering you pretty much have to point a gun at me to get me to a Dr.'s office you know that I am concerned. I also have the Spoon show tonight and I do not want to have that screwed up due to a lousy spider bite. My assistant Sarah has informed me that I should panic if they mention the word CroFab. I will let you know what happens, and I will hopefully fill you in on the results of the Spoon show in tomorrow's blog.

While we did raise prices on US Open on Friday and did not touch them yesterday we have lowered our offers and people seem to be readily accepting them now. This is a bit of change because for the last few weeks we have mostly been stealing our tickets at prices much lower than our offer price from certain online venues, while all of the sellers calling have been scoffing at our offer price. Well I guess now we have reached what my former boss, Robert Prechter of Elliott Wave International(www.elliottwave.com), would call "The Point of Recognition." The Point of Recognition in Elliott Wave terminology is the point at which the majority of participants in the market have recognized what the trend is. The Point of Recognition occurs in wave three of the five wave Elliott cycle. The third wave is always the longest and strongest of the five waves with either the most intense selling or buying depending on which way the market is moving. What we are seeing now is a market where we were making much higher offers to the sellers and they were laughing at us for a period of several weeks and now we are making much lower offers and they are taking them. Maybe, the sellers have tired of trying to unload on eBay at unrealistic prices and have tired of calling ticket brokers and receiving what they thought were low ball offers and now are ready to accept any offer? If we are at the point of recognition then this market definitely has room to move to the downside.

I am a huge music fan and my friends will tell you that I like all kinds of music; bluegrass, classic country, rock, blues, alternative country, alternative rock, jazz, latin, asian, etc. etc.. However, there are types of music I do not like such as most Rap or Hip Hop, Dance Music, or certain Rock music that I deem to be just to heavy to be art. There is a band out there called System of A Down(www.systemofadown.com) that has a new record out. I have never been a fan of their music and it is definitely not the type of music I would listen too. However, I saw them on Saturday Night Live recently and they played a song from their new record entitled BYOB(bring your own bomb). While this song is certainly anti-war and anti-bush, which I disagree with, I tend to look past artists political leanings because if I did not there would be no music to listen to. Anyway, this song BYOB is one of the most unique and disturbing songs I have ever heard and I like it. I remember seeing it through to the end on SNL and standing up and remarking about how disturbing it was but that for some reason I liked it. Since that time I have heard it on internet radio several times and I continue to like it. This band is doing something that most bands can not, which is to create a sound all their own, this my friends is the mark of true artistry. Most bands simply copy the sound of someone before them, and there is nothing wrong with that, but these guys have created something all their own like Rage Against The Machine or The Red Hot Chili Peppers. While System is not my normal cup of tea I must give them credit as being great musicians because they have disturb me and I seem to love it.

Until Tomorrow - Adios