Thousands of fans line up outside for hours, there’s expensive merchandise and even a secret movie.
When 40,000 people descend on Omaha, Nebraska, Saturday, it might sound like a Taylor Swift concert or a Coachella-style festival.
Instead they will sit rapturously for five hours listening to a 93-year-old man answering questions on the economy but not just any man: billionaire investor Warren Buffett.
Welcome to the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting, dubbed “Woodstock for capitalism” and compared by attendees to going to church or seeing The Beatles live.
Inside the CHI Health Center Omaha, ordinary shareholders mingle with celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Murray and Glenn Close and the biggest names in business, including Bill Gates, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, and Apple’s Tim Cook.
The annual pilgrimage to Omaha is the most fanatical followers of Buffett, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, America’s 7th largest company, which owns companies including Geico, Dairy Queen, BNSF Railway and NetJets, and large stakes in Apple, American Express, Coca-Cola, Kraft Heinz and Chevron.
The cost of admission is as low as $396, a single Berkshire Hathaway class B share, but the wisdom dispensed by the man with a net worth of $132 billion is, say attendees, priceless.
Christopher Bloomstran has attended every year since 2000 except once, when his daughter was born two weeks before the meeting and calls it the highlight of each year.
“Ive met some of my best friends in the investment arena at the Berkshire,” said Bloomstran, who is chief investment officer of Semper Augustus Investments Group in St. Louis, Missouri.
I go Wednesday and often stay until Monday.”
Adam Mead, who runs Mead Capital Management and has been going for 10 years said: I dont go to church but it’s like church: You know what the message will be, it’s the same stories, and you hear current events through the lens of timeless wisdom.
Bill Gates is out there as is Jamie Dimon he shook my hand and took a pic. One time Warren shook my hand. That was a memorable moment.”
The weekend begins Friday when Omahas Conference Center opens for conference-goers to pick up credentials for the festivities which include the meeting, a picnic and a 5K. (Buffett does not take part.)
But the event’s core is Saturday when Buffett and other Berkshire leaders address the crowd, many of whom arrive at 3am.
Chris Fried, an attorney from Pennsylvania, who will be attending for the 10th time always stays in walking distance of the conference center so he is in line by 3AM and prepared for the mad dash for the best seats once the doors open and shareholders flood in.
“By 4am – I would say the line is about 100 feet deep,” he said. By 7 am – it is down several blocks.
Fried said he stumbled on Berkshire when he first read Warren’s annual letter to shareholders 20 years ago.
“It read like beautiful poetry to me and I purchased my first B shares within the week. I haven’t looked back.
In the line he has met Buffett fans from as far afield as Australia, as well as Japan, China, Germany and the UK, many of whom have become friends.
“You never know who you’ll bump into,” Friend adds. “One year I sat next to two NFL players.”
Mead said: Ive made some of my really good friends out there just standing in line. Im staying in an Airbnb with some of them this year.
By 8:45AM attendees are ready for Buffetts annual film which opens the event and which is never seen outside the hall.
Only two still images have ever leaked. One, in 2015, was a pastiche of “Breaking Bad,” with Buffett appearing with Bryan Cranston, its star, to cook, not meth, but See’s Candy, one of the brands which has made Buffett rich. Another, in 2002, was Buffett playing the ukelele.
He has done skits with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bryan Cranston, Manny Pacquiao, and Jamie Lee Curtis,” Mac Sykes, portfolio manager of the Gabelli Equity Trust, who has been attending for 15 years said. “They’re worth arriving early for.”
This year will be different in part because Charlie Munger, Berkshire’s vice chair and Buffett’s on-stage sidekick until he died at 99 last November, won’t be there for the first time.
Elie-Chakib Abou-Chacra, a portfolio manager from Canada who is attending for the second time, said the annual meeting is the equivalent of being a Beatles fan seeing McCartney perform onstage.
I get to see my hero on stage if youre a fan of McCartney or an old rock guy you never know when it will be his last tour but you know you want to see them onstage before they go.
Off stage, the conference center features specialized merch from companies owned by Berkshire, including Squishmallow who sell a Warren Buffett version of their plush toy Brooks Sports, Fruit of the Loom, and Dairy Queen.
Buffett tours by golf cart, with people taking selfies as he passes. They also take photos with cutouts of him dotted around the floor.
Last year See’s Candies sold Buffett’s fans 11 tons of confectionery which included “Warren’s Favorite Chocolate Walnut Fudge.”
Stephen Tedder, an ophthalmologist from Atlanta, told The Post that he fell in love with Buffett’s wisdom after he stumbled on a Berkshire report during the 2008 financial crisis.
“You could see the authentic Midwest moral fiber of Warren and Charlie [Munger], their clarity of thought, written word and plain speak,” he told The Post.
This will be his third meeting, having started coming in 2022, because he made a growing number of good friends.
Women make up just 20% of attendees, sources told The Post.
April Samuelson, a tech worker from Chicago, has attended twice and each time had to explain why she was there solo.
The weird thing about attending as a woman is other investors tended to assume that I was a wife or girlfriend,” Samuelson said.
“I had to clarify that I had stock of my own. When asked why, I just went with I like money.’