When we talk about Broadway musicals on the Strip, it's fun to debate whether Las Vegas audiences are too drunk or restless to focus their sunburned attention spans on a story line.

It's not as sexy to look at the struggle of Broadway musicals in the more nuts-and-bolts terms of whether producers are trying to sell a comparable product without a comparable business model.

Group sales account for as much as a fourth of all ticket sales on Broadway. On the Strip, most show producers wait for walk-up buys. That's starting to kill them, particularly when new shows have pumped up the number of nightly seats for sale, while nightclubs continue to distract the city's younger visitors.

"It cannot be ignored," says Scott Zeiger, who produces "Phantom -- The Las Vegas Spectacular" at The Venetian through his Base Entertainment. "We can't rely on people walking up the Strip, seeing our banners and going, 'Hey, let's go see that show tonight.' ''

After five years heading Clear Channel Entertainment's theatrical division, Zeiger discovered group sales are less organized in Las Vegas. "There hasn't been a consistent, ongoing cultivated audience."

In New York, "there are tour operators, charitable organizations, school groups. There are repeat buyers time and time again. It's a big business. In Las Vegas, it's been purely opportunistic."

Local producers keep hearing The Shubert Organization, Broadway's dominant theater operator, plans to enter the Las Vegas market with either its Shubert Group Sales or Telecharge.com. In the meantime, both "Phantom" and the Blue Man Group have targeted The Venetian's convention traffic, which Zeiger calls "the easiest target and the prime target for group sales."

Zeiger says that during the summer, the 10 p.m. "Phantom" performance is bolstered with tickets given to Venetian employees and people such as taxi drivers who can spread positive word of mouth.

The next step is to team with hotel convention planners to offer prime seating or buyouts of an entire performance. The Venetian has "salespeople selling conventions constantly. That's what they do," Zeiger notes. "Why not say, 'Oh, let me walk you through the 'Phantom' theater. ... What better sales tool is there than that?" Buying out the whole house gives the convention sponsor or company a chance to address the audience from onstage.

The Blue Man Group offers its three founders for speeches about creativity or growing a brand, sans blue greasepaint. "All that kind of stuff is beyond expectation," co-founder Matt Goldman noted last spring. "Almost double of what we expected."

"That says a lot about what's going on in the future."

Mike Weatherford's entertainment column appears Thursdays and Sundays. Contact him at 383-0288 or e-mail him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com.